Bottoms Up

Ouch.  I ache today.  Struggling with getting moving.  Depression seems to be at the forefront of my every activity.  Yet and still, we must keep on going.  Depression, pain and anxiety - three things that I have to overcome on a daily basis.  I would seem like the anxiety would help motivate the depression, but it seems to just uptake the thoughts of depression.  Some days are better than others, granted.  I suppose it is like this with most life.  I find that in prayer, I don't experience the symptoms as much - so is that this answer?  One is to be in prayer at all times?

I know that I work very diligently to be the best version of me that I can be on a daily basis.  I find solace in this that no one knows me like I do, and God.  Yet - this does not let me off the hook.  I guess I have such a internal drive, some folks call this perfectionism - I like to call it perseverance.  I've been through a great deal in life - most of it not good.  However, it propels me to move forward.  I always try to go forward, this is what faith is the substance of, to me.  Giving up is not my option.

My volunteer boss asked me yesterday what had brought me to the bottom in my life ten years ago - and I shared that with her - and it made me think.  My memory is not the best, but I do recall becoming reclusive.  I spent five years in my apartment.  I had just shut myself off from the world.  When I lost my career - I lost hope.  I had been so involved with life, and then the pain set in.  Inescapable pain. Pain that was there morning, noon and night.  The only thing that relieved it was sleep. So this was the relief that I sought.  I was on so much medication, that I passed out multiple times during the day.  I could not stay awake to save my life.  I have found myself in the middle of the road - the median, burned everything I owned because of cigarettes - I have even caught  my hair on fire.  Life was a foggy mess at best.  My parents and friends were exceedingly worried, frustrated, and livid at times.  I - as out of touch with life as I could be - and wanted to be - I did not fully comprehend - nor did I even want to.  Between the medication, the pain, the depression - and the loss of my life as I knew it - I crawled into a big hole.  People don't understand pain unless they go through it, nor addiction.  Never in your life do you want something to stop (the pain) and it won't and meds don't always help.  They numb the mind, and the ability to reason,  yet heighten feelings of pleasure per the receptor sites in the brain - and in all reality, who would not want to do more when you hurt 24/7?  What did I have to loose -- or at least this is what my numbed mind would ask me.  It is amazing how the ego gets involved... in the state of denial.  It is what tells you no one knows anything but YOU.  That is how the ego works.  In all things.  When we are 'dead set' on something - the ego is involved.  Which is what makes denial so difficult to deal with.  Trust me counselors know.  Ninety percent of our energy deals with denial of our clientele.  Yet the amazing thing is, when it's yours, you don't see it.  This is how the disease of addiction works, and works so well.  It roots itself in the brain like the worst weed you've ever known.  Mine had worked itself all the way down my tailbone.

I'm not sure how I came out of this because of my loss of memory.  To this day I do know that it had to be with  AA - God's grace and His miracles.  Here I sit, and able to take medication like a normal human.  I will not say that it is always easy on the days I really hurt.  It took being on the 'other side of the fence', I suppose to learn such an invaluable lesson.  More isn't alway better.  It took an addicts fight, and I don't mean a power fight, I had to surrender - for we surrender to win.  I am actually very powerless over my addiction.  If I do not surrender to it basically on a daily basis - and know from which God has delivered me - and watch my ego - I'll land right back where I started from.  Therein us lies that thought that we all know better than anyone else.  Yet, a wise man knows better.  The wise know that two heads are better than one, and diversity really makes the world go around.  I keep my ego in check for it will destroy me if I don't.  Addiction isn't simple... not at all.  Most folks think they understand it, but they really don't.  They think they do because our minds tell us we're in control of everything.  WE are NOT.  Control is an illusion.  Else why would people worry so much?  This is an addiction all in of itself.  Most are powerless over it.  I find peace today.  I know that I am in control of very little.  I like it this way.  It makes my list of to do things... a whole lot smaller - and it allows me to interact with the world that I just observe.  It's a pretty cool observation.  People are quite interesting.  Especially on those days when I'm "good" and I can go through life as if I were watching it sitting on a rocking chair from my front porch.  Neither of which do I have, but as I activate my mind... I can do.  There is a lot less stress this way.  All you have to do, is what is in front of you, be kind to folks, and accomplish what's important - even if you ache, are depressed, anxious and it rains.