Stiil Fighting....

Everyone, everything and myself.  Difference is?  Now I do things even when I feel badly to make myself feel better.  And ugh well at least I do things that are healthy for myself and even if I don't feel better - I don't feel WORSE & I am not hurting myself.  Which is really - such a graceful thing to have in my life.  It is!  I can also be shaking & nervous and do things for myself and in the past I couldn't!  I thought I was supposed to wait till I felt better.  WHAEN WAS THAT GOING TO BE?  Don't know.  Wait - don't know if that's completely true but as far as alanon stuff goes it's much more true.  What?  That level of self-care had to be "divinely led" it seemed.  You know what?  I don't know.  I am so fucking ANXIOUS today and my brain is just like "HEY YOU FEEL LIKE SHIT BECAUSE YOU ARE A PIECE OF SHIT AND HERE IS A LIST OF EXAMPLES AND ALSO WHILE YOU ARE AT IT HERE IS ANOTHER LIST OF THINGS YOU DID WELL BUT THE LIST - is a lie."  Yikes!  My mind hates me! I wish I could weed my brain like a garden.  I guess I am.  That's what all this work is - weeding the garden.  Cleaning out the closets.  Organizing the shelves.  Then once we are done?  Do it again!  Or at least - continue to do it so it doesn't have to be such a huge, crazy thing next time.  God - it's exhausting.  I feel better though as I am writing this.  Yeah.  Okay.  OYE.  Um - okay well I actually have a ton of stuff to do and so I am going to run along now.  Haha that sounds funny.  Well I guess I am moving towards emotional sobriety now and good LORD - it's uncomfortable.  But also - there's freedom.  So - so one step closer to being happy, joyous and free.  And thin!  That's one of the promises right?  To be in great shape and slender. HA.  Love you Buebie byeeeeee.

We Ceased Fighting Anyone Or Anything

THE MUSICAL!  Haha nooooooo.  That's another AA thing - saying - it's in the Big Book - I think?  I don't know - I am reading this book called "You Can't Make Me Angry" and it's by an elderly doctor in his 80's who had been sober and in Alanon for a long, long time.  In the book he mentions that quote several times and honestly - THATS ALL I DO.  I fight everyone and everything all the time - and mostly myself in my own fucking head!  Okay but I get it.  Whats endlessly confusing to me is that my therapist - my wonderful, beautiful therapist who I have been working with for almost 19 mother-fucking years - always says "What's wrong with being angry?  People are awful!  People are enraging!" But she's not an alcoholic so....so yeah.  Well my fighting comes from the resentment part.  I re-think things (the past) over & over again - trying to understand it and figure it out.  I can assure you that I have never gotten anywhere doing this.  Never feels better and it also never changes.  The past never changes.  One more time.  THE PAST NEVER CHANGES - it always stays the same.  So then you might be asking yourself - why does she keep looking at it?  Juuuust picking at a scab or a scar even!  Also maybe that's just some ingrained, weird thing that addicts do - I don't know.  Regardless - I don't have to do it anymore.  He suggests in the book that we give it to God.  That's it!  Easy peasy.  Give it to God.  I have been obsessing for months about this one relationship that unraveled and I just can't get anywhere about it.  Her fault?  My fault?  Life's fault?  Doesn't matter - it unraveled and it's not healthy for me anymore - I don't know about her.  Well I know on one level it doesn't work for her because she told me to back off - soooooo - yeah.  But it's painful and I love her and miss her.  Wait - do I?  Now I am confused OMG I AM DOING IT!! 

Gave it to God.  Nothing to figure out.  Take care of myself.  That's it!  The asset is self-care.  The opposite of this self-destructive thought pattern is taking care of myself.  Which I am doing.  God this is such a terrifying time isn't it?  I mean when is it going to shift?  All the people that are dying?  Losing jobs?  Agh - it's awful and it's so sad.  I am tired.  I have been cooking, cleaning and working on myself like crazy.  But not in a frenzy - just at a good, strong, steady pace.  I don't have to fight myself.  I can be on my side!  I can also just accept - accept that I just can't be super close to all the people forever.  I can love from afar though!  That is taking care of myself.  I can accept, forgive, move away and love from afar.  HE wrote the acceptance prayer this doctor.  Well I don't think when he wrote it he meant it to be a prayer but it is one I have used many times and one that people say in the program.  It's in his story in the Big Book - here's how it goes - it's wonderful and it made me cry when I got to it in his story the first time I read it...

Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.  When I am disturbed it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation - some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it's meant to be at this moment.  Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake.  Until I could accept my alcoholism I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life's terms I cannot be happy.  I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the  world as in what needs to be change in me and my attitudes.

