today is 12/19, which is the 50th anniversary of one of the best Grateful Dead shows i’ve ever heard. i’m going to listen to it in full, as i sit and wait for news from housing.
i don’t often do this, but i wanted to follow up my last post, because i think there was a lot to unpack in there and it might leave some folks really concerned. honestly, i’m as concerned about it as anyone is.
I didn’t regret my last post, i don’t regret it. I try not to regret anything if i can, because it’s a waste of thought. i fail and regret a lot of things, but the point is that i try not to because it doesn’t change anything that has happened.
the thing about getting my truth out there, even if it’s a bit delayed is that people can know where i’m at and support me. There’s nothing beneficial about holding onto secrets for a person in my position. Normal people might be able to afford the luxury of keeping things behind a curtain, but i’m not a normal person.
When i move out of this program, i’ll be returning for outpatient services and counseling with a therapist that already knows me and knows a lot about my story. i also intend to attend 12 step meetings, and meet people who i will also tell what is going on with me, and will get to know me well enough to know that i need support, especially when it comes time to change my medications, and kick the adderall.
i’m not going to let myself get all isolated like i did last time i went from a program to supportive housing, i need a community to survive. see, i can regret what happened last year, in the last apartment, sure, a lot of regrettable things went down. or i can realize that i’ve learned something from it.
i could take my old black and white thinking and discount all of the positive insight i’ve gained over the past year in treatment, just because i’m on a controversial medication and think it’s all garbage for that reason.
i could think to myself “oh, you’re just as fucked as you were before you got here, maybe even more fucked”. That thought is very demonstrably false, i am so much better off than i was, I’m just putting the thought here to look at it, because i used to think that way. i used to only look at what wasn’t very good and let it color the way i look at a whole set of circumstances.
I am still in recovery. I am. i don’t really care what anyone’s definition of being in recovery is, because mine is for me to define. recovery isn’t black and white, and it isn’t linear. I am recovering from a lot of things, not just active addiction, but trauma. the process might take one step forward at some points, and a step back at others… fuck, it might take a step sideways too.
black and white thinking, doesn’t serve anyone. or i guess i can only speak for myself when i say it doesn’t serve me, and it never has. it’s not a stretch to think there was a time where i would have a thought like “well, i’ve already fucked X up, why don’t i just go ahead with Y”. with X being one misstep and Y being further damaging behavior.
this is a revolutionary step in the understanding of how my mind works, for me. i couldn’t always be the watcher of my thoughts and feelings, and i’d be helplessly participating in them, without any realistic regulation. i think i’m at a different level than i was when i entered these doors.
i don’t know if i’m ever going to fuck it all up again, and i don’t know if this demon is going to kill me…those are still very real outcomes, and they are never not going to be. i know it’s not going to happen today, and tomorrow i’ll worry about tomorrow.
Hey Hey Hey
don’t you wanna buy me a coffee? i mean, i would want to if i were you:
