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bus pants

I'm in recovery. Recovery. Like what people have to do after surgery. I think I know what that feels like. I feel like a huge chunk of my soul got ripped out and someone tried to sew it back in with dirty dental floss. Like I tried to sew it back myself when I was blind and covered in shit. There are definitely soul pieces of me floating out there in the universe. It's hard hard work putting yourself back together after such a long hard fall. But, it's not the fall that hurts you. It's the landing. Humpty Dumpty style cracking up. All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't do fuckall for me.

I realize now, looking back (looking back and being clean), that I was heading for a manic episode on Sunday. And adding all that booze was like throwing napalm into a bonfire. I had way too much energy at work that day. It was pretty busy, but I wasn't tired. I was smiling. To most people, I probably looked what they call “happy”. When my husband told me he found all that cash and gift card on the ground, he got pretty excited. It's pretty fucking awesome. But his excitement just made me even more wound up. Just up. And up. And up.

I don't have truly manic episodes very often. Usually I land on the depressive side of the scale. At worst I get hypomania. Yet, I am so beyond used to what they call “rapid cycling”. I don't know if it's gotten worse as I have gotten older, or I am just getting used to it. But I think my “up” usually doesn't go over a certain line. Often, I can go pretty far up and pretty far down even in just one day. Those days, it's like riding a roller coaster. But on Sunday it was like when the cars got to the top of the drop, I jumped out and somehow flew into the sun. There was not that familiar downswing that gets me in the pit of my stomach and brings me down to earth. I still do not have that. I'm still floating a little bit.

I don't know how one can hit rock bottom but still be floating. It's contradictory, but that's just how it is.

I still have more energy than I should. Just by writing online so much, it's proof. I feel like I've been beaten with a sock full of batteries, but I'm not feeling it yet. I'm more positive than I should be. We have gone out several times this week. Rode the bus. Went places we never go. Dealt with strangers. Usually these things would make me anxious, if not give me an anxiety attack. But I'm OK.

That means I am not OK.

But I have to be OK.

It feels really good to finally have that weight off my back. That weight of “when will I stop drinking?” It was haunting me. Waiting for me behind corners. Stalking me. It's a relief to just have it over with. I have always known that if I started drinking, it would end badly. I felt it in my bones. It's in my blood. Literally.

I feel like people are laughing at me. Rolling their eyes. People don't understand because it's just booze. It's not meth or heroin. But for me, alcohol IS my heroin. This is the thing that I can't tolerate. That will ruin my life if I let it. Just because they can go out for a few beers at happy hour and leave it at that, they don't understand why I am making such a big deal.

I asked for help years ago. Told head shrinkers I had a drinking problem. They poo-pooed everything I said. Just because they have dealt with the most extreme of the extreme doesn't mean my problems should be reduced to “no big deal.” Rejection from the system, how the fuck could that not make matters worse for me?

I feel fortunate that my husband is a crazy person too. When he went psychotic a few weeks ago, I could see how easily that could have been me. It was hell dealing with it, with him, with the situation. But I knew it would pass. And I knew. Really knew. It could have been me. I kept trying to think how I would want to be treated when I finally crossed that line. I think maybe he understood when my time came too.

I just didn't realize that it would be so soon. I think having to deal with his episode could be part of why I had one of my own. Two un-medicated Schizoaffectives living together can be volatile.

But to be honest, I would rather deal with the occasional psychotic episode than deal with the daily side-effects and sickness of the “treatment”. Maybe that really does mean I'm crazy and there is no hope. But I can't stand to see my husband so doped up he sleeps 12 hours a day and has no inspiration to do anything he cares about. Get fat. Lazy. Slow. Stupid.

So we self medicated with booze and we made mistakes and got fat lazy slow stupid uninspired sick crazier. Crazier. Crazier.

I know I can feel better. Do better. Be better. Be the person I am supposed to be. I was getting there when I was younger, then life turned to chicken in a biscuit.

I think people who know me from then miss me too. How could they not? I miss me too.

I'm an addict. I'm crazy. And I'm not going to let that be the end of it.

4:54 PM - Thursday, Nov. 09, 2017

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