So that's the thing about us alcoholics - we have no clue how to live life!  Normal people probably see that prayer and think "Yeah - duh - accept and move on."  Alcoholics are like "WHAT?  ACCEPTANCE IS A THING??  FOCUS ON MY OWN SHITTY ATTITUDES??  WHAT?  OKAY GREAT IDEA!!!"  Then 2 days later we forget and have to be reminded 5000 times to practice acceptance.  Anyway.  I made these cookies yesterday - sugar-free with all healthy stuff in them and when I tell you they were fucking disgusting I mean good fucking LORD. Baaaaaaaarf.  I mean at best they tasted like a dinner roll of some sort?  Like a weird dinner roll that comes in a bread basket and you're like that's weird - what is that?  Hmmmm.  And you spread butter all over it and you're like okay yeah not bad.  They were like that only worse. Hahaha!  Ew! 

Bye Bluebie!

Deep & Light?

I just read a post from this blog from 2010 - December.  So I had a just a little over a year sober.  I was trying to figure out a catch phrase for this blog.  At the end I joked about having it be "keeping it deep & light."  Which ironically today - is exactly what I want to do.  I want to keep it deep but also - light!  Lighten up!  Life is too short and I have had it with the suffering.  We get sober to be happy, joyous and free and that is what I am aiming for now.  So.  So now I am sitting here with all my feelings, all my stuff - both physical and emotional...and I have the time to clean everything out.  It feels like a once in a lifetime opportunity.  I have peeled back so many layers of my "onion" but now - now I can peel back and clean up more.  and file!  I can file my layers.  Who new I liked to file!?  I like order!  I do!  It might now look like other people's order but it's order.  I am a structured person.  I think the most interesting thing about this blog is that I basically - never told anyone about it.  A few people?  It is as real an account of my sobriety and recovery as I could possibly express.  I feel like maybe back then there was a touch more kindness in me.  I feel I have - OH MY GOD WHATEVER.  I have been naïve in my life - oh well.  Ha!  I am a wonderful person and I have worked so very hard to be kind and I will continue to do that - hopefully.  After I left that thing I left yesterday my sponsor said to me "Well that must have been very hard for you - knowing how you are."  And I laughed because it made me feel like - I don't know - like a person with a "nervous condition" who can't stick up for themselves.  Which to be honest I kind of am that.  SO THAT'S FUN.  Anyway.  Now I have another big thing to take care of....big for me.....UGH I DON'T WANT TO.  Okay well I don't have to today.  I'm not exactly sure what I am saying anyway.  Okay I am going to lay down for a minute - love you Bluebie bye.

Everything Is Cancelled

Yeah.  On hold till middle of May but I really don't see how anything can happen very quickly after that.  This is nuts.  That being said I am really taking this opportunity to reset - big time.  And it has been extremely uncomfortable and almost painful but I am doing it.  I had therapy today and after I spoke to her I did something that I really did not think I could do.  I removed myself from something that really wasn't good for me.  It made me feel badly and I just could not do it anymore.  She said that I needed to limit the exposure so I removed myself and I am SO FUCKING PROUD OF MYSELF.  Mostly because I was kind and I just said I could not really handle it anymore.  I didn't say it like that - I just was polite and as straight-forward as I can be at this moment of my life.  Who knew I was so fucking CODEPENDENT?  It has been so challenging for me to learn how to say "No" and if I say "Yes" and I "am not comfortable" say "I changed my mind" or "Thank you anyway but I am going to go do anything else but this bye."  Haha I am just kidding.  I really am aiming to be kind but man when I am in something too long I get so fucking ANGRY.  Which sucks.  And then I am not kind.  Life and relationships are so mother-fucking challenging.  Well - so that is where I am right now.  It's the Springtime of 2020.  There is a World Pandemic that has caused many of us to be ordered to stay in our homes till this virus is under control.  I am here facing myself and sitting with my own discomfort - something I have learned to do more & more with the different programs and therapy I am in.  This feels like that opportunity to dig through and organize my emotional closet on a whole different level.  God - it is so weird I like to do this stuff but also it is so weird I NEED to do this stuff.  But doesn't everyone?  At some point in their lives?  I mean seriously.  Anyway so today was one little step towards some emotional sobriety and emotional independence.  There is another big giant step I need to take but I am still trying to figure out exactly what it is I want.  Yeah - so now I can work on that and take care of myself in that situation.  Love you Bluebie!

Painful.

