I met Him because I dam near killed myself. Not on purpose. But when I got to the brink... I saw Him... and there I saw myself.
I have a disease, and I've had it most of my life. I didn't see it until today, after I dam near killed myself, but it's there.
I have a disease called self-loathing. I learned it in my childhood, and I am pretty certain it came from my sexual molestation. I learned to hate myself, though I have never in my life been able to truly recognize it or admit it. To own it. Because I've been too ashamed to admit to such a foolish, foolish thing.
As soon as the events of today had run their course, though, I was able to see it, to recognize it, to own it. And I finally had the courage to ask someone for help.
There has been a side of me that has been desperate for help for years, in a sense, but for the self-loathing, I've never been able to ask for it. I didn't know what to ask for, you know, because I could never figure out what was wrong...
Because of today, because of what happened to me today, I can finally see it. The self-desstructive pattern that I have been living for the last 28 years of my life.
I don't know what it is I am dealing with, but I can see it now so clearly that I am stunned. And all I know is... I have to stop it.
This is what happened to me... today.
Nothing out of the ordinary, really... but I had a stressful day. It came on the heels of a discussion I had with my attorney on the phone... and because of something he 'forgot to tell me' last year during my divorce... I am going to owe some money this year for taxes. It isn't going to be a big deal.. I called my accountant, told him what happened... we discussed things... and he's pretty sure, based on his estimate of what he thought I had coming back to me, I can cover what I am now going to owe... I may have to pay a little bit... but I'll be okay.
It's not a big deal. Not on the surface. That wasn't the problem. There was a brief moment while I was on the phone with my attorney, as he was telling me this news... that I felt a moment of panic. It must have been pretty intense...
because today... I had one of my 'black rage' moments. I haven't had one of those in years. I don't know if any of you remember me describing those moments or not... but I had experienced them early in my marriage with my H, and when I had been molested. Do you remember me describing them? It's the crux of my LD.
I understand that my rage in not really anger... but a fear so intense... it just manifests as a feeling I can only describe as rage.
And rather than feel it, or express it, I go 'passive.' Eerily so.
I never learned how to deal with those incredibly intense feelings of vulnerability, shame and fear. I had no way, no manner, of expressing them... they scared the living [censored] out of me anyway... so I just 'shut down' the emotional system.
But those feelings have to go somewhere... energy that intense has to find an outlet or it'll implode... and I realized today that I've been turning those feeling directly at myself.
I had one of those moments today... because there was no one to get mad at... for the tax screw up. I remember being on the phone, and describing how I felt to my bf, and I said to him, "I am so mad right now, I can't even feel it." And then I said to him, "have you ever felt that way?" And he said... "no. I've always been able to feel when I'm angry." He couldn't relate.
And then I said to him, "it's weird. I scare me when I get like this... I'm so mad that I can't even feel it. It's like I go passive, quiet. Silient. I dunno."
He asked me why I was so mad. It wasn't a big deal, there was a way out, I wasn't going to lose life nor limb nor house over it. It seemed to him, and truly, to me, like no big deal.
I truly, honestly, don't know why. It was perplexing, even to me... but that 'black rage' moment was present, and I could tell. And I said... "I don't think I'm mad at my attorney, nor am I mad at my accountant, or anyone or anything... I think I'm mad at me. I think I'm mad because I think I should have known better. I trusted someone, implicitly (my attonrey's advice), and I feel foolish for such implicit trust. I should have known better."
My boyfriend didn't see the significance, and quite frankly, neither did I... but I felt the 'black rage' anyway. I knew its presence, I can recognize it... but such a thing did not warrant such a reaction.
I didn't really know what was happening to me... but I could feel it, could feel the cycle begin within me... and its a cycle I've been doing all my life. But today, unlike any other time in my life, I watched myself do it.
I knew that my best friend was coming up tonight to stay with me for the weekend, but after I got off the phone with my boyfriend, I started drinking. I couldn't stop myself, and I was drunk when she got here.
Not really seeing it as a major issue (because I am a very, very fun drunk), she went and got her own bottle of wine. She had no idea what I was in the middle of... I didn't either, really... because I was too drunk... except for this niggling feeling that something was really off.
I consummed four bottles of wine on an empty stomach tonight, folks. Had nothing to eat all day. I was wasted... but thank God... I finally told my friend what I had done... on purpose... and that I thought I needed some help. I told her everything... and as soon as I did, she could see it too, because she's known me almost all my life.
