Tag: habit

Addiction · Autobiography · Mental Health · Relationships

Two Years Sober

Ruby Pipes36 Comments
"Windows Molde Norway abstract" © Les Haines, 2012. CC BY 2.0.
“Windows Molde Norway abstract” © Les Haines, 2012. CC BY 2.0.

Tomorrow will be my second sober anniversary and I am terrified. So terrified I’ve found myself lying on the floor, still in my coat and scarf, kicking the wall, and sobbing. So terrified I drove to my parents’ house after dinner to cry onto my mother’s shoulder. So terrified I’m struggling to find the words to write about it. Terrified.

Because the second year is when I learned that not drinking isn’t the end of the battle. That I’m still sick. I still have bipolar disorder and it’s still something that needs to be managed. The second year is when I learned that there’s a difference between giving your all and giving enough.

The second year is the year I learned that yes, I have PTSD. Yes, some horrible things have happened to me. Yes, I’ve been hurt by people, but they didn’t do this to me. The second year is when I learned that no matter how much other people have done, the fact that I’m sick is nobody’s fault and I have to stop blaming them. That blaming them is just letting them do it again and again.

This year I finally learned that if I’m ever going to get better I have to mourn the loss of normality. I have to let go of the idea that if I can just stay sober everything will be okay. I learned I have to manage my medication, go to therapy, exercise everyday, avoid caffeine, get regular sleep, and write daily. Just like not drinking, these aren’t options for me. They’re not perks. It’s just what I have to do if I want to be okay. And I want to be okay.

If I’m going to do that, some things have to change. I have to admit that I’ve been wallowing in my marriage in order to avoid discovering who I really am without booze. That I’ve let a relationship become my defining attribute, so that I don’t have to figure out what my defining attribute is. What I want it to be. I’m going to have to admit that I’ve been using love and food and video games and sleep to prop me up the way bourbon used to.

I feel like I just barely made it to the finish line this year. I feel like a dry drunk. But I also know that–just like when I quit drinking–realizing what I need to do is half the battle. So in the next year I’m going to give myself the space to figure out who I am as a person. Give myself the space to manage my illness effectively. The space to stop blaming my character flaws on what happened to me in the past. The space to stop confusing character flaws and symptoms.

Because when I hit my third year, I want to know I earned it. I want to know I’m stronger. I want to know I did it different.

Autobiography · Mental Health

Lights

Ruby Pipes14 Comments
“Weißt du, der Raum ist unendlich…” © Daniel Grünfeld, 2013. CC BY-NC 2.0.

The morning after I got my glasses I went for a run. Still dark out, street lamps glowed gentle instead of starring across my field of vision. I listened to my music loud and ran hard, completely lost in my own rhythm. Flow state. Breath fogging up the corners of my glasses every so often and sweat forming behind my ears. Zedd’s vocalist crooned at me, “Something tells me I know nothing at all,” and I believed her.

I climbed the next hill and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the first tree. Drops of water clinging to the tips of every branch, illuminated by the traffic lights. Each twig sparkling. Vibrant. Magical. As close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had. A cross between being high on drugs and being completely in love. Enamored with beauty.

It occurred to me that my blurred vision looked a lot how depression feels. All soft around the edges, out of focus, detached. Like I was never really looking at anything, just the general shape of it. How lucky that vision is something that can be helped with two pieces of plastic and frames. How all I had to do was put them on and see everything different.

But maybe everything doesn’t have to be so simple. Maybe we wouldn’t appreciate it if it were. Maybe other things need to take a little bit more work. Glasses are really just a Band-Aid solution for something broken, aren’t they? And that’s not what I’m looking for out of life.

So I find ways to keep building up my foundation. To keep finding little hints of beauty outside of things that I see. That feeling I get when I realize I haven’t curled up on the floor sobbing in days, maybe weeks. The moments when I’m able to say, “Isn’t it interesting I think that?” when I’m anxious instead of following the thought down its rabbit hole of panic.

Over the phone an old friend asks me hesitantly how I’ve been. That tone people get then they think they’ve just asked a really stupid question. I laugh and tell him, “You know. Not bad. I started taking Prozac a few weeks back and… You know, it’s not like I’m happy, but I don’t want to not exist. And that’s pretty awesome.”

On my run I think about that question. Think about that answer. Think about liking the idea of existing in the world. Staring at that tree, watching sparkle and light dance on what used to look like one flat, unremarkable thing.

Autobiography · Personal Development

Easy

Ruby Pipes20 Comments
"Broken Gauges" © Dave Wilson, 2011. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
“Broken Gauges” © Dave Wilson, 2011. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Before I really know what’s happening I find myself on craigslist. Job hunting. Not for any reason in particular. It’s not a necessity. I just want something to do besides writing. Because writing is hard and working for someone else would be easy.

I fantasize about having a boss, about making coffee again, about learning to redesign an old website. I daydream about working in retail, about employee discounts, about clocking in. I catch myself wishing someone would come into my room and tell me how to spend my time. A paycheck to show I’m contributing something. A good answer to the, “So what do you do?” question.

It’s the same struggle I’ve faced for years. The same valley I’ve found myself in again and again when my writing gets scary and uncomfortable. I see it stretching out in front of me, all introspection and vulnerability. And instead of trudging forward into it, I want to turn tail and run.

So many pieces of partially finished projects scattered on the floor that I feel like I never get anything done. It doesn’t build into anything. It’s just a thin coating. I have created no mountains, no mole hills. I haven’t stayed committed, haven’t buckled down hard enough to build. I have done the easy thing instead.

And I’m tired of that. Tired of taking the easy way out. The easy way in. Tired of not living up to the potential my mom keeps telling me I have. Tired of making excuses for why I haven’t done this or that or stayed interested long enough for things to really pan out. I’m tired of committing half-heartedly and then pretending I don’t care when nothing happens.

I want to make big goals. I want to accomplish big things. I want to stop worrying so much about what I think other people expect of me. I want to do the deep digging and find out what it is I’m really after. Because I have my suspicions that it does not involve a nine-to-five job in an office.

I know it doesn’t.

The things I build my dreams out of are written words published in places other than this blog. They’re longer form stories that I spend weeks revising. They’re rejection letters and late nights. They’re all sweat and sobbing. Tired eyes and worn down keyboards. I build my dreams on long runs and heavy lifts. On failed pull up attempts. On early mornings and long phone calls with friends. And it’s time I start being okay with it.

Because I’m never going to make anyone else happy without making myself happy first. I’m never going to live up to someone else’s expectations if I just made them up in my head. I’m never going to be fulfilled by doing what I think other people want me to. That’s the recipe for a life of resentment and exhaustion. That’s exactly the thing I don’t want to do.

So let’s do something new.