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I am sick with a kidney infection, but I will try to post later. Right now, I go nap.
Easter Sunday, on the way home from A&J’s house, I had a purely, amazingly, lovely, Velveeta moment.
My head was resting on the passenger-side window, the sun shining warmly on my face. None of us were talking, and I shut my eyes. We were rockin the oldies on the radio and (wait for it….) Tiny Dancer by Elton John came on. This happy confluence of music, light and relaxation transported me back to my mom & dad’s old, puke-green station wagon, driving home from an outing to the beach, basking in the S. Florida sunlight.
For those few, brief minutes I felt like myself again. All the bullshit dropped away – even the last vestiges of pretension to hipness which might have stymied my enjoyment of such a schlocky song. I didn’t care. I felt wrapped in comfort, safe, and at ease. It was like I got this little glimpse of who I used to be, and who I really am, underneath all of the anxiety, pain and neurosis. I remembered what it was like to be carefree, to be happy.
There is a danger inherent in being too self-focused. Maybe it was needed, for a time, when I was more in crisis. Now I’m realizing that all the analysis, the searching, the thinking – it isn’t really doing me right. The one thing that consistently helps me is contact with supportive people. This blog has enabled that for me, in a big way – but it also enables my sitting around the house way too fucking much. I need to get myself out in the world, and get busy.
And I also think I need to reframe the way I think about myself. I am not broken, or fucked up, or in need of fixing. I’m still the same person I always was – but I’ve gotten twisted up in my head somehow. But I’ve noticed that when I just let go, and just be – I’m absolutely fine. Right now I’m somewhere in the middle of those two places, struggling to find my way back to the girl who knew how to go with the flow. I’m starting to think that I’m making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be.
Easter Sunday, on the way home from A&J’s house, I had a purely, amazingly, lovely, Velveeta moment.
My head was resting on the passenger-side window, the sun shining warmly on my face. None of us were talking, and I shut my eyes. We were rockin the oldies on the radio and (wait for it….) Tiny Dancer by Elton John came on. This happy confluence of music, light and relaxation transported me back to my mom & dad’s old, puke-green station wagon, driving home from an outing to the beach, basking in the S. Florida sunlight.
For those few, brief minutes I felt like myself again. All the bullshit dropped away – even the last vestiges of pretention at hipness which might have stymied my enjoyment of such a schlocky song. I didn’t care. I felt wrapped in comfort, safe, and at ease. It was like I got this little glimpse of who I used to be, and who I really am, underneath all of the anxiety, pain and neurosis. I remembered what it was like to be carefree, to be happy.
There is a danger inherent in being too self-focused. Maybe it was needed, for a time, when I was more in crisis. Now I’m realizing that all the analysis, the searching, the thinking – it isn’t really doing me right. The one thing that consistently helps me is contact with supportive people. This blog has enabled that for me, in a big way – but it also enables my sitting around the house way too fucking much. I need to get myself out in the world, and get busy.
And I also think I need to reframe the way I think about myself. I am not broken, or fucked up, or in need of fixing. I’m still the same person I always was – but I’ve gotten twisted up in my head somehow. But I’ve noticed that when I just let go, and just be – I’m absolutely fine. Right now I’m somewhere in the middle of those two places, struggling to find my way back to the girl who knew how to go with the flow. I’m starting to think that I’m making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be.
I have a remarkable capacity for doing nothing.
Today was another day of overwhelming tiredness. Slept, read, watched DVD’s. Made a trip to the grocery store, but had to cut it short because the noise in there – it was like those people were inside my head.
I was looking out the window earlier at the clear blue sky, thinking that the nice weather just felt like another demand on me – because I really should be doing something. Really, I have a whole list of stuff I need to do, and “pity party for self” is not on there.
Now, I’m trying to decide if I should just write this day off or if I should go fold some of the thirty-six loads of laundry that are piled next to my bed. Truly, this is an inner struggle worthy of Hemmingway, I shit you not. Fuck The Old Man and the Sea, I give you The Middle-Aged Lady and Her Laundry Pile.
Maybe the laundry will pile up high enough and will fall onto me while I sleep one dark night, and I will never be seen again.