But after my little drinking binge, I think I was on the verge of alcohol poisoning. I couldn't throw up. I couldn't go to sleep. It's weird, but there was something lucid enough about me to know that I was in a very dangerous condition.
The I began convulsing in bed. I stumbled my way to the kitchen... I had dehydrated myself so badly from all the alcohol that my body was literally shaking uncontrollably.
I drank water, as much as I could get into me, for two hours, and then I finally fell asleep.
Believe it or not, about an hour ago I woke up... with only a mild headache... and I couldn't go back to sleep. I laid there, seeing my life before me, and the pattern of... whatever this... disease is... that I have.
I seek oblivion.
I'm not a drug addict, I'm not even an alcoholic... I don't crave booze or drugs. There are times when I binge drink... meaning... I start drinking and I don't stop until I pretty much pass out. I just simply seek an escape from myself, and my very intense emotions.
I don't do it all the time. It comes on the heels of stress.
I did it in high school... and then again in college (for the first two years)... and I dam near killed myself doing it. I had near manic states of mood swings, which the alcohol did not help... just intensified.
Other times... I just got depressed (as my LD state in my marriage attested to). Unable to control life or my anger, I just simply turned it inward.
On the outside, I appeared normal, out going, even gregarious. Yet I was unable to express any uncomfortable emotion... I would not cry... would not show any form of vulnerabllity... to do so would require me to lose control. And to do so... was so terrifying for me... I just simply didn't do it. I'd avoid it, avoid life, avoid love, avoid, avoid, avoid. If I couldn't avoid it... I'd get a headache... or I'd eat... or chain smoke... or binge drink. Something... anything... that would take my focus off it.
What I do... I do in private. No one knows this about me, until now... not even my shrink. I don't think I really even knew. I didn't even know that this is what I had been doing to myself, except for what happened tonight... and all the sudden, I looked back and could see it all so clearly... simply because I know myself, what my true thoughts and feelings have been...
For whatever reason, tonight, I just wasn't willing to lie to myself, or anyone else, any more.
I don't know what I did today, or why it happened. I don't know why I had a black rage episode, I have no idea why such an insignificant thing would trigger something like that in me. All I know is that it happened and I couldn't stop it. I had one of my moments... there was nothing or no one to blame... it wasn't even a big deal... but it triggered a stress so intense, I felt completely and utterly out of control. And THAT released in me... a feeling that I can only describe as... sheer and utter terror.
I don't know why. I just know I have a problem... and I can finally see it and acknowledge it. And the only way I can describe it is... a pattern of self-loathing... and I've been so ashamed of it... the self-loathing (I shouldn't feel that way about myself)... that I couldn't see it. If that makes any sense.
I watched myself unravel tonight. I did it on purpose. I got drunk on purpose... I was blitzed when my friend got to my house tonight... and I did it so she'd call me on it. And when she didn't call me on it... I just got more drunk. And that's when I knew... could see... I had a problem.
Not a drinking problem. I can go weeks... months or even years without drinking. But if I drink when I'm stressed... I binge drink. I can't stop. Or... I eat... or I smoke... like I said before... but whatever it is I choose to do, I do it to myself in a binge type fashion.
But, for the grace of God, somewhere in the wee hours of the night tonight, I found enough self-love to stop hating myself... to ask for help... to understand that I have a pattern of unconscious behavior that has been slowly eroding me.
I don't know where this realization came from... I think it came on the heels of me starting to write again. I haven't done writing of any consequence for 20 years. The type of writing where I lose track of time kind of writing. I have to be very in tune with myself in order to write like that... for I write exactly what I see in my head... and write what I feel, as I see it.
If I can't feel... I can't write.
Sometime during this last week, I started feeling again. And just this week, I started writing again.... and I mean, creative writing... crafting.
And then all this other stuff I just desribed happened, and I'm just about as stunned as I've ever been in my life.
Anyway. I wanted to tell you all this... because this is it for me, here. I have to go learn how to be kind to me, and cure -- or at the very least learn how to live with -- this disease I have. I think I am half way there, just in seeing it... admitting it, and knowing I'm going to need some hellp with it.
I don't want to do this to me anymore. I've got too much potential... to just throw me away like this.
So adios my friends.
I finally... finally... know, that I am going to be o.k.
