Today, things suddenly started looking up for me. This simple thing called a "job interview" landed in my lap. I have been filling out applications online and sending in resumes like crazy...whether I qualify or not. Having an interview, well, it's just an interview. However, it's a start. It shows that I tried and it shows that there is progress.
Let's go back to the past 2 weeks:
Bedtime. Naptime. I can't sleep. Shaking ever so violently from nervousness. So nervous I could puke. Biting peoples heads off for just looking at me. Feeling angry. Being angry. Wanting to either go out into the back yard with a shovel and bury myself and become non existent or to just flat out die.
A girl of many masks. I have a mask for a party. I have a mask to go out to eat. I have a mask for my AA meetings. I have different masks for each and every one of my friends. A mask for home. A mask for the soon to be ex husband. A mask for the children. You get the point? All of these masks cover up what I have been feeling. What do I feel? Here we go....
I've been putting on a façade that I am okay. I have been laughing, cheerful, helpful, concerned, outgoing, free spirited, open minded. That's only the way that I appear to other people. That's the only side I let people see. It's been embedded into my brain and in my soul that I cannot show weakness. I cannot let people see me when I'm down. Catalina doesn't become weak. She must remain strong at all times. She is not allowed to cry. This is what I've been taught since childhood.
The real and raw truth is this:
I'm fucking dying inside. I'm scared. I'm wondering if it's actually possible to die from a broken heart. I'm petrified to start over...or to even START! I don't feel good enough. I (sometimes) just want to die. I have thoughts of doing myself in. Hell, the other night, I envisioned myself opening a vein for the sheer fact that I didn't have a car. For the sheer fact that I don't have a job. For the sheer fact that I'm back at mommy and daddy's house at the age of 35. I'm pissed that the soon to be ex hubs got a new (to him) car. That his son has been placed with him and I'm not a part of it. THAT was supposed to by MY life, but it's not and I have to accept that I made the decision to free myself from a toxic marriage that I've been miserable in since the day after I said "I do." I feel hopeless and I just want to go away.
What the hell keeps me going? Why/HOW the hell am I still sober after so many low spots in my recovery? Wouldn't I be, wasn't I before better off than I am now? No, I really wasn't. Today, I have to feel this shit. Today I have to identify, feel, address, and find a solution to that feeling of wanting to die. To go away. To give up. To go get in the bed not giving one fuck about anything and just sleeping my life away.
I'm dying inside and I have a lump in my throat at all times. I make myself physically ill. I hear shatter of my heart more and more every day. There is something that keeps me going though. Something more powerful than my weak and merciless self. Something that knows that this door has shut and there is something beyond my wildest imagination out there just waiting for me if I just get the fuck up and take a step outside. If I make a phone call. If I talk to someone. There is something in me which is on fire to keep thriving. To keep living. To keep on keeping on. Besides my higher power (whom I choose to call God) there is something so incredibly strong within myself which won't let me give the fuck up.
What am I going to do about it? I'm going to nourish that small little voice inside me which says "Keep Going! We're not done!" I'm going to feed it. Water it. Love it. Listen to it. I'm going to make that little bastard (the voice) so strong that it will no longer whisper, but it will scream. There comes a time in life when the bullshit stops. Where the wallowing in self pity stops. Where you realize that if you want something, you've got to get the hell up and get it. When you get to the point where you're sick and tired of being so damn sick and tired.
I have arrived.
I have so much I want to say in response to this, but I am on my phone and I detest typing vast amounts of text on here. I promise that tomorrow I will sit down at my laptop and give you some more thoughtful feedback. In the meantime, thank you SO MUCH for sharing this!
ReplyDeleteOk, so I went ahead and got on my laptop so I could give some kind of halfway coherent and meaningful reply to this post. I really admire the strength mixed in with the vulnerability I see here. And I must say kudos to you for remaining sober. Some days it really is just a grit-your-teeth-and-hang-on-for-the-ride kind of experience, huh? I know all about that. I have been white-knuckling it for many, many months now.
ReplyDeleteI relate so strongly to what you say about masks. I feel I have been wearing masks my entire life, and it has just been in the past couple of years that I seem to be lacking the energy to wear the appropriate mask for each situation. Perhaps that is why I have sunk so low into this latest bout of depression. Or, perhaps, I am just tired of the bullshit and am ready to let the world see who I really am. I don't know. I just know I have been fighting serious clinical depression and anxiety since childhood, and sometimes I just get damn sick of fighting.
I have only recently begun following you on facebook, but so much of what you say resonates very personally with me. I thank you for sharing so openly and honestly. I am just beginning the process of blogging about my own experience, and it helps me to know I'm not alone in the madness.
My best to you,
The March Haress
Thank you so much for your reply and your honest sharing. I'm glad you are here and I vow to be here for you, too! We are not alone. For so long, I almost knew I was. I was so wrong about that. Through all of this, I haven't had not one desire to drink. What I have been white knuckling is the quality of my sobriety and my emotional sobriety. We're all going to get through whatever, together. Thank you, again!
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