Special and different.

[Africa Life]

Thats a phrase that I hear in the rooms.

This feeling of being invincible and not hearing what other people have to say about the stumbling blocks - warnings that dont apply to me.

I am an individual and unique. I wont listen to what you have to say unless its what I want to hear.

Then I ran out of sympathetic ears to hear me and I had to listen very hard to what that in itself was saying to me about where my behaviour had led me.

Then I got myself to the rooms and I sat there thinking about how extreme my case was in comparison to all the other addicts there - in fact some of them werent even real addicts by my book.

I didnt want to have to ask one of those people for help or friendship but I kept going back.

I judge the people in the rooms for being addicts. I judge myself for being an addict. How could something like that happen to me? I thought I was invincible. My way was going to get me to where I wanted to be. The easy way, the pain free way, the free way. On that road I found insanity, terror, mistrust in humanity, the pain of family telling me to go away and never return (who would I turn to now when I was really hurting and I mean really, really hurting).

I am still sore and I am clean for over 9 months. I suppose it will take years for me to recover.

I dont want to be who I was but the struggle of always trying to be something better is exhausting. Some times I feel trapped in my head thinking myself better but my actions dont feel all that different to those I was making 6 months ago. I dont feel like change is happening and so I try to whip myself into shape. I am starting to feel shredded by my thinking and sometimes I feel that I choose an opinion just to dissasemble that opinion as judgemental and not grounded in any reality other than my momentary perception of that thing/person/situation.

I am not sure if I am still a bit delusional and that is why its so difficult to tell right from wrong but that doesnt stop me from judging everything that crosses my path. There is no comfort there and I know that.

I am trying to find the balance and am blending into society - that feels safe and then I get moments of panic that I am no longer an individual and punish myself for being the sheep that I loath. Society has been known to be wrong too.

I feel like I am panicking in small doses - dying small deaths of the ego and am not sure what purpose this will serve. I feel subserviant to the point of losing my identity then when I make a stand for anything I can see immediately afterwards how wrong I was. I just need to hold my peace until I gain some wisdom again.

God help me.

I feel like a push me pull you with no resolution.

I should sign off now because seeing this turmoil in myself makes me scared and then I feel pity for myself. Something that has never happened before and I dont know if it has a place so I put it aside and hope that something will give.

I will keep fighting for myself and then on Monday when I read what I have written now I will probably hate myself for being like this and will delete it.

Thanks for letting me share

[best]

But you are Special and different.
The same as all the rest of us.
Because we are the same...Special and different...we can share what works for us and others that are just as unique as we are will find that the same things that worked for others will work for us.
6 months and still feeling it. Are you working the steps with a sponsor?
Some see the changes right around 6 months. They may have been happening all along but we don't see them ourself the same way others would. The changes do happen, we are the last ones to see them. By a year's time just about every one of us would see them for ourself.

It is said... Don't give up before the miracle happens.

It will and you will see it and then be able to look back and see all the changes of the pasts months.
Stay the course...it does get easier.

[barb dwyer]

WQe are, each of us, unique individuals.
And yet at the same time - we are Spiritual Beings manifest here for an Earthly experience.

Human beings are the only species who do not know their place in this world.
And we can only learn it -
by Coming Together.
By experiecing each other.

It's one thing to take delight in being uniquely yourself...

and quite another to be the type or person who demands that everyone stop what theyre' doing to notice it.

It's a balance learned over time and probably never quite perfected.

Some of that 'joy is in the journey' stuff you hear about.

Humility is not 'humiliation'.
People mess that up all the time.

Humility ... is the capacity to stand in quiet acceptance of one's self - worth.
Really, that's all it is.

It's a learned behavior.

I found you post to be quite self - aware.
I suspect - you've come a lot farther than perhaps you realize.

[ananda]

My heart goes out to you. I have found that each of us is unique and also the same at the same time. I have to learn how to live within that paradox. Alot of sobriety for me has been learning to live with 2 total opposites both being true at the same time.

I too have no interest in being a sheep. What I am learning is to be "respectful" of forms, make my choices and pick those times that I need to go outside the form carefully. This is probably a little too out there!

I no longer feel bound to conform or to not conform. I am unique and the same. (ok - not always....but alot more as I stay sober)

[lilbit]

YOU are a POWERFUL ADDICT! Chin up!

[Paulie]

I dont want to be who I was but the struggle of always trying to be something better is exhausting.

Stop trying, just live in today and trust in your HP.

You sound like me.....I always want to make it more difficult than it really is.