Mint Chocolate Coping Chip
3.14.18
I woke up today with a hangover. Not the kind you might jump to assume but another slightly tame sort of hangover. A hangover induced by lack of sleep and overabundance of emotion. I could not sleep last AT ALL last night. I got home from work around 1am and tiptoed ever so gently up the stairs that make ALMOST more creaks than my knees going up them. Most nights I am able to finally wind down and fall asleep to something slightly entertaining on Hulu. And some nights, like last night, sleep evades me. I took two melatonin (because one doesn't work for an addict like me, and it never will or so my brain tells me) and I watched the last three episodes of This Is Us and so began my emotional breakdown that lasted well until this afternoon. Right up until I got to work at 5pm.
The show and especially it's season finale are especially heartbreaking of course, but that's not why I was crying. I was crying because that sense of loss the whole family feels, the father missing from their most current family portrait isn't there to witness some truly amazing milestones in their lives, it's all too familiar. Achingly familiar.
March 8th was the fourth anniversary of my mother's passing. For those not caught up with my story, she passed away in 2014 of liver failure. She had lived almost her entire life with hepatitis C, completely untreated. It was a very fast sickness at the end, and what seemed like a slow motion march to the last day she was alive. Her liver gave out unexpectedly in January and she passed in March. It was traumatic and it is also what spawned the not only downward spiral but corkscrewed, twisting roller coaster that was my disease. On March 8th I had an exceptionally good day. I went to a morning meeting on the beach, and afterward I marched my happy ass to right down to the shore line where I gathered seashells. I sat there with my pile of abalone and rose petal shaped trinkets and talked to her. I told her how much I missed her, how good I felt and that I hoped with all my heart she could see how well I was doing. That night I returned to the same beach with two girlfriends and three balloons. We released them into the night sky and watched them disappear with rolled up notes tied to the strings. Letters to each of their own heavens. I didn't cry. In fact, I laughed, a lot. All three of us did and it was beautiful. But still no tears. I carried on happily for the next week. I was doing solid work with my sponsor, I was feeling weight lifting off my shoulders, just an overall peaceful feeling was grabbing hold of my heart, mind and soul.
This last week I experienced something that I have gone through before, but never in this way. A friend, a very dear friend, got into my car. When she got into my car, I believed her to be extremely loaded. I don't know what brought her to the decision to do what she (allegedly) did but what I do know is that I was terrified for her, desperate with fear for myself because I didn't want to lose her like I have so many friends before. I asked for help, I asked someone whom I trusted to help me determine if I was right. Whether or not I was right does not matter. The outcome of my doing so has deemed our friendship obsolete. It's very hard in life, recovering or not, to not take things personally. I did what I did because I believed that if I didn't she might die. I don't have control over whether or not she uses, if she dies tomorrow or lives to a ripe, old age, only she has a say in her actions. What I do have control over is how I feel and react to this situation. Well, right now...I'm pissed. I'm sad. I'm terrified. I'm...heartbroken. This is life and death. But until today, no tears. I hadn't yet cried about this or thought about it at length because I really didn't WANT to cry about it.
Flash forward back to my emotional freakout...here I am blindsided by my brain's capability to attack from the peripheral with absolutely no warning. This is a rambling sort of entry but I suppose the lesson I'm ever so eloquently trying to impart is that you're never going to be fully prepared to process life's ups and downs when we just pile them under "Tough Stuff" in the dusty basement file room of our psyche.
Slowly...very slooooowly...I am learning that in order to process such events in a healthier way I must be willing and open to feel the emotions that come along with them as they occur. Obviously life doesn't always afford us Mental Health Days so we can feel our icky feelings. But in my current situation the Universe HAS afforded me a treasure chest full of people to talk to and some newly acquired coping mechanisms that need a lot of practice.
I guess I better hop to it then, huh? That gallon of Mint Chocolate Coping Chip is calling my name...
