Ties that bind
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Cary, NC
Posts: 715
Ties that bind
ESH –
Augie Turak – The biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves.
You ever get that feeling in your gut like something’s about to happen?
I have that feeling tonight. I’ve had it for about three hours, when I first entered Wal-Mart, saw an overweight guy wearing a flannel shirt, and thought as you are.
Sometimes it’s the simplest thing. That thought set off a chain reaction, and now I’m here.
As you are.
It’s so damn simple. I like to control things, things I have no business controlling, and people too. I like to think I have control because the illusion seems better than the alternative—crippling fear and the acknowledgement that at any moment, at any time, something could hurt me. Alcohol fed that illusion when I drank. Apparently, even without alcohol, the sentiment still exists.
Acceptance: that’s all it is. Let people be people and let things remain things and desiring for things to be any different than they are requires arrogance so profound and ego so large that I might as well think I’m god.
But that’s where the fear comes in. And something else too: if I accept others and the world, then I have to accept myself, I have to see myself stripped of all the delusions (however minor) and all the roles and all the self-concepts, like an actor without a costume just in plainclothes and without the safety of the roles that comes attached.
I have that feeling in my gut tonight because things are about to change.
I told myself the biggest lie I can tell—that I’m not okay. I like pain. Not the actual sensation but the role that comes with it. See, if I’m in pain, then I’m damaged, and if I’m damaged, then I need defenses. I need the wall. It separates me from others, from family and friends, and it keeps that illusion of safety. Alcohol solidified the wall but the wall exists in sobriety too, maybe even more so, because it’s the last defense I have left.
It’s a victim mentality, designed to protect me from future hurt.
One lady shared that her flaws were just defense mechanisms that stopped being useful. The wall is like that. I built it for a reason but at some point instead of keeping others out, it kept me in, and I never realized that the very thing I thought was saving my life was actually killing me, bit by bit, by keeping me in a box.
But it’s mine, you know? All this—the story, the role, the defense mechanism—exists up here in my head as a way of explaining who I am, and if it’s mine then I can do whatever the hell I want with it. It’s stopped being useful, so I can drop it. That’s my choice.
I am okay. But being okay means I can move forward, and that means I can be hurt again.
That’s okay too. Well, maybe not okay. But it’s all there is.
Thanks for letting me share.
Augie Turak – The biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves.
You ever get that feeling in your gut like something’s about to happen?
I have that feeling tonight. I’ve had it for about three hours, when I first entered Wal-Mart, saw an overweight guy wearing a flannel shirt, and thought as you are.
Sometimes it’s the simplest thing. That thought set off a chain reaction, and now I’m here.
As you are.
It’s so damn simple. I like to control things, things I have no business controlling, and people too. I like to think I have control because the illusion seems better than the alternative—crippling fear and the acknowledgement that at any moment, at any time, something could hurt me. Alcohol fed that illusion when I drank. Apparently, even without alcohol, the sentiment still exists.
Acceptance: that’s all it is. Let people be people and let things remain things and desiring for things to be any different than they are requires arrogance so profound and ego so large that I might as well think I’m god.
But that’s where the fear comes in. And something else too: if I accept others and the world, then I have to accept myself, I have to see myself stripped of all the delusions (however minor) and all the roles and all the self-concepts, like an actor without a costume just in plainclothes and without the safety of the roles that comes attached.
I have that feeling in my gut tonight because things are about to change.
I told myself the biggest lie I can tell—that I’m not okay. I like pain. Not the actual sensation but the role that comes with it. See, if I’m in pain, then I’m damaged, and if I’m damaged, then I need defenses. I need the wall. It separates me from others, from family and friends, and it keeps that illusion of safety. Alcohol solidified the wall but the wall exists in sobriety too, maybe even more so, because it’s the last defense I have left.
It’s a victim mentality, designed to protect me from future hurt.
One lady shared that her flaws were just defense mechanisms that stopped being useful. The wall is like that. I built it for a reason but at some point instead of keeping others out, it kept me in, and I never realized that the very thing I thought was saving my life was actually killing me, bit by bit, by keeping me in a box.
But it’s mine, you know? All this—the story, the role, the defense mechanism—exists up here in my head as a way of explaining who I am, and if it’s mine then I can do whatever the hell I want with it. It’s stopped being useful, so I can drop it. That’s my choice.
I am okay. But being okay means I can move forward, and that means I can be hurt again.
That’s okay too. Well, maybe not okay. But it’s all there is.
Thanks for letting me share.
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Mississippi
Posts: 7,910
Thanks, Draciack - those are some deep thoughts! I think if we all stopped to look at our innermost thoughts, we'd find a lot of fear, defences, ego, etc..... Somehow (even those of us who claim to be positive and have a deep faith) actually don't live in the world as though that faith/positivity were real. We're desperate not to lose anyone or get sick or be hurt. We plot and plan to avoid it. I know I do.
I think, though, that underneath all that fear in everyone, there's a whole world of love. A book (called A Course in Miracles) says something like this: Your task is not to seek for Love, but to work to remove the barriers to It's presence.
So chances are, we are much greater and more wonderful than even we know, and that love is all around us all the time, too.....
I know I used alcohol to not have to think about all the scary stuff (and my own brain - which is scary enough!). But you know, it's not so bad facing life now, because the joy is there, too. It wasn't there when I was drinking.
I don't know if I'm making any sense, but I just wanted to tell you that your post got me thinking, friend!! (My mom used to say "you think too much" but sometimes you just can't help it, haha!)
I think, though, that underneath all that fear in everyone, there's a whole world of love. A book (called A Course in Miracles) says something like this: Your task is not to seek for Love, but to work to remove the barriers to It's presence.
So chances are, we are much greater and more wonderful than even we know, and that love is all around us all the time, too.....
I know I used alcohol to not have to think about all the scary stuff (and my own brain - which is scary enough!). But you know, it's not so bad facing life now, because the joy is there, too. It wasn't there when I was drinking.
I don't know if I'm making any sense, but I just wanted to tell you that your post got me thinking, friend!! (My mom used to say "you think too much" but sometimes you just can't help it, haha!)
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
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I know I used alcohol to not have to think about all the scary stuff (and my own brain - which is scary enough!). But you know, it's not so bad facing life now, because the joy is there, too. It wasn't there when I was drinking.
D
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