Who Am I, Without You?

Dependence or Inter-dependence.  Attachments or Freedom.

I used to think I had a good understanding of those two concepts.  I think I was wrong.

Man, It has been a long month since I was last here writing.  Work and my psychiatrist have been running these personality tests on me lately.  The doctor for medical mental reasons.... which it turns out I am not crazy after all.  Work because we have a new HR manager who is wildly into matching team members up with their best suited position and colleagues.

I think my HR manager is brilliant.  I have learned that writing is one of my main sources of creative outlet.  The way I think about the world is apparently rare, making up only one percent of the population.  I share the same personality as Mother Thersa, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. And I took the test three times, twice out of the three were this personality.   I think that's cool.

So now with that knowledge, of writing being such a force of healing for me I know why I always sit here aghast when I write for the first time in weeks, even months.

 Its been a tough month.... a real tough month.  The fourth month of my sobriety and the last month off before going back to work after again four months off and Christmas in the month.  Yes a super tough month it was.  And yet instead of coming here to write out my trials,   I go into hiding until I have tribulations to note instead.  Again another personality trait I discovered from a few different personality tests as of late, I withdraw when I am overwhelmed.

Isolation or healthy withdrawal.  Maybe that should be a secondary topic.  In recovery they warn deeply against isolation.  I get that.  When I spend to much time alone I get really down on myself and end up relapsing because today I am still my own worst enemy.  Yet healthy withdrawal as an introvert is definitely needed to recharge my batteries.  I run away from recovery when I spend too much time in the rooms with highly chaotic people, as we all are if we have landed our asses in narcotics anonymous.  But too much chaos sends me over the deep end and the main reason I use...to bring myself back into balance.  Which of course never works.

(Ugh my key board just revolted. Creating e's instead of question marks and then my shift button stuck on.     Probably because of  the lack of use in the past month.  I have just spent ten minutes trying to fix it and now have lost my mojo groove....  So apologies if this is now broken and disjointed.  where was I?)

Oh ya, tough month.

After three months of being off work I was ready to go back.  I think three months was the magical number my mind allowed me to be unattached from my addiction of working.  I really began to back slide in this fourth month where my self worth was concerned.  I began questioning who I was without work.  I found myself trying out other hats coming to understand just how much of a workaholic I had become in my first full year of sobriety.  If maybe I caught that at the beginning of my relapse last January I would have saved myself some much heart ache and a drained bank account....

Hindsight is twenty twenty and the part of life that I truly do love, trial and error. Experience.

But let me not digress.  Knowing I was slipping into the dark again without drugs and now work to fill that void within me, I jumped into cooking and caring for my two daughters still living with me.  I was baking every day(from a box, but don't judge that still huge for this TV dinner kinda girl).  I was making my girls lunches, a first in pretty much their whole lives.  I was doing their laundry, keeping the house clean and listening to their life issues and providing guidance.  That last part I loved.  Actually all of it I enjoyed doing, just my waist line was the one with the problem, too much taste testing.


So half of the month was inspiring.  I was trying new things and placing my focus where it mattered.  It felt good.  But then the girls went to their fathers for Christmas and I was left alone for a week.

I never knew just how long a week could feel.  Like an entire life time rolled into those seven days.

I was a mess.  Truly.  I felt like one of those old kid toy tops flicked out of its spin. This poor weeble wanted to fall down.   I was launched deep into a pit of,  who the fuck am I..... and ....the only answer i could come up with was, No One.

So Sad.

Dependence.  Take away the dependence on substances to get you through and then what?  Work became my substance to keep me afloat.  Take away work and then what?  My daughters became and truly always have been what kept me afloat, but take them away and then what?  My friends became my floating devices, but it was Christmas and they had things to do to.

When I was alone with just me.... omg.  I was a nightmare.

I am on Step Two.   Which is... We came to believe in a power greater then ourselves to restore us to sanity.

Not once did I reach out to my higher power in this time.  I am still mad at her for letting me fall into relapse this past time.  I am still pissed off at her for not giving me what I believe I had worked so hard for and deserved.  I am having a hard time coming to believe.  Because I am having a hard time letting go of my attachments.

What I learned most about myself in this past month is that as long as I am filling the void with outer things like drugs, work, parenting I can not fully receive my true self.   Which comes through as my higher power.   But, and this is a big but.... I also know that sitting in a dark room removed from these things(well okay not the drugs they are just wrong no matter how you cut it) is not beneficial either.

I guess then what it comes down to is balance??

 I hate that word, its like perfection. Its Illusive.  I need people to live a thriving life but how do I become inter-dependent and not dependent.  I need work, I love work.  I have worked the past two days and feel so amazing I cant even describe it, but how do I not let myself become a workaholic again?  My girls are back and even my son was here this past week and I loved being mommy again, but how do I do that from a loving detached place?

Having my eyes opened wide to the fact I am so attached to certain things in my life was terribly scary.  Truly I was a mess this month.  I go into hiding when I become a mess like that.

 I did better then before though as my close supports knew what was going on.  I even cried in front of other people.... alot.  Which was weird, not a norm for me I can tell you that.  I am definitely letting more people in during my rough moods as well as my good moods  which is new for me.

Life is growth, learning hard truths about ones self is part of that growth.  I think its part of breaking the seed shell or pushing through the earth.   This past month was a definite breaking the shell kinda months.  Learning that I like to leech unto the things that will give me balance instead of seeking that balance in my own right was huge.  Gross and nasty, uncomfortable and heartbreaking but needed in order to continue to grow and move forward.

Learning who I am without those attachments is now the journey I will embark on.   Kinda scary, kinda exciting.  I am always on about how great experience is, I always tend to forget the tough stuff one needs to process through before the lesson is learned.  I hated this lesson.  I am eager to move on.

Question.

If you removed yourself from all your labels and took off all the hats you wear, would you be able to answer,  Who am I?

Not that I wanna send you on a painful journey of self discovery, but knowing one is not alone is huge in moving through healing with a little bit more grace.  Together we can do what we could not do alone.......