Turning It Over

This semester of school is finally over with. I am not sure why this semester seemed so much harder than the previous semester. I know from personal experience, that I get a bit of the seasonal blues starting in about October. This year when I called in to talk to the clinic about feeling depression symptoms creeping back in, they suggested that I get a light box. I can't quite afford it yet but my health insurance will start 01/01/2014 and that is one of the first places I will be heading. In the meanwhile, my doc made some medication adjustments and within a week I started feeling much better. I know this played a role in the semester feeling difficult. Not sure why else, but it was really a struggle to stay on top of everything. For the first time my attendance to class was below the acceptable expectations. Good for me that nothing really happened; however, I was getting pretty annoyed with myself because I was not getting there as often as I should. Anyway, for whatever it is worth, it is done now and I can't wait to have a break. Although, I am working - I am sure this is not a surprise to those who know me....I got this love/hate relationship with work, always going back for more.....

The Big Book describes an alcoholic's relapse signs as being irritable, restless and discontent. I have a little bit of this going on right now and its been going on since the beginning of the semester. So, the dating saga continues and I am starting to wonder if I really should be dating at all. I called my sponsor because of this texting nightmare that developed. Was I overreacting? Why do I feel absolutely crazy about a rather innocent misunderstanding? She listened and didn't really comment. Then the famous phrase was brought back to the forefront "Let go and let God." Turn this anger and annoyance over to God and ask for peace of mind or at least a mind quiet enough to sleep! I started to think about this concept in the broader context of my life and not just this one situation. Am I turning my will and life over to God as I understand Him? Tough question, tough choice, and no doubt tough to enact.

I have been experiencing this little twinge of "Wanderlust". It's a desire to travel, to move, to start things over in a new place. I frequently dismiss the idea because there is so much that I have here that I like. I like my friends, my family is close, right now my job is close. I just can't seem to shake the feeling and I think it is one of the reasons that I am feeling restless. I think my desire to move or relocate is really more about wanting to "run away" so to speak. I am feeling uncomfortable at the moment and the easiest thing to blame is the environment. As such, the environment can be easily changed by moving. I not overly convinced that I actually want to move or travel. I think I want to feel like I have some control over something. In four months I will be done with school. I have no idea where I will be working. I don't know if a potential job offer will come through. I don't know how much money I will make. I don't know how much my student loan payments will be. I don't know how much my rent is going to increase.....blah....stop already, brain, enough. So, by thinking of moving, I am in essence thinking I can interview, get a job, find out about pay, get a place to live that i will know exactly how much it costs, etc. etc. Then my reasonable mind pops in and says "do you have any idea of how miserable you would be if you left everything that you have there?" In my heart, I know that this answer is "very miserable....".

Interestly, my dreaming has kicked into mad overdrive. I have yet to find a really good book about dreams and the nature of symbolism in the context of dreams. I know that when I start to dream of tornados, something is out of control in my life. In most of those dreams, I am staring out a window and seeing multiple vortexes dropping out of the sky, screaming for everyone to take cover while I sit in the front row to watch. Generally nothing happens beyond that; however once I did have a dream of the tornado moving over me, that was freaky. Anyway, I am usually in the work setting in these dreams and these dreams have been really prominent since I graduated from college. I think the area of work has always been very unstable for me, mainly by my own actions and behaviors (frequently changing jobs, etc.). So I feel pretty confident about this interpretation. Last year, about this time when I was making the decision about leaving my job to go back to school, I have tornados dropping out of the sky almost every night.

The other dream that has been coming up recently is the crashing airplanes. I had one vivid dream in which I was on the plane, watching out of the cockpit as the plane was crashing into a field and I woke up right before impact. All the other dreams are me watching a low flying plane flying out of control and crashing to the ground in a large fireball. I am trying to figure out how to get to the crash and I never find my way. In a few dreams, I just walk away. When I googled dreams about crashing airplanes I got a similar answer to what i just wrote in the previous paragraph. It is about losing or not having control over a situation. Since I am not driving the plane, I cannot control the fate of the airplane. I am reasonably satisfied with this interpretation, although I am thinking there is more to it than just that. There is something so strange about the way I react to the crash. I seem like I am more interested in the idea that planes actually do crash. I am fixated on what the cause of the crash would be. I am just more stunned than anything at a plane falling out of the sky. Beyond that, not much. It's just weird.

The last series of dreams that have recently surfaced (*sigh of annoyance*), the using dreams. Oh Lord, these used to torture me in early sobriety. I would wake up in a cold sweat and be freaking out that I broke the terms with the nursing board and would be losing my license to practice. Over the years, these dreams have quieted down; however, after 3+ years, I still have the occasional using dream and those have been popping up more frequently this fall. I initially interpreted those dreams to be a sign of an upcoming relapse. But, in all the years I have been having them, I haven't relapsed. So, I thought maybe they have to do with a DESIRE to relapse. Possibly, seems reasonable enough. This last using dream I decided is the addict brain getting stimulated for some reason or another. It's like my addict brain senses weakness and goes right for the jugular to make its opinions known about the answer to life's problems. I have been looking at these dreams as more of a warning that something is feeling compromised with my program of recovery, whether it be in mood or in action, something is not right and I get my warning through my dreams. 

Over the weekend, I have many fun activities planned and I hope that with this semester being over, my brain will start to settle down. I spoke at length with both the counselor that supervised me this semester and another instructor at school about my inability to maintain a recovery/self-care program when I am in the midst of this school. I am trying to work so that I can stay active as an employee for my 401k vesting period and for potential work in the future. Not to mention, I like many of my coworkers and I love my job most days. I felt so run down and exhausted running 6 or more days a week without much "fun" built in. I told both of them that I would not be able to do this much longer because my recovery had taken a backseat and the using dreams were back in full force. That is when I made the decision to terminate my degree at an earlier stage. "Without health, sanity and sobriety, what else do we have?" 

I do have 2 goals for the weekend. 1. get to a least one meeting, if not two. I feel like I need to connect with my sober network, also known as "my peeps". 2. Quiet the hell down, pray and just listen. I think I am struggling with trying to take back the wheel of control. If this blog has taught my reader's anything, I hope it is pretty clear that when I start taking control and stop working a program of recovery, I land in the ditch. Knowing this, you would think I would stop trying but I don't. Actually, it is usually takes a little time for me to see what is happening and what I doing. So, anyway, these are the goals. I won't know how I did during this semester until next week probably. So, I will have to wait and continuously turn over my anxiousness to know about grades etc. to God.

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