I just don't even know what to say.  I am in a lot of pain.  A creative project is ending and it's something I put a lot of time, love and passion into and I just can't do it anymore.  It's not healthy for me.  It makes me feel badly about myself and it's not what my higher power wants for me and it's not what I want for me.  The virus has now taken the lives of many, many people - my elderly acting teacher to be one of them.  I am so sad.  I just can't believe how lucky I was to get to study with him.  I just feel sick and tired.  It's raining and such awful weather right now - that's not helping any either.  I just looked back on here to try and figure out when I studied with him and I had written about ringing in my ears in 2015.  Have my ears been ringing since 2015!?  I just feel like shit - I am not going to lie.  Here's the difference though - physically I feel better than I have in years.  I am healing from the chemo and I am taking really good care of myself.  This soul stuff and the codependent stuff isn't going to change overnight.  So for a lack of anything else to say - I am just going to sit with my pain today, take care of what I need to take care of and do my meeting later tonight.  Also as dumb as it may sound - I am going to deeply, deeply listen to what the fuck this ear ringing is about.  The eye twitching finally stopped and this can too.  Love you Bluebie bye.

Ringing.

My Ear(s) have been ringing for months.  It's driving me fucking crazy.  I think maybe it's some side-effect from the chemo?  I don't know.  My eye twitched for 4 years so I hope this isn't like that.  God - okay well I am doing some things for it but I just wish it would stop.  It's so so uncomfortable.  When I was in chemo I had an ear infection and it's the same ear.  I don't know.  Anyway it seems like maybe things are taking a turn with the virus - hopefully.  April is cancelled completely so there is still lots of down time but hopefully there is a shift towards health for the world.  God I just got such Deja vu when I wrote that.  So strange.  I haven't been writing very much or really at all....it's raining today so I got back in bed and wrote in my journal.  I felt a lot better.  I also picked up this computer so I could write on here....ugh.  Writing on here is more uncomfortable but well it's still part of my writing workout so I am doing it.  I have been cleaning out things everyday - the kitchen, my office, the bathroom - drawers, shelves, closets.  I pride myself as being someone who "doesn't have a lot of stuff" but for someone who doesn't have a lot of stuff - I HAVE A LOT OF STUFF.  Holy shit!  I mean we have this one drawer in the kitchen that you could barely open and I don't even know what the fuck I was doing with most of the stuff in there.  I suppose it's just a time thing - meaning it takes time to organize things and decide what to keep and not keep and all of it - ALL OF IT - is emotional.  Maybe not for you but for me?  And every single person on the show Hoarders?  It's emotional.  First time I saw that show I was like "I GET IT."  Because I do.  I have some sort of super intense, visceral reaction to cleaning out almost anything and getting rid of even the tiniest thing.  I held in my hands a small pile of menus that we NEVER EVER USE - I mean never and I had to really think whether or not to get rid of them.  I even asked the guy who didn't even know WE HAD THEM.  And to be clear - we recycle so it's not even adding to the garbage pile that's rotting the earth.  Yeah.  Memories come with things and with memories are feelings and feelings are hard to feel and that's why a hoarder buys ANOTHER HOUSE to put their garbage in rather than sit through the feelings.  And I guess that's why I'm not writing.  Feelings.  I am cleaning all this stuff out and going through the feelings and I don't want to go through more by writing.  WEIRD.  Only oddly enough this is what gets the feelings out for me - or at least part of what gets the feelings out for me.  Huh.  So odd.  Okay I am going to eat some cereal and go to therapy.  Love you Bluebie bye.

Realization!

I had the most INSANE realization and honestly it is embarrassing to even write about it but I am going to because that is what I do - keep an online running written account of the mortifying things, feelings, thoughts and emotions I have & do.  What?  I don't care.  ANYWAY.  I was faced with something the last couple of days and that is - me.  Me and my reactions and what I think I KNOW about people.  So what I have learned is that unless someone flat out tells me something I don't really know what they are thinking or how they are reacting and most of the time whatever they are doing has nothing to do with me.  That's not the realization.  That's just something I constantly have to remind myself because for some reason I just can't seem to remember it.  Here's the realization...I had this friend and she moved awhile ago and now she lives on the West Coast.  We grew apart because I pulled away - I did the slow fade and in essence that part was okay because I wasn't being kind by being in a relationship that I was ALWAYS angry in.  It's not nice to be in a friendship when you are angry to be there.  UGH.  SO.  So this am while I was meditating I realized how hurtful that must have been.  I didn't have the tools then or the SKILL I should say - to have a conversation about why I was pulling away.  I don't even know if I should have had the conversation but well - now I just - I don't know - I just realized that must have been hurtful and I feel badly.  I honestly think she was doing her best.  If I didn't like her best and the relationship wasn't working for me - that's okay!  But I don't know.  I kind of justified my own poor behavior by what seemed like poor behavior on her part.  And that's not okay.  For me.  So anyway today - so yesterday someone asked me to do something that I don't want to do and instead of doing what I have done for years - which is to get completely offended and then be passive aggressive - I just did this....

I sat with my feelings (ew).

I thought about whether or not I really thought this person was being unkind (more ew).

I simplified the whole thing down to - this is something I can't do anyway - truly.

Then today I called her back and simply said I am not the person for this and thank you for asking.

