Vices

I started this blog with the need to be honest.  Good or bad.  I write a lot about my past, my secrets, my hurts, and a little about my feelings. 

I have a present tense life as well.  However, my present has always been wrapped up in my past.  And my future, well I honestly could not imagine one.  I have never been one to even dream of a day down the road.  I grew up living day to day.  Even moment by moment.

My father's death has changed a lot.  I held my breath with every phone call, knock at the door, even a familiar cologne or voice.  I don't have to do this anymore and it is the strangest feeling.  I have a present life.  And possibly even a future.

So now as I look at my present I see that it is a tangled mess of feelings, numbness, bad habits and addictions.  I have never cared about these things before.  Because I had no future.

Here is the ugly truth.  My husband told me that I am an alcoholic the other night.  I told him that he was full of shit.  After discussing my drinking habits in therapy last night I asked my therapist if I was one and without a taking a breath or even a pause his answer was "yes". 

Nice.

And another ugly truth.  I eat too much.  I guess that's called binging.  And then I throw up.  Purging.  And then I won't eat at all.  And after that I will binge again.  I have done this for years.  My food issues run very deep.  Food is one of the earliest ways that I remember my parents abusing me.

And yet another.  I cut.  That one is pretty straightforward. 

I know that all these things need to stop.  They hurt me.  Some worse than others.  And worse, these things hurt the people who love me.  But I would be lying if I said that replacing these habits doesn't scare me shitless. 

Food.  Alcohol.  A blade.  These things have been constants in my life.  My friends.  What I run to when I'm sad, hurting, numb, lonely.  Even happy.  So I am looking for some new constants.  Healthy ones.

I don't really know what I want by writing this.  I suppose I just want to be honest about where I am and where I need to be headed.

Autopilot

First, thank you all for your kind, helpful, and concerned comments.  I promise I will respond to all of them shortly.

Dissociative Identity Disorder has a fascinating side to it and that is its auto-pilot feature.  I have been on autopilot these past several days with others sharing the load of my daily life while I have been checked out or dissociated if you want to get fancy with the terminology. 

Sounds unfair?  They think it is.  I take a vacation while everyone else does the work.  Not really. 

In the past, this has been closer to the case.  I would get really overwhelmed and I would check out.  Others would maintain the facade of "me" and I would return when I was up to handling life.  I am, or I should probably say we, are really, really good at this.  After nearly 30 years, this is a pretty seamless presentation.

This time was different though.  I didn't take off out of fear.  Yes, I got overwhelmed.  However, I actually did something healthy.  This time I turned my attention inward and took care of those new friends brave enough to surface after learning he was finally dead.

This was not a pleasant experience.  These friends are probably some of the worst off.  They were hurt, broken, bleeding, and despairing.  It will take me some time to put into words what took place.  But for now, I can describe that I did my best to care for them like I would my own daughter.

On to something I can explain...

While in autopilot mode, I have also had some time to really think about the process I have found myself in.  Most refer to this as a healing process and I am closer now to understanding that than ever before.  I hope that is the case at least.

I am a former athlete.  I abused my body, pushed myself beyond injury, and never paid attention to pain screaming orders to stop whatever it was that I was doing.  And I have paid.  And I still pay with arthritis that runs through multiple joints starting when I was in my mid-twenties.

I have had two shoulder surgeries, two knee surgeries, and two foot surgeries.  All reconstructive including a shoulder replacement when I was 20.  Yeah, I know. 

Surgery is never fun.  Anesthesia is rough on me; I am slow to wake up.  The pain... well, it hurts.  You take pills to control that pain that make you nauseous.  And then if you are me, you get addicted to those pills and that is an entirely different bitch of a process and another post all on its own.

Day one, surgery day, is a blur.

Day two is better.

Day three... you might as well be dead.  That's my experience at least.

Day four is once again better.  Point being that the pain typically peaks before the healing process really takes off.  And here is where I begin to pray that my father's death was the peak of my pain.  Or at least the leading catalyst for real healing. 

When I woke up this morning I found myself thinking this is my day four...

I will always have arthritis.  I will also always have the dull and painful ache of memories.

I will always have the scars of my athletic career.  But if you ask me to show you my surgery scars, with a vague amount of pride I will.  I will point to one and tell you how I got it, how I endured, and yeah it hurt but I was tough and made it through.

I will also always have the scars of abuse and reminders of my past.  But one day I hope I will be able to point to them with another small sense of pride and tell you how I survived, how tough I was, how I made it through.

And how I began to thrive.  Here's to day four.