Yesterday I tried to push through this feeling and started cleaning the living room. Every stray toy and old magazine I picked up ratcheted up my anxiety until I picked a fight with J, broke down in tears, and ended up taking anxiety meds for the first time in over a month. Today, I thought about getting it together to go to yoga, but I didn’t. Then I thought about getting it together to go to Tai Chi, but I didn’t. What the fuck is Wrong With Me?????
I seriously can not go on like this. It takes all my energy to pull myself together for work a few days a week, and then I’m getting not much done besides that. No. I do have good days, and I also have days where I’m able to “push through” and get things done even though I don’t feel like it. That backfires sometimes though, when I misjudge a fibro flare up as just depression. How is it that I am such a stranger to myself?
J and I are “recovered” Christians. We both grew up in fairly religious families, and both remember a time in our lives when we really believed that Jesus was the one-and-only way to eternal salvation. Both of us, however, had left the church by the time we were teens.
This doesn’t stop our respective families from disbelieving us when we state that we are not Christians, and are not raising our daughter as a Christian. They still act like we are just being sulky children who will wise up any minute now and come back into the fold. For the record, we are in our mid 30’s, and it’s not happening.
We have taken to calling ourselves “Cultural Christians” since C was born. This allows for our celebration of the highly commercialized and basically secularized versions of the major Christain holidays, avoiding arkwardnes at family functions and providing an escape from relatives trying to bait us into conversations about our perceived hypocracy: What? You only believe in Jesus when there’s presents involved? (I know, so clever! How do we stand it?)
Still, we try to give C the lowdown on the Christian mythology around the holiday celebration, as well as telling her about the pagan symbolisim and how it got incorporated into the holiday, etc. We tell her these are stories, but that some of her family believes they are true. We are flying blind here, trying to find a way to bring up our child with an open mind and an eye toward letting her decide for herself what she believes – while still giving her enough info about the religion we grew up with (and subsequently ran away from) to innoculate her against the inevitable attempts at indoctrination, however clumsy, that her extended family will make.
Now that C is pushing the grand old age of 6, we thought her big enough to decide if she would like to attend Easter church services, followed by an egg-hunt, with J’s grandmother. Actually, we were both pretty much against the idea, but relented after some consideration of our child’s intelligence and because it seemed like such a small thing that would make his grandma so happy. C said she would like to go, and so we relented.
Today, grandma called and told J that if C was only coming to church so she could go to the egg hunt, well, That Just Wasn’t Right!
To which I just have to say: What the hell?
I mean, isn’t that what all the five-year-olds are there for? And why else would C be going, other than to make grandma happy because she has been asking every year for the last five years?!?! To get the candy, duh!
And if you really want to get into questions of right and wrong, what in the heck is a Christian church doing having an Easter-egg hunt anyway? Isn’t the egg hunt thing a distinctly Pagan tradition, one tied in with the traditional spring fertility rituals?
This whole thing has given me a stabbing pain behind my right eye. And I’m not even sure why I’m posting this at all, except to say that colored eggs and bunny rabbits have nothing to do with Jesus and the resurection and I’m wondering how old I will have to be before the members of my extended family start treating me like an adult. So on that note I will leave you with my favorite Easter joke:
Why does the Easter Bunny hide his eggs?
He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s been fucking chickens.
I had an appointment at the massage therapy school today. The school was lovely, and everyone I met there was very chill. The whole place just had this very calm, very peaceful vibe and everyone shook my hand so warmly and spoke with melifulous, quiet voices. It was great.
I, of course, felt positively obnoxious and could not stop making wise-cracks and sarcastic comments. Nothing mean-spirited, but still, whenever I’m around relaxed-and-groovy type people like that, it’s like my east-coast persona cranks into high gear.
I hoped that I’d be leaving the school today feeling settled about a decision to go there or not. I liked everything I saw/heard about today, so there’s no problem there. It’s just the money, of course.
There is some financial aid, but I didn’t qualify for one of the grants that I thought I would qualify for. Which leaves a pretty hefty loan that I’d have to take to go to this school. I don’t see how I can do the full-time day program, so I’d be in the part-time evening class. Which would mean that I’d have to take out 12K in student loans.
Which isn’t that bad, I suppose. I know some people who have way more debt than that coming out of college. It gives me pause though.
I was thinking of the massage therapy option as a good job to have to support myself as I slowly wend my way through the rest of my college degree. Ultimately, I would like to be a therapist of some kind. The LMP thing appeals to me because I’m interested in somatic therapy, and because it seems like a good job on many other levels as well.
