Staying with yourself

Sobriety every day:: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 6th 2022

In about 2 months, I will be 5 years sober.

I think I always knew I would make it here; I do have deep trust in myself. However, it still feels surreal to consider I’ve made it to almost (god willing) half a decade.

Most days, I still use a pretty AA method - I am like god, please help me stay one more day sober. Show me the way through today is my prayer. I can make it through today. We can always usually make it through today. Just today.

Thankfully, it’s been a few years now where today doesn’t seem so daunting. However, I was surprised to feel the ‘4-5 year wave’ addicts talk about last September where suddenly I really wanted benzo again.

It passed. But I was going through something intense emotionally with touching the deepest grief I have in my life. I could feel my true pain- the pain that made me start using Ativan in the first place - fully.

Of course, this was not new pain. I was not unaware of it at all. But through all the work I have done in the 9 years of healing I’ve dedicated myself to… I had reached its epicentre.

It was ecstatic.

It was liberating. I would have actually described it even as I was in the depth of it, as exciting. Sort of like I had heard about this thing - this phenomenon - for so long and finally I got to see it up close, after I had only seen photos of it.

It kind of felt like in 2017, when I went to the Grand Canyon for the first time. My partner and I woke up super early and left our hotel to drive from Flagstaff to the canyon. It was the crack of dawn, and the grass was a bit frosty but the air was warmer than the ground, so there was that condensation type fog in between both. It felt a bit like a fairy’s playground, the fog weaving their secrets between us as we walked to the car. And we were cold as hell. I remember he handed me tea or something warm. And he had made the car’s seat warm up for me before I got in. We talked quietly and listened to music and looked outside as we drove. It was like this build up of desperately wanting to see what it was going to be like up close and personal in me the entire way as rock formations around became deeper shades of red. And then we got to the Grand Canyon, it was so quiet and it felt much less cool than I thought because I had hyped it up in my head so much, and also, much much better than I thought, because it had unexpected bits I hadn’t considered like how quiet it was.

Each footstep I took felt so meaningful because I could fully hear its impact and connection with the ground. The ground was supporting me walking and I was like woah: I am so grateful for this ground. So grateful for my heart beat. So grateful for this being alive thing. The quiet let me feel all of that. There was nothing else taking up my attention.

Touching the epicenter of my pain for the first time in its complete entirety was much less climatic than I thought it was going to be, yet much better too because it had that unexpected thing I didn’t know was going to happen. And for me, that was just this complete relaxation and appreciation of who I am.

And also, it was messy and weird and I wanted to have a benzo sometimes. I imagine if I had stayed at the Grand Canyon for days, I would have gone a bit wild with all the quiet too.

So last Summer, as it turned into Fall a bit more each day, I would go to the lake every morning and watch the loons swim and sometimes, the beavers would be out swimming in a pair and the sun would glisten and I would breathe and stay with myself each time I wanted to leave.

And I wanted to leave a lot.

This is a nice version of when it’s slightly hard to stay with yourself. The weather was beautiful, and the air would not hurt my lungs when I inhaled and the exhale didn’t cause fumes around me because it was not -20 degrees for the 3rd month in a row like it is now.

So, sometimes, when you want to leave yourself, the conditions around us make it a bit easier to stay. There is more resource available.

There are also the times in the middle of the night where my heart is beating out of my chest with anxiety, and I am overstimulated and I don’t feel good in my body and I feel very sick and I want it to stop. There are the times in which I don’t know where I stand with my girlfriend and I don’t know what the future holds and I am terrified to be abandoned or not good enough or not chosen. There are the times in which I would rather just take an ativan than ask myself what I need and what I want and if my reality matches that right now or not instead of doing all the scary changes I need to make. There are the times in which my friend hurt my feelings and I feel awkward and annoying bringing it up, but it puts something in front of our connection that we both feel. Same if I hurt their feelings, and I am so anxious, I would like to take an ativan to get through it. When I haven’t felt heard or seen and I am feeling misunderstood and angry and not important, and I just want to give up being someone who cares for herself because what is the point of trying so hard? I swear in those moments, if I had benzo in my cupboard, I would fucking go and take it just to stop thinking. Those are the hard moments.

The times where my heart is broken and I am fearing being a total failure, and the times where my PMS is raging and I have insomnia and I am feeling scared and alone, those are the times where I have to keep reminding myself that the way through is to stay with myself. Sometimes, I have to say it loud in whispers and I say to myself as though I was a small child, “It’s okay, I will stay with you as long as you need. You’ll get to tell me when I can go. I am right here. I am right here.”

Sometimes, I have to break down staying with myself in 10 minute increments. I can stay for 10 more minutes. And then when those 10 minutes are up, I stay for 10 more. Sometimes, I pledge an hour. A few hours. And then I pledge today. I can get through today.

There is only today to get through. This is the path of sobriety every day.