Originally Posted by
chowchow 
I was feeling horribly anxious. Now I feel anxious sometimes and depressed other times. Was I really drinking to mask my feelings?
I did. I drank to mask my feelings. I didn't really have any past trauma to cover up. I just didn't like feeling anxious or depressed (or any other unpleasant emotion).
I somehow developed this notion that I was never supposed to feel anxious or depressed. That if I ever felt that way it meant something was wrong with me. That something needed to be fixed. And I had just the thing to fix it - a bottle of
feel good juice.
We all know how that goes...
In retrospect, I am not sure why I avoided ever feeling anything unpleasant. I much prefer the emotional variance I have now to the chemically numb blandness I had created for myself. Sure, not everything I feel is a giggle-inducing tickle. Some of it is uncomfortable. But the tickles are better now, and I giggle more often.
Hang tough and work through this.
Not all emotional discomfort is inappropriate.
You can do this.
