ah1979

okay guys...this feels bad. i just started reading about acoa a few weeks ago. i have been sober for a little over 2 and a half years but just felt like something was missing. i came across the acoa info and it really hit home. but now i feel like i am coming completely unglued. while i have felt like something was wrong for awhile i have been able to trudge through life by wearing my many masks. i have felt confused, fraudulant, and empty. however, i have beaten off depression for over a year as opposed to the 6 months i usually maintain. but now i just feel crazy. ever since i picked up that book and started reading nothing has been right. i am nervous/anxious, i have bad thoughts and i just want to sleep and avoid it all. i dont know how to make it stop and it is really scaring me. this isn't like me at all and i just want things to go back to the way they were. i would rather be empty than crazy.

utopia

change is scary, we cling to the past even when its empty or painful becuase it is comfortable and because we can control the situation, masters of pain, its terryfyong to be in a land of happiness without our mock powers we know to use so well. meetings at alanonbreak down isolation, hae ppl who wont judge you and support you. you cant 'beat' depression, life is not a war though i once thought so. that thing thats missing will be found and peace of mind can be realised, it takes patience trust and courage to change but you can do it, your posting is the first step, you can be happy and complete within yourself.
toby

ah1979

thanks for your response utopia. when i finally quit drinking and stayed quit it was because i had come to that "jumping off place" that aa talks so much about. i couldn't live with alcohol and had no idea how to live without it. that is sort of how i feel now. i feel like all of my life i have been a fraud. i watch people and mimick them because i don't know what else to do. i don't want to be like this. but i don't know how to "be" anything that is real. this brings me to the really scary part...i don't think i actually have an identity. i have no sense of self. so if i let go of what i have created to make it through the day i have nothing. i am looking for something which doesn't seem to exist....that something is me.

utopia

i laugh because i relate so much!

al anon ppl feel about affection and love as you do seem to about alcohol. if not pleasing others and caring for others how will we be loved in return? if not being loved by ppl how will we live, if being loved we will feel strangled and not in control AAAH!! if not the suffering victim, what is left for us to do? sit around and be happy? its amazing when you let go and the empty void that you thought you would be there for me was filled with divine love. i pray you find that and i know you can in your own
time.

toby