Then she nicely said - "okay!  Thanks for letting me know."

THATS FUCKING IT.

18 years of therapy and 10 years of recovery and I can finally, if I try really hard, say "no thank you" to someone politely. 

BYEEEeeeeeeeeee

Dying To Be Me

And also to take a poop.  Those are the 2 things I am dying to do right now - be me, and take a poop.  Honestly that really just sums up my life completely.  GOD - people are dying and it's so fucked.  It's so fucked!!  I am freaking out and getting really, really - scared.  I am trying so hard not to - it's not good for me or my immune system and it's not helpful - to anyone.  I can just feel it pressing in.  It's got to happen though that's the thing - it's a virus and it has to peak.  I am not breathing and I know everyone is scared.  I am also starting to hyper focus on the smallest things about myself or even things I haven't struggled with for a long time.  I guess they were still there and I had other things to focus on.  But also - I am just so terrified because I went through treatment and I am still fucking healing form the chemo - I know I am.  My brain is still fucked up from it and - Jesus - I don't need to go into my symptoms and side-effects I just know that I am still detoxing.  I am scared but in a weird way.  In a weird I am shutting down kind of way.  My guy is being so kind and patient with me and I am also driving him nuts - I know I am.  Anyway I am still reading the book and I don't know why - maybe because I am now starting to hear about people's family members and close friends dying so it seems so much more real but for some reason I am really starting to struggle with what she says in the book - "if I save myself I save the world."  I just feel so selfish and I don't know - maybe right now today I am just really having trouble helping myself.  But also really & truly - what do I think I should or could be doing?  I am not a nurse and have no training in that area.  I have zero skills as far as what the world needs for workers - really and truly.  The best thing I can do is stay home and try not to spread the disease if I am some sort of carrier.  Ugh okay I just took a break and watched Jimmy Fallon for a minute and that helped.  So yeah I don't fucking know - of course I feel scared and weird - everyone does.  It's not a secret and I didn't do something wrong.  Can you imagine if I just ran into a hospital right now and was like "IM SORRY I FEEL SO SAD AND TERRIBLE ABOUT WHATS HAPPENING THIS IS ALL SO TRAUMATIZING AND I AM SHUTTING DOWN EMOTIONALLY."  Okaaaay yeah not helpful.  There is something for me to do and that's be kind.  Starting with being kind to myself.  Love oyu Bluebie.

I Don't Know

2 things are happening - 1. I am taking care of myself, exercising & cooking tons of healthy food. 2. Losing my fucking mind.  My mind wants to kill me!  I am just having all these memories - painful, uncomfortable, excruciating memories come up and these tidal waves of sadness - and so much GUILT, shame & humiliation.  You would think that I used to take shits on puppies faces - or whatever it is puppies have?  I mean - okay anyway the good news is that for once in my life - even though I am just so being faced head-on with my mental illness (alcoholism etc) I also know that I have had so many people who I love & trust assure me that these thoughts and feelings are not true.  Remember the vegan I used to live with?  Who ate all my food and would jerk off like a fiend at night who I used to live with a looong time ago?  Well - he used to say the craziest thing......

HE USED TO SAY THERE WASN'T ANYTHING WRONG WITH ME.

I know I have probably written about this before - I don't know - maybe not but I am compelled to write about it again because of the book I am reading "Dying To Be Me."  She has a near death experience and well - fuck have I written about this!?  I don't have enough time to go back & look and I need to make this soup or my pears are going to go bad - ANYWAY.  She has stage !V cancer and she's totally fucked and dying right?  In the hospital and in a coma and has a near death experience and realizes that the other side is love, pure love and a lot of wonderful things and that she has a choice on this side and she could live or die - her choice, and either way everything is fine.  Okay so I can't even describe it the way she does but it is utterly believable and fascinating and then she decides to live and come back here and she does and her cancer is healed in like 6 weeks.  I mean she was RIDDLED with it.  Okay so then she realizes it was all fear - she was so afraid and it expressed as cancer.  Anyway but really she says we are all put here to just express who WE are.  Just us - our one selves and that if we take care of ourselves - we take care of the world.  Anyway so when I meditated today I really thought how we are all from that same source and at our very essence we are all okay - you know?  So in a way the lazy vegan was right - there isn't anything wrong with me - at my core. 

HOWEVER.....I crossed that invisible line into alcoholism and drug addiction and I am a mother-fucking pickle and there's no coming back from that.  However inside my pickle core is pure awareness, light and choice...and even though I can never safely drink or drug again - I can be okay and happy...but I do need help for that.  So the lazy vegan was right - in a way.  Anyway fuck him right?  JUST KIDDING.  I think?  Hahaha - the fact that I am still resentful that this guy ate my jar of peanut butter is proof enough that I need A LOT of help still.  JESUS.  Okay time to make that soup - love you Bluebie!