There are a lot of new things to learn in early recovery. For one, my emotions were back, and I had to learn to deal with them. In looking back at that time, my biggest hurdle was actually identifying what I was feeling. Everything felt just short of rage all the time. I told myself many times, "if I am going to feel like this, I should just drink. This is just as bad." I was sad, mad, angry, numb - all at the same time. It was like 15 years of emotion finally got unearthed when I stopped drinking. 

As I was working through treatment, again, we had this article about anger as a secondary emotion. That is just a fancy way of saying there is another emotion present; all I know is anger, so that is what I display. I got this big long list of emotions, and I was supposed to identify which emotions I really was feeling when I would have an episode of anger. I didn't want to take my counselor's word for it that I couldn't identify how I was feeling. "Listen, I am mad. That is what I am mad about. Pissed. Nothing else, just that." For a person that is as stubborn as me when it comes to emotions, even the exercise of identifying them was intrusive. 

It wasn't until I hit the first year sober that I was really willing to look at much. My survival mechanism for the first year was going to meetings and being mad at meetings for being put into a monitoring program that made me have to think about more than just myself and drinking. Mad, mad, mad. I sat in first step meetings for over a year, trying to get the first step figured out. I can't control my alcohol use - got that. Life is not going very well for you......well, smartypants, it doesn't feel so great sober either, so maybe the drunk like wasn't so bad after all. Then 365 days in, the wall came down. I don't know what I was doing differently or what happened. I just remember feeling like I could breathe for the first time since I was in college. The rage calmed. The testy moods seem to vanish on that day. Maybe the wall just finally collapsed? Or maybe my brain made a new connection that I was empowered to anything in this I wanted, except drink. Think of all the possibilities!

I returned to DBT after that moment and decided I was ready to look at all the emotional stuff. The two emotions that came up most frequently were disappointment and worry. I carried a lot of worry with me about everything. I believe that to be part of my anxiety disorder and nervousness can get out of hand for me if I am not paying close attention. Disappointment is what surprised me the most. I was in a long-term relationship for the first couple of years of my sobriety. In the final six months of that relationship, I was chronically disappointed. I had changed. I had started going back to school. I began to meet up with people again. I was trying to rebuild my life. His life had so much drama and chaos. I tried to wait calmly in the background, I tried to fix things, I would worry, etc. etc. I was just never a priority in his life the way I had made him a priority in mine. 

When I have experienced anger in the past two years, I feel I was trying to relay to the world that I was feeling traumatized, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, and/or frazzled. Between the atmosphere of the job, the job, and my horrific lack of personal life, all I could feel was angry and upset. I could go "0 to raging" in a matter of minutes. That is not the way I want to live, and I do kick myself on the occasion that I let it go for as long as I did. I also was feeling guilt. If I did leave, what about these amazing people I leave behind? What would happen to the people I care for? My desire and nature to care for others can easily overwhelm my personal emotions. Sadly, it turned into beating myself up for not being able to hack it. 

The anger and rage is my life is fairly quiet these days. I still think disappointment is an emotion that I have learned to identify easier. Because that is a vulnerable emotion, I would rather be mad and angry. Being furious and angry makes me feel more powerful than feeling sad does. It's an Achille's heel of mine. The emotion of being disappointed is tied to my previous entry about expectations. I have been told by both professionals and friends that I have a hyper-independence issue. In some of my most vulnerable times, some people walked away. Instead of mourning the loss of the relationship and attempt to understand my role in things, I will walk away from almost all of my relationships (family excluded in this conversation -- they are my rock). I would vanish them from my life, never to be spoken of again. Deleted anything related to them - email address, phone numbers, messages, social media connection. Gone. Not only do I react as if I was abandoned, I see it as a betrayal.

So, this hyper-independence thing. I get it. It's the attitude of "well if you want it done right, do it yourself" gone extreme. I literally feel guilty when someone does something for me. "I can do it myself; it's no problem." I handle it all on my own. I will figure it out. I, then, end up disappointing myself because I keep people at such a distance. I crave the closeness, but I refuse to engage in it because I believe I am saving myself from the inevitable heartbreak or disappointment. If I get in a one-sided friendship and that person vanishes the minute I have an issue I would like to talk about, it will be months before I will speak with anyone about anything. It further validates my ultimate worry - I wasn't good enough to get the help I needed, and people will always betray me. I no longer trust myself to determine who is good and who is not. So, I participate in relationships where the other knows little about me. I  know just about everything in their lives. Much of which is by my own doing. 