❤coco
I woke up today with a hangover. Not the kind you might jump to assume but another slightly tame sort of hangover. A hangover induced by lack of sleep and overabundance of emotion. I could not sleep last AT ALL last night. I got home from work around 1am and tiptoed ever so gently up the stairs that make ALMOST more creaks than my knees going up them. Most nights I am able to finally wind down and fall asleep to something slightly entertaining on Hulu. And some nights, like last night, sleep evades me. I took two melatonin (because one doesn't work for an addict like me, and it never will or so my brain tells me) and I watched the last three episodes of This Is Us and so began my emotional breakdown that lasted well until this afternoon. Right up until I got to work at 5pm.
The show and especially it's season finale are especially heartbreaking of course, but that's not why I was crying. I was crying because that sense of loss the whole family feels, the father missing from their most current family portrait isn't there to witness some truly amazing milestones in their lives, it's all too familiar. Achingly familiar.
March 8th was the fourth anniversary of my mother's passing. For those not caught up with my story, she passed away in 2014 of liver failure. She had lived almost her entire life with hepatitis C, completely untreated. It was a very fast sickness at the end, and what seemed like a slow motion march to the last day she was alive. Her liver gave out unexpectedly in January and she passed in March. It was traumatic and it is also what spawned the not only downward spiral but corkscrewed, twisting roller coaster that was my disease. On March 8th I had an exceptionally good day. I went to a morning meeting on the beach, and afterward I marched my happy ass to right down to the shore line where I gathered seashells. I sat there with my pile of abalone and rose petal shaped trinkets and talked to her. I told her how much I missed her, how good I felt and that I hoped with all my heart she could see how well I was doing. That night I returned to the same beach with two girlfriends and three balloons. We released them into the night sky and watched them disappear with rolled up notes tied to the strings. Letters to each of their own heavens. I didn't cry. In fact, I laughed, a lot. All three of us did and it was beautiful. But still no tears. I carried on happily for the next week. I was doing solid work with my sponsor, I was feeling weight lifting off my shoulders, just an overall peaceful feeling was grabbing hold of my heart, mind and soul.
This last week I experienced something that I have gone through before, but never in this way. A friend, a very dear friend, got into my car. When she got into my car, I believed her to be extremely loaded. I don't know what brought her to the decision to do what she (allegedly) did but what I do know is that I was terrified for her, desperate with fear for myself because I didn't want to lose her like I have so many friends before. I asked for help, I asked someone whom I trusted to help me determine if I was right. Whether or not I was right does not matter. The outcome of my doing so has deemed our friendship obsolete. It's very hard in life, recovering or not, to not take things personally. I did what I did because I believed that if I didn't she might die. I don't have control over whether or not she uses, if she dies tomorrow or lives to a ripe, old age, only she has a say in her actions. What I do have control over is how I feel and react to this situation. Well, right now...I'm pissed. I'm sad. I'm terrified. I'm...heartbroken. This is life and death. But until today, no tears. I hadn't yet cried about this or thought about it at length because I really didn't WANT to cry about it.
Flash forward back to my emotional freakout...here I am blindsided by my brain's capability to attack from the peripheral with absolutely no warning. This is a rambling sort of entry but I suppose the lesson I'm ever so eloquently trying to impart is that you're never going to be fully prepared to process life's ups and downs when we just pile them under "Tough Stuff" in the dusty basement file room of our psyche.
Slowly...very slooooowly...I am learning that in order to process such events in a healthier way I must be willing and open to feel the emotions that come along with them as they occur. Obviously life doesn't always afford us Mental Health Days so we can feel our icky feelings. But in my current situation the Universe HAS afforded me a treasure chest full of people to talk to and some newly acquired coping mechanisms that need a lot of practice.
I guess I better hop to it then, huh? That gallon of Mint Chocolate Coping Chip is calling my name...
❤coco
Oftentimes, what we can't control is what troubles us the most.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you 100%!
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