Two!

Friday, January 2013 was my 2 year AA birthday.  I am very relaxed for the most part.  I did have to quit playing a game that I love but that I was using to escape my life.  But that was okay.  I don't need it.  What I do need is serenity.  Peace.  Patience.  And slowly, I'm getting it.  It just took me a little while to find the way to get it.  Guess what it is?  WORK!  Work my butt off.  Do the steps.  It has really helped me to get where I need to be.  I am not always able to hang on to it, but I'm able to find it more easily and more quickly.  Someone said to me on Friday that sobriety looks good on me.  I think so too. :)

WOW!

SO, I just figured out that I am such a dork!  I couldn't get into my blog and it was because I was trying to sign in under the wrong email address.  I really need to change things so I have one email address, because apparently 40 is getting to me!   Thanks to David Kutcher who helped me figure it out.  :)

On to the post!  So, 10 days ago, I turned 40, and I'm loving it!  I just feel this total sense of self, it's so awesome.  I just feel like I know what I want, I know where I'm going, etc.  I know that probably sounds weird, but it is what it is...

On Jan 11, 2013, I will have two years sobriety under my belt.  It's so cool to know that I don't have to be afraid to feel, and I don't have to turn my feelings into anger.  I'm still a long way from well, but I'm different from what I used to be...

Even with whatever flu/illness I've got going on, I am happy, I feel good (though not so much physically today) and I love my kids.  Anyway, I feel like I just can deal with what I have now, that I have the tools to continue on.  :)  If you think you have a problem with alcohol or substance abuse, I recommend going to AA.  There are people there who can help you!  :)

Autism speaks? At my house it screams.

I'd love to sit here and write a post about what happened between 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. from the time my 15 y/o autistic super hero got home from high school, til the time I got home.

I'd love to tell you about the raging, screaming, swearing tantrum (oh, sorry, I'm not allowed to call it a tantrum, I'm supposed to call it a melt down, despite the fact that it's a big effing tantrum) and the two broken picture frames he threw.

But I can't, because I have glass to clean up, and two autistic littles fighting.  Sometimes my life really sucks.

Drowning...

A month ago, I checked myself into a mental health facility to get myself a medication adjustment that needed to happen immediately.  I have been suffering from sever, debilitating depression since last May when my medication abruptly stopped working one day.  (It probably wasn't all that abrupt, but that's how it felt to me.)  So now, I struggle to figure out which issues belong to my alcoholic/addicted brain, and which issues belong to my depression and bipolar.

Then, in addition to this, my husband's ridiculous travel schedule.  I can't think straight, I'm agitated all the time. I don't feel normal.  I feel like I'm going to explode.  AND in addition to all of that, I feel completely ignored by him.  He tells me I'm not alone, but he acts like I'm not here, except to come in and ask me what my thoughts are for dinner.  I feel like telling him his head on a platter is what's for dinner.  I am left with screaming, fighting, autistic kids, most of whom have no way of self regulation.  I can barely function, yet I should know what we're having for dinner.  I can't even find clean underwear so I can shower most of the time.  This medication I am taking is fine, except for the dosage increase has left me feeling irritable, unable to concentrate, shaky, and mildly psychotic.  I am SO sick of having a couple of moments of peace here or there.  I am out of control, because I have no control.  I should just let my kids do whatever the hell they want whenever they want, so that they can be criminals.  And I have NO help, because my husband is ALWAYS gone.  And when he is here, I'm never doing it right.  There's always an issue with something I've done.

