Early dark

This happens every year, but not normally until February. The deep lingering, longing feeling of things that I just can't quite put my finger on that I want. The dark despair that so sweetly wraps me in its tentacles and covers my brain with a dark wool blanket. Never feeling awake or engaged no matter what I am doing. It often feels robotic like as long as I am going through the motions the things I know that need to get done will get done, if there is anything else to tend to, it takes a lot of my energy. I seem to be getting closer to the core of the anxiety as my protective bubble is stripped from me, and it was pointed out to me by a friend there are no pictures of me from ages 6-10, that is the time when my dad left and my mom locked herself away for a while. Now mind you, I don't really know if anything happened, but part of me is deathly afraid of that dark part in my brain that I cant retrieve anything from but blackness.

I am still struggling with the relationship, there is nothing inherently wrong with it, I think I just project my feelings onto him when I am under stress. He such a good, kind, man even offered abstinence because I am having intimacy issues and just feeling afraid in general. Considering it is finals and I am working a lot I would not be surprised if that falls into play in this situation. Plus the step daughters birthday and the holidays, money is tight and even though it is a time that I used to love and cherish, and now it just all exhausts me. Part of me just doesn't want to do it anymore. Can I just cancel the holidays? All the chaos, and just sleep until spring? I never tried sun lights but I may have to this winter.

I learned to not trust at a very early age, my heart was closed, and from there on out, I never really learned to be intamite. The ones that were supposed to teach me did not, and never leraning how to cope with my feelings takes a major toll on me as a sober adult. Everyday that passes just shows me more and more that this might just be who I am, and learning to cope and deal with it might be the way it is. I can be very thankful though for my sisters and my fioncee' they have been the corner stone to my support for the last 2 years. I have to remember to count my blessings and be thankful that I have had the experiences that I have had, I am lucky that way. All I can do is keep trying and keep going with the anxiety and the depression and hope one day I figure it out.

Fog

It is relentless, it is gray and claustrophobic. It reminds me of the anxiety and sadness I carry. I can look out and see the gray sky and the dampness that follows October dwelling. A small part of me manages to be excited for the holidays upcoming, but at the same time I am remorseful as I know they will end and the cycle will begin again. I think some days if I were happier and more content I would handle all of this like a breeze and really it wouldn't bother me, and I know this is true, but I am learning to accept the anxiety and depression as part of who I am. I guess somewhere along the line, I needed to deal with all the sadness and pain I repressed for so long, and I just hope that all this junk I feel is just grief. I have never lost my appetite or my motivation for what I know I have to do, but yet I feel like I have a kid at my heals dragging me and slowing me down.

Most days I feel a deeper calling to run and go do whatever it is my psyche thinks I am missing out on, but I know those are ancient feelings from my childhood and do not really serve who I am becoming now. Part of me is holding on to the familiar. I wish sometimes I could meet someone who feels these things, but with an explanation so I can go ok, that is what is wrong with me, perhaps it is something else I really don't know. Some days I feel crazy and I wish that I could just loose it and be done with it all, but it never happens. It is an endless cycle that I am searching for a way out of. Hopefully with diet changes and some labs I can come to a different conclusion and start a new change.

Anxiety is a strange bedfellow. I am afraid to do things on my own but I know I have to and I do. I long to run, but don't want to leave where I am. Is there a happy medium?

Falling to fall

It came back. The doom and gloom, pulling on my heartstrings, making me ask if I am going crazy and begging internally to be released from the pain of it. It's like gnawing feeling, a child tugging on your coat, trying to walk through snow that's too deep. It just stays with me all the time. I have moments of time where I feel ok and I function then commend myself for being so brave to do it all again today, but this is no way to live my life. I have never been comfortable in my own skin, never felt like I fit in, or really mattered. And there is part of me that is blocking that ability to feel, breathe, and just live my life as a normal person some days and I don't really know why. Sometimes I feel like I am being punished for my mistakes growing up, but a lot of those were not my fault, I was young, I didn't know better. As a love addict or any addict for that matter we do things because it feels good right in that moment, and to have to struggle through the pain and find some sort of clarity inside of ourselves that is screaming YOU ARENT GOOD ENOUGH that is a feat in itself. Through all the therapy, the journaling, the exercise, the eating right, and still it prevails to leave me. Perhaps I do need medication I don't really know anymore, what I do know is I am tired of this, I deserve more, and I don't want to have this weighing on me daily.

