Lenina

(((((Cow))))) you ARE a part of our little family here on SR. I am grateful to this group!

I fully understand the performance. I have to do the same many times. In my life. People expect w certain personality from me. lately, I've been figuring this the performance must come from somewhere. I thnk maybe it IS the true me that somehow manages to arise for the depths. Sheesh, I'm 62! I"m starting to feel like all the years of feeling like shell, well, maybe that's a bud of my real self starting to bloom. I don't know. I'm meditating on this. I've been mostly sober since 1986. I had a few brief relapses, slips over that time. Eqch time I died a bit more inside.

Anywqy, I have 7 consecutive years of sobriety on December 1. most I've had was eleven years. This time, I know the insanity is over. I can't/won't go back there again, I am convinced it is over, does NOT work, only makes me worse.

So, I hope you can find some enjoyment in the day, in our friendship, in our mutual quest for the peace of mind.

You ALL mean so much to me.

Love from CAL. Aka Crazy Assed Lenina.

Cow

SJ, is you just now meeting you husband family??? You came to AZ for holiday, yes?

Lenina

SJ. I am so very grateful my MIL is mid-country away from me and the rest of my family is either dead, too far away or so trapped in their religious delusions I don't have to visit with them. (seems they think I'm burning in hell already) I do have nostalgia of the better times when we all gathered. My family WAS very funny back then. no one drank at our gatherings out or respect to my dear Baptist grandma. She was not one of those Political Christians. I think she believed in the teachings of Jesus about not being judgmental and helping the poor. Unlike the new and better version the cousins have embraced.

oh well. I am grateful I have friends who I love, who love me back and how we support each other.

love from Lenina

Cow

CAL, oh how I remember when it was TOTAL GONNA BE OVER at 30 at 35 at 40 and now I closing in on 50. I not call it insanity anymore, is just brain disorder, whether for you is more neurological, psychological, emotional, or physiological, what it matter? Nobody would actively choose to endure such a life, yes?

I think I have most of life over compensate for being Zombie Borg by using my intellect and wit to be interesting and funny. It work, cuz all peoples remember is that I interesting and funny. Tonight, nobody gonna notice that I never smile or laugh. But inside, that performance exhausting and lonely to me. I do think is balance somewheres. I long for day I can just be natural mixture of smart comic Cow and thoughtful melancholy Cow. CAL

Soberpotamus

Cow, you don't have to be someone else's "show" you know? Just saying...

Soberpotamus

You could be describing my family and how it feels for me The nostalgia for what it was like as a child... then, the craziness, and now they all think I'm the deserter and burning in hell. Lmao.

Soberpotamus

Nope, sitting my butt at home with my cats and dog. Brian took the other dog and went to see his family.

I've met them already, met them before we married. I visited them for about a year or so before I couldn't deal with his mom's insults and cattiness anymore. It's just not my style to be catty and I honestly felt like ripping her throat out many times. She is unimaginably rude. He said she's always been like that... and I was just in disbelief. How in the world did her husband think to enable that behavior??? I don't get it. I could get detailed but I'll spare you all.

Soberpotamus

Here, Cow: http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-sobriety.html

Cow

But sometime you do SJ. I has couple friend I can always be honest with. But to develop, sustain, retain most friendship, you can no just be sad, disengage, check out, zombie borg all the time. Who want to hang out with that? Not ME!

FYI, at this same Thanksgiving party 2 year ago, I does come clean during dinner to everyone that I very ill and in very bad place with my addictions, but I so glad to be with them tonight. Was longest pause ever. Couple people hug me. Put total put stop to laughs and merriment. Then somebody make toast to my get better and evening go on. Couple people come up to me later and say, is anything I can does for you? Well ...no.

So I not ever do that to them again. I would choose to stay home than to does that to them again. Is always tough call. Is 3PM and I still deciding! I has nothing in tank today. It gonna be painful to go, but, if I may, I also afraid to lose my place at table, just in case, one day, I well enough and alive enough to enjoy it. Cuz it look like so much fun. I want to keep my spot open, you know?

Hawkeye13

Go and keep your place.
You never know. . .

((((((((Cow))))))))

Cow

Yes, I will. Hawk, how you doing? Really? Any movement in you anhedonic world? Next up I maybe gonna try Kratom.