I give up.  It's NEVER EVER going to be good enough, right.  I'll never BE enough, worth enough, worthy enough.  I was in that psych ward with a crazy woman who kept praying, "Dear God, please take my life." Over and over.  She just kept repeating it.  It freaked me out.  But you know what?  I GET IT.  Because I know what it feels like to be irreparably broken.  To be in so many pieces that I cannot heal.  I sit and think about ways to die.  Which ones would be easy/painless.  I can't shoot myself, I don't have a gun, and I don't want anyone to find me like that.  If I took a bunch of pills when I went to bed... I could just go to sleep, and die.  I think about going to the lake and floating it after I take pills, but if/when they found my body, it would be nasty looking, and I wouldn't want to leave that image either...  I just don't know how much more of this I can take.  Between this and the fucking clique in our AA group, that CLEARLY is all in my head, NOT.  They go to LUNCH together, and if I get to go, it's because I happened to overhear and invite myself.  They all went fishing, and it was NEVER announced at group level, people were just talking about it.  Well, it's not polite to butt in and say, "Hey, I want to come."  They're all camping this week.  Good for them.  But it fucking hurts, and I am sick of feeling like I'm in high school.  SO, it's time to graduate, kids.  Grow the FUCK UP.  It's ridiculous for people in their 50s and 60s to act this way.  Time for me to find another group, I think.

OK, that's it for me.

Fifteen

I took my oldest son to the pediatrician today.  He will be 15 years old tomorrow.  Everything seemed fine, until the doctor mentioned that my son has only grown 1.5 inches in 18 months.  He's not progressing through puberty like he should be.  SO, I had to take him to the hospital for a blood draw, where they are checking testosterone levels, among other things.  And they took an x-ray of his hand to compare to other x-rays, to see his "growth age".   I am trying not to be freaked out about this.  But it's hard not to.  I was planning on an uneventful well check for him.  Especially with everything else going on.  My life feels like it's just falling apart.  I'm just going to put my trust in God that He will take care of things, and handle them the way they need to be handled.  Sometimes that is easier said than done.

Isolated

I don't remember a time as an adult when I've felt so isolated and misunderstood. I am utterly alone. I'm not sure that I'm any better now than I was when I got sober. I feel like shit. And I don't know how much of it to attribute to my depression, and how much of it is me being crazy, and how much I can lay at the feet of others and say, "Here. this is yours and I won't carry it for you any more." My husband has barely spoken to me, talked to me or touched me since he came home Thursday night. So I've been largely ignored while I go through some pretty difficult AA related crap. But then when I decide I need to go to a meeting this morning, I get the third degree, am I ok, etc, because he's worried. Well, then I'm just pissed off, because he has hardly spoken to me for two days and he wants to be worried. I just want to go to my meeting without feeling GUILT! Is that really too much to ask? I have been trying so hard to do what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm reading the big book, I'm reading my scriptures every night, and I have been for months now. I need help, and I'm starting to think that the help I need isn't on this earth. It's not getting any easier, only harder, and sometimes I feel like giving up. Like maybe everyone would just be better off if I used. Because I may not have been involved then, but I wasn't screaming and swearing, etc. my stress/anxiety level is through the roof. But heaven forbid you take any anxiety medication, because according to people in the program, that's just a cocktail in a capsule. Well, guess what? My sponsor and I discuss when I need to take them. That means if you aren't my doctor or my sponsor, you get no opinion. I just don't know what to do anymore. I keep praying for God to help me and I get a tiny bit of comprehension here or there but it doesn't last for more than a couple minutes. Then I'm back to where I started. I think i might just be better off if I died. Because I just can't take this much longer. It is no way to live, not for me, not for my kids... I just don't know what to do.

Feelings....

Today, I went to a meeting.  I know, I know, I said I wasn't going to do that anymore.  But God has a way of gently pushing me to do things I need to do.  There is a wise woman I know who tells me almost every day that I get to make a choice about what kind of day I'm going to have.  So at noon when she told me that, I said, "OH, yeah.  I think I'll change my mind about the choice I made this morning.  It's time to start over."  And that's the great thing about my life today.  I can start my day over at any time I choose!

Today's meeting topic was resentment.  HA!  How ironic is that?  And the last sentence in the reading was that we couldn't afford to hold on to resentments.  Absolutely.  It reminded me of something my dear friend Sherri told me once.  "Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die from it."  And she's right.  So right now, I am feeling very quiet.  That was not so much the case earlier.  I don't like to hurt people, and if I've done something that hurts someone else, I want to fix it.  But if that person has to hold on to it, I can't do anything about it.

I have no control of people, places, and things.  I need to exercise restraint of tongue and pen (and type) *giggle*.  And I need to say a LOT of the serenity prayer.  "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."