So I’m finally continuing on from the last post, that thing I was going to talk about yet took a long detour and never got there. So there I was, SOBRIETY! WooHoo! Now I can move on wi…wait, what? Oh that’s right, now it’s time to face those psychologically issues I was ignoring and/or faux curing. Well this should be fun!
When you’re slightly narcissistic, addiction counselors and psychologists are a blast. Okay, the first time you go to one is pretty harrowing, you’re sweating out over an hour of personal secrets you either never told or never thought you had. It’s also hard to find a captive audience like that, so I would begin to look forward to it. After a few months of free-wheelin my sobriety I realized I didn’t have all the tools and podcasts weren’t the complete saviour. I sought help, from individuals or group sessions (no AA for me, for reasons I may or may not ever get into). For 6 months I was seeing: an addiction counselor, a psychologist for social an anxiety and all the the reading materials and mental exercises that come with both of those, and attended a regional group addiction course. I felt awesome, so awesome that I didn’t feel I needed any of it anymore.
That’s not entirely true. After 6 months I headed off for 3 months of backpacking around South-East Asia, at first alone and then with old but understanding and supportive friends. What I wanted to be the focus of this post, which clearly I’m taking my sweet ass time again to get to, is that over those 6 months I had to build, or rebuild how I perceived the world and myself. Addiction and social anxiety cause you to see things in your own unique way, and in the case of the socially anxious much of that is based on fuck all. Evidence anyone?
The trip starts, I haven’t brought any readings with me but I have a journal and I’m going through all my mental exercises, preparations, etc. to handle all the unknowns (a part of the world I’d never been) and the knows (backpackers, and the things backpackers like to do) and things were good. But slowly I was doing less and less of these things, because I thought I had it figured out. I was making friends and being social and I performed the 2nd of the 3 times I have ever done stand up in my life on a beach. I was flying solo, and I thought it could stay that way. I also wanted it to stay that way.
Though not the only ones to do so, the socially anxious will over think things in every direction of spacetime. So naturally it popped into my head at some point, that I could very well be doing those exercises and readings every day for the rest of my life. Another crutch! Well, I can’t have that. I want to just beeeeee freeeeeeee. I returned home for a month, then hoped in a car for a month-long moving/road-trip. Again, I was freeeeeeeee. Now, during this time I hadn’t given up on all mental exercises. I was defeating preposterous situations by ‘looking for evidence’ and the like, but everything I was doing was now based on memory. Any thought of needing to refresh my memory was defeated with the desire to ‘just live without that shit’ and that wasn’t really me, how are you being yourself if you need to prepare, like mental make-up for 30min a day? Okay, now I’m feeling a little miserable, but that’s the real me. That’s just the real world being real and me being real about it, don’t need so much of the overdone positive bullshit. CAN YOU SENSE THE SLIDE?
All of this kept up after the move. I lived alone because I couldn’t stand the idea of a roommate; I want all of my overpriced space. I played some pick-up sports but only made pick-up friends. I didn’t work for months because I thought I could find that job, the one that I didn’t know what it actually looked like or entailed. You know? That one! I did eventually get a job, for potentially a very silly reason, but that might (never) be a story for another day.
Three months into the move, my libido decided to fuck right off. For the previous two weeks it was firing on all cylinders, like I had only ever known maybe once before. Then it pull a Soze and just disappeared. You would think that would have really sent me down, but I was surprisingly apathetic about it. A failed sexual encounter was brushed off with a chuckle and a care-free attitude. I had recently read Siddhartha, I thought everything was just making sense. Eventually I sought a doctor, and aside from having no lust in my heart, I had no feelings anywhere else, either. “Excellent health and slightly-higher-but-still-normal levels of testosterone” were roughly precisely the words they said. “Oh, you used to drink and intimate sober interactions might terrify you? Why didn’t you anything before!? Sexual health psychologist it is!”. To be fair, I think I suggested that it was the sobriety, and having nothing else to go on the good doc jumped right on that.
Thanks to the wonders of socialized medicine (I’m actually really really thankful, I could not have afforded this otherwise) a quick 6 weeks months later I was sitting in front of a sexual dysfunction doctor and a sexual psychologist (I know this is not their proper titles). About halfway through the interrogation, the psychologist asked me, “Is this how you are, most of the time?”. “Yeah, I guess, I mean, mostly just…uh…meh,” in my characteristic monotone voice. They had their answer. I wasn’t depressed, but I was damn near close. This was depressing news. My low mood had killed everything.
Three weeks ago this happened, and while I’m slightly better now, as that news did not boost my spirits, I’m still sitting around a 4-5 most of the time. Maybe I couldn’t let myself be happy, and I had to slide back towards something I knew: the comforts of the pit/bed/dock. I knew I was sliding but I didn’t want to do what needed to be done. I bought new books, but they read exactly like the old books, which read exactly like something from the 90s or whatever. They don’t capture me. The Nerdist by Chris Hardwick got me through the early months, but like an old tire it’s been used so much it no longer has any tread. I applied for a PhD, which got my brain going, I still get out and enjoy nature, other shit good and bad is also happening, but I feel I’m already taking up too much of your time. If you’ve even made it this far.
If you have, and you’re sliding, grab onto something. Or someone. It’s quite easy to slide all the way down and lose all that work you put into yourself. One thing that keeps me from drinking is the fear of having to go through all those days again to get to this point. Now that prospect is starring me right in the eyes, impeding my mood recovery. I still want to be real and raw, but how much can I stand to sacrifice? Podcasts are a warm blanket, though on an episode of the Infinite Monkey Cage, a smart person mentioned a study that found that some depressed people were depressed simply because they had a more realistic view of what is often a fucked up world.
ANYHOW, this has been quite long. Tonight, write down 5 things that made you smile today and 5 things you’re grateful for. Do this every day. It might just tap your breaks enough.
Lost Without the Fog 