The simple truth is, I could deal with this once in a while, even 3 times a week, but it seems to be daily again, and it is relentless, whatever IT is. I have more tests from the Dr's office to do, so hopefully it is some sort of nutirional thing or perhaps it is just the really desperate inner self of my child self crying once again because she is afraid. There is so much pain in there still to cover, wish me luck.

Sunday blahs

Did I ever mention I loathe Sundays. Poor Sunday, just another day of the week and blamed for so much unhappiness. Did no one think to consider Sunday's feelings in all of this? No? Yeah me either. The twisting knot of my stomach, churning, and bubbling, the tightness in my throat and chest, blah. I really do try to let it go and accept that another week is upon us, but really it gets to be quite trying at times. We had to take my soon to be step daughter home today. That always conjures up the emotions of when I was a child and my father bringing me back to a place I never felt I belonged in. I went to my Love addicts group this morning and so many interesting topics were discussed. Things that had been muddling about in my brain, but untouched verbally. The idea of sleeping with someone just to validate or to feel wanted, the idea that we can go with transitions in our life instead of reacting to them, or just the simple fact of feeling not accepted.

My inner kid has never felt that she mattered. Somewhere in my psyche she felt she just didn't have a place or purpose. She felt her ideas, hopes, dreams, and feelings didn't matter and no one took the time to embrace those things to even maybe affirm that she was special and important. My childhood memories are filled with loneliness and despair. Wanting nothing more than to be noticed and embraced for all that I was, but no one would. I was left to my own accord to handle the bullying on my own. In this very dark place I spent my days and nights, not wanting to go on sometimes but knowing that I had to. I placed my mother on a pedestal in fear that if I did not she would go to just like my father. But she wasn't really there anyway. We as addicts spend our lives putting others needs ahead of our own out of fear of loss, and before we realize it we become co-dependant and unable to process real feelings and real honest love out of fear.

Some days I find myself so terrified to love my fiancée, to really embrace him or my friends because I may lose them. And even though I know that life is life and things happen, it frightens me to really love people so deeply. At the same time I am also filled with joy because I have been able to experience this with someone. I have a need to control things, the future even, perhaps if I worry enough, I can make that change needed to prevent something awful from happening, perhaps if I over think it I can somehow control nature....it is interesting to think about, but at least I know where it stems from so I can continue healing that lost little part of myself that really does MATTER after all.

Discomfort of my wool blanket

I have always referred to the depression and anxiety as a wool blanket. It feels heavy and damp over my brain and I can't always see clearly. Up until Monday things have been actually, scary to say it but really good. I was focused and had happy moments with minimal discomfort, and to go as far as to say Sunday morning over breakfast I professed that I had nothing to be upset about after dropping and overly dramatic client. Monday then came and I felt really good, until there was some chaos and drama dropped on me from a friend. I was trying to take an understanding approach and explain to the other person involved what was happening because I felt offended and hurt, but they refused to listen, it actually came down to its my way or the highway situation, thus no one took into account anyone else's feelings and it was a mess. This triggered some really old feelings from school when I was bullied daily. I spoke with my therapist about it and she agreed that I have still unresolved issues from when I was in my early teens, when most of the damage occurred. She approached me with the idea that perhaps it is time to drudge it up and try to heal that wounded part of me. HOW SCARY! What ifs have been racing through my brain as to who or what I may become if I start removing the final really dark part of myself that I have kept hidden away and protected. All that hurt coming out, who would I become with out it? I think that is the really scary part to be honest. I can deal with grief and pain, but to not have that wool blanket over my head? WHOA......

So I guess that is the next thing. I wrote myself a letter reconstructing my first really painful experience and in caps and lots of F bombs, I proclaimed my awesomeness and how I should not have been treated in such a manner and I have to say it was quite awesome. The core, deep, bleeding, dark self of lonliness and handeling things on my own with no one to turn to part of myself is going to have to be exposed and little by little chipped away if I am ever to become a whole, healthy person. Baby steps right?

Melancholy Seasons

I love the rain. I really do, the dark swell of fall upon us. Leaves changing, pitter patter on the roof and the chance for me to hide again. I always embraced this time as a sleepy, cozy, protective blanket around my life that said, "ok you don't have to participate for a while." I embraced the dark of the days that gave me some relief from performing in the scorching blaze of summertime. Yet, as I grow older, I can feel it to the depths of my soul, the grief that comes with that change now.

As a love addict and general avoider of feelings and discomfort, I am now finally starting to identify that feelings are just well feelings. They are not an emergency even though at times it feels that way. I had a huge panic attack at one of my clients homes yesterday, and thankfully they were not there. I got through it as I always do, but anxiety seems to cling to us after it has stamped itself on to our conscious mind. The depression fuels it and they play ring around the rosy on one's brain.

There is no real explanation for the feelings or triggers. Possibly a sense of me not knowing what I want to do as a career, I feel a bit lost and do need to decide if I am going to continue my education or take another path. Buddhism says we can be content no matter what we do if we embrace the universe and let it flow around us, and if I were to wake up just content and could spend my days that way, instead of the dwelling feeling that would be wonderful. BUT I have to remember that dwelling feeling has been here my whole life. The nagging, pay attention to something feeling that I have always ignored now needs to be tended and cared for. We have to go through the pain and discomfort to change our old ways and patterns that no longer serve us and there will be times that the pain and discomfort are intense and uncomfortable, but I know with baby steps, encouragement and love from my support group that I can get through it.

I have seen huge changes in myself emotionally, choices I have made differently, and even when I feel bad I allow it to be because it is about learning from the pain and growth in ourselves to be healthier people. I faced the guy finally that logged in, I got into a place where I could hear his voice and he could hear mine and my finocee's in our game and in just seconds that beast was slain, he is nothing more to me now than a small glimmer of what may have been, but will never be and I am ok with that. I was proud of myself for just making the plunge and letting happen whatever was going to happen with the love and support of my wonderful fioncee.

I want to hope that what I am doing is creating a new place for myself that has a sense of belonging, calm, and loving structure that no storm can blow down. I want to hope that I can continue to gain ground and find more center in myself so I can help others who are lost to find themselves once again. I will continue to forge ahead and be ok no matter what gets put in front of me. I am hope, I am love, I am light.

Meeting me

I went to my 3rd meeting today. I discussed Mr. Unavailable from Friday night. I cried and so did another new comer. The longing feeling, the dead, numb, wtf am I doing feeling is strong today. I look at the pictures I created with my fioncee and his daughter and I think do I really want this? Just one phone call could take this pain away and I could go back into the life I had, being high. Being closed emotionally, anything but feeling this stuff. But I know I cannot. In reality, I love this life. I love my fioncee and my friends. It is in essence what I have always wanted and longed for, acceptance but still a part of me feels not good enough.

Children of abandonment suffer deep rejection and pain full idea about self. We are never good enough no matter what we do. We suffer as adults until we decide we don't want to anymore. So how do you find resolve without the other persons approval. When does it become ok to let go of a parent that does not serve you in a healthy way. How do you become ok with yourself in every aspect of your inner being knowing you are good enough? I struggle with these questions. How one person could devastate another being so easily and not care or try to care? I would never do that to a child.

So at least now I can look at my life and see a few things I need to work on instead of this huge luggage piece that is over loaded with issues to work through. I have conquered some items and am still working on others but at least my path is becoming more clear. Feeling vulnerable is ok with the right people. Exposing myself emotionally I can be loved and cared for in a healthy way without fear of being hurt. I can love and rely on others and know they will be there when I need them. It is removing the others that is the hard part. Learning to distinguish what is healthy and what is not and not allowing destructive people to rule my heart any longer.