People tend to think that independent people are super strong and courageous. I wonder how many of us really struggle with independence consuming everything. I have become so rigid in my independence that I will rarely allow people into my home. I will struggle at times to make decisions because I lack trust in the input I solicit, or I don't reach out at all. It's a strange place to me. I have set myself up in such a manner that I expect myself to do everything by myself. I have been yelled at on more than one occasion for driving myself to the emergency room, for not reaching out when things were going south, and not telling others around me that I am having a bad day. I am resourceful and can get things done, no doubt. I just have trouble allowing myself to be dependent on others. Especially when I believe that these actions would unequivocally change someone else's opinion of me. I have been round and round with my therapist on this one. Intellectually, I get it. If someone asked for my help, I am honored and happy to help. If I ask for help, I failed in some way that I couldn't figure out how to do it on my own. 

As I said in my previous blog, I hate not writing for weeks on end. These are the thoughts that just roll around my head. Writing gets these thoughts out of my head and in a place to help me make sense of my own perspective. I find it strange that my "safe space," so to speak, to be vulnerable and real is here. It was about this time last year when my blog posts were given to my supervisor as I was processing my next steps in regards to my career. In a vulnerable moment, my words were used against me. In that moment, I snatched back the power and said, "Yup, you know what? Let's be real. I am unhappy. I hate this career path. I have a career issue not a job issue. Something has to change." In a way, when people mention to me that they read this, I feel empowered in those moments too. Like, hey, you're not treating me any differently. You still think I am OK. So, maybe this blog is not so much a "safe space" as it is an experimental place for me to see if I can let my guard down without the world stopping. So far, so good. This blog will turn eight years old in November. Hopefully, many more years of experimenting ahead! Here's to healing!

​J 

I cringe when I see that it's been over 6 weeks since I published something on my blog. For those of you who know me, I always have a lot to say. Not to mention, this blog is part of my therapeutic process. (I can't say self-care anymore without wanting to scream at the top of my lungs thanks to a previous employer.) I haven't had a lot of time of energy of recent to sit down a write. Mainly, school sucked up a whole bunch of time and energy. With an average of 10-15 pages of writing due per week on topics that took me forever to research, coming up with my daily thoughts of the day was pretty hard. It would have sounded something like this: "School is hard. Work has its moments. I am tired. Be well." Not really my style.....

So, what's been going on. I finally finished up this quarter which was the most intense quarter yet. The previous quarters were more about my generals and I think I got a little too comfortable in thinking that this whole RN thing was going to be a little easier since I have been in the field for so long. Well, one my first recovery lessons got flung back in my face: "You don't know everything, kid." While my pride hurts a little bit, that was an awful big assumption on my part. So, lesson learned. RNs are some of the smartest people I know. And now I know why - they have to and do know EVERYTHING. Maybe some day I will get there. For now, I have 4 more quarters until graduation. I'll give it my all.

Work is work. I still like evenings a lot. I have some really great co-workers. A few days ago, I was having a chat with one of our counselors. It was interesting to hear my words coming out of her mouth. She will be moving on from counseling at some point into other ways to deal with people and addiction. She is going for the social work/case management route while I chose behavioral health nursing. Our reasons for moving on were so similar. The trauma of working with people with extreme trauma is extreme. The support of the counselors and the management can only go so far. And it doesn't always matter if you are the king/queen of self-care (screaming). I, as a human being, can only handle so much before my world view gets distorted and lose hope for anything good in life. Nursing allowed that better separation and I hope for her, social work gives her some peace as well. 

What's been rolling around in my mind for the past 6 weeks is the concept of expectations. I carry high expectations for myself. I need to be striving for something or learning something new. I get exceedingly bored otherwise. I need some level of "too much" in my life which I have done for many years. Working three jobs at one, picking up one to many shifts, throwing in a job change and school all at once. I think I thrive off of the adrenaline I get from it all. And, when I am done, I can look back and say, "man, look at what I was capable of." I am getting older now and that adrenaline doesn't seem as ample as it once was. So, I am doing my best to not "lower" the expectations for myself, rather get them back into a reasonable place. I still fight that I am lowering my expectations which I honestly can't stand the idea of doing.

