Who's there?

Sick with it. Things have changed a great deal since we last spoke, folks. The first thing is that, of course, I went to inpatient rehab at Sundown M Ranch, more or less on a whim. I came back from South Carolina and picked up right where I had left off of my career as a criminal; try as I might to resist the downward pull of my pathological gravity, it got the best of me. Have you ever hated yourself? I began to learn what that is like. I have spent my life convinced that I am the shit, and never really felt like I didn’t want to occupy my own skin at any point. Co-dependency, an ugly side effect of self hatred, is painful and mind-bending. What begins as love is twisted by self-loathing and insecurity, and a relationship between two people that may have once appeared to be something nurturing and functional (haha! My delusion may be strong yet) slowly begins to resemble the togetherness of, say, a man and his heroin. Now that I think of it, throughout my life I have used all things as a band-aid of sorts to avoid feeling my true feelings. Boredom, loneliness, what ever… drugs and people are a convenient escape for me. One of the things that treatment did for me the most was to teach me a little bit about what it’s like to care for another person. That subject is something mostly foreign to me, and I have come to realize that occupying my own head is probably a bad idea; so, in group, I borrowed other peoples’ heads instead. I wore their problems each day, twice a day, and helped them to navigate them. In this way, I helped make my own problems a little smaller and a little more realistic. With each moment I spent empathizing with a pain that was mercifully similar to—but alien enough to keep me working—my own, I learned a little more about the tools I needed to feel better about myself. Honesty was key, as well; the smallest lies would perch atop my mind and fester until I let them go, and my heart became lighter with each dishonesty that I made peace with. I found God, or at least, a “higher power.” I guess that the rush of joy and exhilaration that gave me is considered dangerous to newly rehabilitating addicts, because it is so easy to fall off of that high (so like others I have experienced in my life) and begin old behaviors anew when the disappointment of its passing arrives. It turns out that we don’t spend every day maniacally happy, at least not as real people. Problems happen, and when they do we have to work through them and feel the things that come along with them… Fellowship has been key for me, and I am learning that I need others in my situation to occupy my airspace in order to maintain a level head and stay away from substances. Everything that has conspired to bring me to this point, living in a brand new place (Yakima, WA) in a position that demands responsibility (Oxford house, looking for a job and mending my broken relationships), has been so profound and moving that I was frightened to even leave Sundown and explore the world that was waiting for me outside for fear of losing touch with those motivators. The person that I am becoming is so wonderfully different from the person that I was, and am, that I was afraid the universe would tell me it was just kidding.. can you dig it? ;P With the help of new friends and a (difficult at times) positive state of mind, I am learning to adapt. I am still in the infancy of my reform, but every day that passes brings me closer to this new thing that I am aspiring to be. More later.