some how you found your way here. i assume (an unhealthy habit, one of many actually) that you are wondering who i am and why the hell i even have a blog to begin with. the straight forward answer is that i have no clue. i highly doubt that any of us know who we are. so existential, i know. bare (or is it bear) with me on this one, join me in this weird and never ending journey through sobriety and anxiety. sisters if you will, maybe frienemies or partners in crime, i haven’t quite figured it out yet. i started my journey toward recovery, healing finding myself, whatever you want to name it, in February 2022. the pandemic was lifting and i was left empty, uncomfortable, grasping. as an essential worker who worked through the pandemic, i served my neighbors, i feed people, i created supports to connect families to a sense of normalcy, i parented my child, i sustained my marriage, i my autoimmune disease, i stretched beyond my means. and i crashed. i didn’t know how to adjust to the “real world” the quite cliche “new normal”. i drank, an man o’ man did i drink. i ate like crap. i barely moved my body outside of work. i shopped. i grasped at any external thing i could to fill this feeling of straight up emptiness. i risked my health, and if i am feeling dramatic (which i am today) my life on the front lines during the first couple of weeks of lock down and after. and now, i was just supposed to move on. to resume business as usual. only i was not feeling usual. i was changed, forever (again i am feeling dramatic). does anyone else feel this way? added drama or not?
so, i checked myself into good old rehab. i didn’t spend months thinking about it. i admitted, finally, to my therapist and to my husband and to myself, that i was not okay. i spend a week hospitalized. i detoxed, if you’ve gone through it you know. if you haven’t, in short it sucks. it hurts both physically and mentally. it hurts spiritually. if you haven’t hit “rock bottom”, which i didn’t feel that i had, you see what it looks like in person. you meet and connect with people pulling themselves up from their worst. and if you’re lucky (or unlucky) enough, your eyes get truly opened. i saw my first overdose in rehab. a literal code blue, chest compressioned, stay with me now buddying, overdose. i cried all night in the locked wing of a hospital where i couldn’t even be trusted with a hair tie or drawstring pants.
me. a professional. a mother. a well educated person. couldn’t do it alone. neither could anyone around me. addiction is a great equalizer. it does not discriminate.
when i got out, i transitioned right into a day program and then a half day program. then i was transferred to a trauma program. and that’s where the work started. and here i am. 9 months sober and 9 months into my journey to figure out who i am. i quit my job. a job that i loved, to focus on my healing. i am fortunate to be able to make that decision. one that i honestly regret fairly often. when i get cocky and when i think for a moment that i have it all figured out. then i come to my senses.
i am doing the work. the work for me includes: meds to manage my addiction and my anxiety, yoga and meditation, weekly therapy (which i sometimes blow off) and forest bathing (i told you this gets a bit existential). i am continuing my journey in complementary therapies by finally finishing my meditation practitioner training and beginning certification as an addiction specialist with an emphasis on using yoga and movement to navigate the 12 steps. and I read, which i will share in another post.
while this journey will never end. as someone once said (i need to find the quote and will cite later) “You are not a problem to be solved, you are a paradox to manage” , i hope to come to a place where i am sufficiently managing my paradox. i think i am not alone, so we might as well talk about it.
so who am i and why do i have a blog? damned if i know.
awholemoodmke.com 