BackToSquareOne

Just wanted to wish everyone in the adopted Cow family a happy Thanksgiving. Thought I'd share something unexpected that happened this morning. I was outside with the smow blower when I noticed a cat making its way through the snow from the wooded area behind my house. Good Lord I thought, that looks just like Fluffy.

Fluffy was a small long hair female that was born in the house. In her 7 years she was never out of the house, she never tried to sneak out. The last week of August she just vanished without a trace. We searched the house, walked the neighborhood, asked the neighbors if anyone had seen her, even filed a report with the SPCA on the off chance someone found her and turned her in.

As the weeks turned into months we kind of gave up any hope as to the fate of Fluffy. My thoughts were that because she had never been out of the house she could have wandered off and not have been able to find her way back. I guess it will always remain a mystery as to how she spent the last 3 months. It was a very welcome reunion!

Hawkeye13

Thanks for asking Cow--
Still the same really in terms of flat affect but I'm enjoying
not being depressed / sad like I was a month ago.

I truly relate to what you are saying about being in a group and acting
on cue. I had lunch with some new workmates yesterday and even though
I like them all, and we were all doing very well on a hiring project (in total agreement about who to invite for a campus interview which is a rare thing among academics)

They were laughing and talking and making jokes, and I was making jokes
and making them laugh but not feeling it as usual. I'm actually the "funny" person in our department and I kind of enjoy the irony of that.

Anyway, I am thinking about some of the nootropics or something else to try. I am surprisingly peaceful but I think that's just a contrast to all the chaos and crap I come from and also what I generated myself when drinking towards the end.

Maybe this is what "normal" is Cow. Maybe just going through the day and not hurting. I really don't know.

Anyway, I'm glad you and our other family members are here to share

Soberpotamus

B2S1 - wow, what a heartwarming story!! So happy for you and Fluffy!

Hawkeye13

Me too

Cow

... Well, I didn't go.

My brother and his girlfriend show up to pick me up, and they so happy and buoyant and alive, and I know when I open the door, that I not up for this. Then she mention, total innocent, how she be happy to come over and dust for me, and I just start bawling. She think it because of her comment, but it really just hit me, in my heart, that is not possible I can "get it up" for this party.

My somewhat caring but stoic brother is sit there like "WTF is I suppose to do?!" So we talk for awhile about how they can no possible leave me like this, and I tells them, what you gonna do, sit here and watch me cry and leave Jen with 3 empty places at her beautiful table! That make me feel worse! So eventual they leave.

Honest, I relieved. But I still crying. Is one more thing I use to love that I not can connect to anymore and make my life smaller.

Hawkeye13

I'm so sorry Cow

We are here for you

Dee74

Cow

D

Cow

I not sure what is right thing. Is you guys force you selfs to do stuff when you REALLY dead and low, or does you just be honest that you simply no up for it. This is first time in decade I miss this event. So, in one way, is like yet other last strand of life that slip through my fingers, but in other way, is like first time I just says, no, I not really feel I can do this. However, if I says no I not can do this about last vestige of thing I have always like to do, then what is to be left of me. OMG, I so confuse again.

Soberpotamus

I've been sober now for about twenty months, Cow, and during that time I decided I would not make myself do things that stress me out too much, if at all possible. I drew the line in the sand and have pretty much allowed myself room to veg out most of the time. I did the minimum necessary to get by, as far as cleaning, work, taking care of husband and animals... so I haven't forced myself to go out and be social very often. I make it to the dentist, the orthodontist, minimal shopping, some meetings here and there, my volunteer work at the women's shelter. I've visited my dad and granddad maybe once in the past twenty months. I kayaked and visited with a close friend a handful of times in the past year.

I did this because I wanted to minimize the chances of any overwhelming urges to drink.

At the most, I've felt guilt for not calling my dad and grandad more, and for not accompanying my husband to his family gatherings. But... on the other hand, had I gone to visit them, it would've only been out of sense of obligation. I didn't WANT to see them.

So, if nothing else, I was able to discern maybe for the first time in my adult life, the difference between what it feels like to have a duty or obligation vs. a guilt trip. And they are exquisitely enmeshed, lol.