But does it make sense if I have to take on that much debt? Only if I can actually make enough money doing massage to support myself and pay back the loans, while also working toward my degree. I suppose that’s possible if I only go to school part time, and nothing else goes wrong, a-ha-ha-ha.
Another thing that freaks me out about choosing to take on that kind of debt is the constant chatter I’ve been hearing about the soon-to-come “economic adjustment”, which I believe is republican-speak for “we are all fucked.” If we go into a big recession, are people going to be spending money on massage therapy? I don’t know. In my life, massage is a rarely-afforded luxury.
I feel sick whenever I hear talk of the looming recession. When the dot-bomb happened, it was horrible here. So many of our friends were out of work, and every job had hundreds of applicants. First it was all the tech workers who felt it, but then the people in the service industry got squeezed too. It it gets like that again, I think it might be slim pickings for a brand new massage therapist.
My other options are: Go back to school and finish my math requirement so I can get my stoopid AA and get outta there. I could possibly do that this summer, via the magic of intertoob classes, and then apply to University. I need to go talk with my advisor over there, because I’m not sure how that all works. I’d probably have to hang around there for an extra quarter or something, but whatever.
Or, I can go for my CDP certificate. That’s probaby the fastest way for me to be able to work in a counseling-type capacity, but I don’t know if that’s a job I could handle.
Why can’t someone tell me what to do with my life?
At least I’m working through this stuff. I left school a year ago with all this unfinished business…I wonder if I’m just looking to massage school because I don’t want to deal with my loose ends over at ye olde community college. And I was going to college because…I didn’t want to deal with being a grown-up and having to get a full-time job. Well, sortof. I also want to finish college and have a career and all that too, but yeah, there’s a bit of avoidance in there too.
*big sigh*
I’m gonna sleep on this, and go talk to my advisor tomorrow. Any advice, anyone?
Best. Fucking. TV. Show. Ever.
We watched six 1-hour episodes back-to-back last night. So amazing.
Go forth and rent, you won’t be disappointed. But do watch them in order, it makes a difference.
Last night, C was swinging from her rope-swing downstairs, and somehow managed to catch her tooth in the rope. No one saw it happen – J was playing videogames and a friend was on the turntables – but there was a sudden a deafening shriek. The kind of hollering that turns my blood cold and sends me running.
By the time I got downstairs, she was sitting on J’s lap sobbing and there was blood all over his shirt. It took some minutes to calm her down and get her to bite on a washcloth to stop the bleeding. We finally got a look and that tooth was gone. Poor baby. That’s a hard way to earn a visit from the Tooth Fairy.
We looked all over for the lost tooth, but it was an impossible task. J was potting plants down there earlier in the day, and there was pearlite all over the floor. Not to mention C’s toys and J’s records. I tried, picking up many irregularly-shaped bits of white debris from the floor, but it was hopeless.
It’s ok mommy – the Tooth Fairy will use her magic to find the tooth when she comes tonight.
That’s right, she will! Gotta love little C -she always looks on the bright side. And she was a trooper too, so brave.
The dentist said the tooth pulled out cleanly, and the new tooth will grow in soon. There was a tiny bit of root that they had to pull out, but it didn’t hurt. Pretty dramatic though, whew!
Things are feeling better inside my brain today too. I got a bunch of stuff done today, went to work and even cleaned most of the kitchen. I had a bit more energy, and feel like the funk is lifting. And I’m gonna do my best to make tomorrow even better than today. Everyone’s posts about how normal all this shit that I’m going through is have really helped me see that I don’t have to let this down-swing spiral out of control.
Thank you again to everyone who clicked over to read my first post at Suboxone Blog - y’all made my day.
About a month ago, the folks at Suboxone Blog asked me to be a guest blogger. Well, my first post is up today!
Please go check it out and leave a comment to show your support, if you’re so inclined. I would, of course, deeply appreciate that. 
I have wanted to be a “real” writer for as long as I can remember, but I’ve always been hyper-critical of myself and too afraid to send out any of my work for publication. Even during my stint as a copy-editor at my college newspaper, I was often paralyzed by self-doubt. The support I’ve gotten for my writing here, and the compliment of being asked to guest-blog have really helped me get over all that, and realize that I might be able to do this after all.
Who knew that addiction and recovery would finally begin to set me free to do what I really wanted to do? That’s a beautiful thing.