I have had the expectation conversation with so many people. "Would you expect your brother/sister/best friend/child to do that you are expecting yourself to do?" Very. very rarely do I ever hear someone say "Heck yeah! I expect my kid to work 65 hours a week and go to school!" We put such pressures on ourselves to have nice things, to be the best at work, to earn a lot of money, to have perfect kids, to have buying power, to be the most popular. It just goes on and on. I push myself to be perfect at my job (ugh) and I push the expectation that I am 43 years old and I still don't have it together. I am back in school again. I better figure this out now, because there is no way I can afford to or want to return to school after this round. (Famous last words, by the way, I said the same thing after I completed my masters.) Anyway, I have a really loud inner critic about not having life together and having wasted the better part of 15 years being in a drunken haze. I feel compelled and driven to do more things because of the wasted years. Sadly, adding activities doesn't always mean adding happiness.

I have odd expectations of others too. I get into some trouble with relationships because of these expectations. I would consider myself to be pretty intuitive and can usually find something encouraging to say to someone in distress. Or be silent with a person to let them know that I am there in the ways that I can be. I just can't solve all the problems. So, when it comes to people asking about me, I will change the subject. And shortly thereafter complain that no one is hearing me. Well, I am not talking, so there is that. I fear vulnerability. Oddly, I can sit here and pour my heart out and not think anything of it. Even my best of friends, I will still flip the conversation back to them. I can't show anyone rust in my armor. Additionally, I get in the bad habit of comparing. My problems (and I am not minimizing here) are quite tame to what others have going on. I am able to plod along with the external world in chaos. I have enough money. I have enough work hours. I am passing my classes. Why should I talk about things that are more along the lines of an existential crisis versus a concrete "something needs to change now" problem? It feels cheap on my end and honestly not anything I would worry other people about. 

An existential crisis, I am coming to believe, is my version of a mid-life crisis. I have all the stuff again. I have a house, I have my kittens, working on another degree, working full time, got a car, got friends.....yet in all of this amazingness, I feel like something is missing. Please don't tell me a romantic relationship. Folks, I have really given it all legitimate tries over the past 10 years. Once over the initial "oh wow, someone is paying attention to me," phase, I hate it. I feel confined. I feel like I have to answer to someone. I feel like I have to justify my decisions. I dislike feeling the need to be available on whim. I plan my life out to create structure for myself. Without it, trouble in on the horizon. I have tried dating people in recovery, not in recovery. My recovery, in either case, becomes a problem. Either they need/want to drink all the time or I am not doing recovery correctly. I will not be judged about my recovery. Ever. (Are you hearing the expectations here too? I know....I know....)

OK, back to the topic. I am missing something. I know for one thing I am missing being around people and family. Everyone is experiencing that on some level or another. Pandemic life. Ugh. If it weren't for my friends at work, I would have likely not survived this pandemic. Seriously. Is it work dissatisfaction? I don't think so. I have much less responsibility where I am at now. I don't worry much about working when I leave. The facility is staffed 24/7 which means when I leave, the work is picked up by my team and not just me. Underlying all of this, I feel is some fear. But I don't know of what. I will admit that I avoided going back for my RN because I didn't think I could. This education is tough and requires a lot of effort. I always took the path of lesser resistance and chose things that were easy for me. Yeah, my master's was easy. And I chose where I did because I didn't have to take the GREs. I am resourceful, no doubt. So, I oddly have high and really low expectations of myself. I fear failure more than anything. Part of that keeps me sober, but certainly not the main reason. I short change myself on things I am really interested in because I think it will take more work than I want to put in. Or, let's be real, I want it to come easily because most things do come easily for me and who doesn't want that? Well, apparently me at this point. 

Other than 2020 being one disaster after another, I would have to say there way more good things in my life these days. That's why this existential crisis is so annoying. I wasn't expecting it. I took a leap and did something huge at the beginning of the year. For all intents and purposes, it is working out swimmingly. I have health insurance. I am adequately financed for school and life. I am not over working (well maybe a few times). I like the people I work with. I like where I live. I do get to socially distance see my family. I am fortunate. I know that. And hence why I don't tend to say much to others about the struggles I some times face. Annoying things have happened like injuring my foot again, getting identity-thefted (again) this year, ongoing battle, although better, with health, loss of my kitten, almost the loss of the other one, etc. etc. With all that is going on in the world, my inner expectations tell me to suck it up. Shit happens. You can't change any of it, so, move on. Part of me just wants to feel bad for a minute and have someone give me a hug. I don't let people in far enough to let them know I need one. 

As my therapist tells me....I stand in my own way. A lot. There are things I will jump into head first because I have the expectation that it will be successful. Where the good stuff is that I would really like to do, well, it's around. I just panic at the idea that it might not work out. That whole "is it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all"? So, I am going to leave it here tonight. I have a few weeks off and I am resting by foot for the next week. I got nothing but time to write and reflect. 

Hope everyone is hanging in there!!
Lots of Love,
​J