Blog entry for:

and actually commenced on my recovery journey, one of the questions that kept popping up was: why do i feel so badly about myself so much of the time? in reality, in active addiction, this was not an issue, as i never allowed myself to feel badly about who i was. it certainly was one of those out of sight out of mind, sort of things, and when it appeared it might just come up, well there was a cure for that by putting my hand in the medicine jar. it was only after i chose to stop using and found myself in a state of mere abstinence that this became an issue. even then, however, a pint of Ben and Jerry's, or a bit of retail therapy, quelled those troublesome questions for a little while. one of the gifts of finally coming to accept that i needed recovery, was the opportunity to finally take a peek at this question and move along.
today, sitting here a few days clean, i know that i felt bad about myself, because i could never be myself. under the weight of the lie that i was too broken to be seen in public, i lost who i was and what was truly important to me as a person. i lost the ability to trust anyone and to form any sort of relationships. living alone, i told myself that was just the way it has to be, after all … i may not have totally sussed out who i am and what makes me, me, BUT, i no longer am willing to consciously treat myself badly and when i start down that road, i have to take a breath and pause, to figure out what exactly is going on with me, and it is seldomly what i think it might be.
as i approach my clean date anniversary, i feel more confident knowing that i have never been hopelessly bad, nor too broken to be seen in public. listening to the men who call me their sponsor, i hear similar echoes of being less worth than those around them or needing to have external things and relationships to make themselves look better in their own eyes. i know where that leads as i have been there, done that and have more than one T-shirt. i know that for me, until i let go of what i thought others were thinking of me, i would never be freed from the desire to be all things to all people, playing “parts” on the stage of life, is certainly different than living a life as me, myself and i. living in the here and now is not as tough as it once was, but it still takes some work. living as myself in the here and now, is more than a bit tricky, but well worth the effort, just for today.

∞ DT ∞