Hope to see you there too!
Here I sit, four months after starting Suboxone treatment, and I am still struggling with the idea that I am an addict. Actually, struggling-with-the-idea isn’t even accurate. I still basically reject the idea, but I am struggling with my thoughts around why and what it means.
So far, it has worked for me to just kind of ignore the issue. You may have noticed that I don’t refer to myself as an addict, though I do say things about addiction and recovery. I don’t talk (or write) about this much because of the prevailing belief in & around addiction recovery is that a person such as myself is suffering from Denial. Also, I have heard it said that the mere fact that I would even question whether I am “really” an addict means that I am, in fact, an addict. This is frustrating, and I find circular logic to be most unhelpful.
I don’t deny that I was, and still am, addicted to opiate painkillers. Suboxone is a partial-agonist opioid, but it’s still an opioid. And it is all kinds of addictive. It really bothers me, though, to think that this one problem somehow defines me in a way that my other problems – or even accomplishments – don’t.
I don’t know why it bothers me so much. I mean, I read stuff on recovery sites & blogs, and much of it seems to apply to me. I recognize myself in the stories, and I see that my progression through this recovery process is pretty fucking typical. I know it seems like splitting hairs, arguing about the difference between “having an addiction” and “being an addict,” but I’m stuck on it. So please forgive me while I think out loud and try to figure out wtf?
One thing that bothers me is this feeling that if I say “I’m an addict” it’s like saying this is something that I’ll never recover from. And I really don’t believe that. I also don’t believe that addiction is my fundamental problem. I believe that depression, PTSD and fibromyalgia are the real basis for my problems, and that my addicton to painkillers is a symptom of those things.
I also have a problem with the idea of abstinence, from everything, forever. I still drink wine with dinner once in a while. I drink a glass, and that’s it. I’m on too many meds to drink more than that, but it’s a pleasure in my life that I’m not willing to give up – because I don’t have a problem with drinking. I’ve quit smoking pot, for now, because the doctor who prescribes my suboxone requires it and they test me. This really rubs me the wrong way, but I put up with it because I want the treatment.
I do believe, however, that I will smoke pot on occasion in the future.
And I guess that’s really the point of it. To say that I am an addict feels to me like I’m saying that I am a person who should never use drugs of any kind, ever again. And I’m not ready to accept that yet.
Part of me absolutely recognizes how ridiculous the above statement is. I have a long history of recreational drug use, that from time to time teetered over the edge into recreational drug abuse. But I always managed to pull my shit together, and I’d basically left that party-lifestyle behind when I had my daughter.
Then came fibromyalgia with it’s constant, overwhelming pain. I do believe that if my a*hole doctor would have treated my pain appropriately I never would have gotten into this mess, but who knows. I will take responsibility for the fact that after many months of being a responsible user of illicitly purchased narcotics, I started escalating my use because I wanted to get high. After so much pain, that opiate high was truly bliss, and I didn’t want to let it go. After that, it was only a few short months until I’d basically stopped coping in any other way – and that is truly a problem.
Which brings me to here. Because I took too many opiates, my brain developed a tolerance. Hopefully, by slowly tapering my suboxone dose over time, my brain will be able to heal from that tolerance. I have high hopes of that, because I didn’t have a huge habit and I was using for a relatively short time. One day, I will completely taper off of Suboxone, and if that happens without withdrawals, that should mean that my brain has healed.
So where will that leave me? Physically, my addiction will be healed. The other part of my “program” for recovery has centered around removing triggers from my life. This basically means depression and pain. So I have been working on healing my body and mind, as well as developing (and rediscovering) some life-skills that I’d let atrophy.
Bah. I’m not any more sorted out now than when I started writing. I almost wish that I didn’t have such a chip on my shoulder about AA/NA – then I could just accept their program for recovery and get with it. But I just can’t get with that powerless thing, or the higher power thing, or the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with me that I will have to do battle with forever and will only conquer by the grace of god or whatever. I wish “addict” wasn’t such a loaded word.
And does it even really matter? As long as I keep doing what I need to do to get my life to where I want it to be – does it matter what I call myself?
If you’re still reading this, I thank you and I also apologize because I’m not going to be able to come to any kind of conclusion right now. Rest assured, though, that I will keep on keeping on and that I really do want to be well.
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