RobbyRobot

Yeah. I don't mean it to mean an actual new personification. I'm meaning I too much identify myself as a kid. On one hand before the '69 surgery, and after '69 right up to likely until I sobered up in 1981 age 24. I don't do "inner child" either as far as that goes. I'm more about living in the now.

Here is the thing for me: I'm an incomplete adult. I have not as yet become a whole person if you will from child to teenager to adult. And of course its not just '69 that did me in on that account. Others things in my dysfunctional life happened as well. '69 is important more because I learned to hate myself in ways only alcohol could succor. Drinking at age 12 is itself a trauma. By 15 I was a complete chronic alcoholic. By 18 I was making attempts to quit. he other thing with '69 was I was written off by the doctors when I broke my hip a few months after being released from my plaster casts. They could not repair the break in the fusion until I completed my physical growth. So I walked on crutches from age 12 to age 18 when they again tried the fusion. Again I was in plaster casts for many months. Bed ridden.

Okay. Here things get very hurtful. By 18 I was a lost alcoholic. Deranged. I was out of the plaster cast no more then a single weekend when I went to a house party with my street friends and managed to crack my hip at the fusion. This was the final straw for the doctors. I was written off and I also lost my education sponsorships shortly thereafter as well. I was later diagnosed as a schizophrenic. I didn't walk again with a brace on my leg until age 22. And even this was only as a result of me getting a panel of 5 doctors to review my medical file as to what I could do. it was finally decided to surgically break my right leg just below my knee, reposition it, and put in metal staples and bolts to hold it. I was then fitted for exactly the same dbl upright leg brace I had as a kid 10 years earlier. So, in effect, I had made zero progress. In fact, I was worse off.

Before drinking age 12 I broke nothing. After age 12 and drinking I broke my hip twice, my femur once or (twice?) and one of those times requiring a steel plate and more bolts the break was that bad, and my knee once. Since being sober age 24 I've never broke another bone.

From age 22 until age 51 I walked with a full leg brace that did not bend at the knee when I walked. Eventually, even this was lost as I later was required to have a brace that did not bend at all walking or sitting... so with my hip fusion still in place, this meant my entire right side could only flex through my spine... this brought on my spinal stenosis condition of course which required spinal surgery in 1992-93. My advanced scoliosis isn't doing me any favors either. I also have advanced chronic arthritis in my lower spine.

Endless complications all traced back to or otherwise aggravated by that original hip-fusion in 1969.

I'm in tough shape, lol.

Anyways, I finally quit walking in June of that year. Just too painful. My walking by then was like Frankenstein. In fact, that is what prompted me to join SR. I wanted support for my actions taken in quitting walking. When I quit walking I also set into action my plan to have the leg and hip fusion amputated.

I'm sorry.

There are so many connections and related events in my backstory that when not taken in context, it really becomes a mess to figure out the time lines.

I'm as yet unable to actually write out the whole deal in a single sitting. I've even tried to do it in several sittings over many years. I simply refuse to face it all in one complete writing. Its just too much for me as my feelings overwhelm me and I just can't write it out. I've sought therapy on these issues but my defenses are overwhelming strong, cunning, and practiced.

This of course is surreally interesting in itself since factually I'm the only one in my own way here. Nonetheless, there it is. I'm so incomplete I can't even bridge my own differences. Even while I'm intellectually in full agreement and have a purpose to bring myself together. EndGame would easily have an insightful opinion on this, and he would be able to describe the mechanics of the dynamics in play. There seems to be actual defense diversion action being taken by my personality which is still protecting me no matter that I'm now 57 and sober 33 years! EndGame, and LTV, and JD, and others said as much earlier on in the thread, yeah?

So yeah, my 'self' has indeed carried me. I'm grateful. And yet, it is nonetheless time one way or another for me to be getting on with living as a more whole person. I'm going to accomplish this purpose. I just don't as yet know the mechanics or dynamics required to be successful, and this is the whole point of having a thread on authenticity so as to gain deeper insights. This thread is successful. I'm growing and learning and adapting already to suggestions and discussions.

I'm very grateful.

RobbyRobot

EDIT:

By June of that year I quit walking I mean in 2008. The same month I joined SR.

Cow

DISCLAIMER: This just my thought and my thought alone.

Precious Robot, I think you boy is dead. The polio kill him, the drinking kill him, life kill him, the dingo ate you boy. I think is no use to spend all this anguish in thoughts of integrating him. No, you not can just bury him, nor would you ever toss him aside. You gonna has to carry his little body for rest of you life. It is one of you many many cross to bear, and one day, you and he will lie down for final time together.

Myself, I carry 8-year old girl. In my life, I spend SO MUCH agonizing, traumatizing time and effort try to “heal” her, “integrate” her, “release” her, "forgives her," etc. Finally, I realize, WTF?! She been dead for 40 year! So, I also carry her little body with me, and is simply one of my many cross to bear. Some days, when somebody convince Cow it might help, I still go and upset myself by try to does some futile CPR on her, but no, she long gone. So, mostly, I just kisses her little forehead, and one day, I will kiss her forehead one last time, and we will lie down together. With all my other dead and abandon selfs. The end.

No-win situations exist. Sometime, a person have to choose between burning to death or jumping out window to they death. It seem you in this type of untenable situation. It also seem you really has already made you choice. You not want to rust in the chair, you want to be active, you want to push. If it backfire, at least you fought fight in way you chose. I do so wish you had other choices.

Very much love from Cow

RobbyRobot

I've looked at it in this way too. The boy is long ago killed off by polio surgery and alcoholism. I appreciate the realism in your informed opinion dearest Cow.

I also appreciate your support. Yeah, I'm very likely gonna go for the burn bright physically until I can't scenario. I too also accept exists no-win situations. Unlike James T Kirk who cheated on his Kobayashi Maru test of the no-win scenario, lol.

I too wish I could cheat myself out of this.

trachemys

Titans. I see Titans.

jdooner

Hmm - I feel like EndGame's wisdom would be useful instead I will take a sophomoric attempt to articulate what I see.

Metaphors are useful to help us understand but there is no literal 12year old boy or 23 year old sober man. When we abuse chemicals I believe we stunt our emotional maturity at that age. I believe this to be the case based on my experience. In many ways Rob you interrupted your normal aging process with the choices you have made along the way. Whether this was your decision or the result of the consequential decisions made for you by the cards you were dealt it does not matter, it happened. I believe part of this angst is the attempt to stitch together the patchwork quilt, which is now your life.

To use an analogy its like you got to college without understanding grammar and were taking a creative writing course but you lacked some of the basic fundamentals. You are ahead of your own capabilities in some ways based on drinking through your teens and then spending the next three decades sober.

I don't believe the boy is dead to go back to the metaphor because that personality, which the boy represents is part of you. We can't start compartmentalizing different traumas and timelines in our lives without developing dissociative personality disorders. We do this to survive, I have done this actually, but at some point the chickens come home to roost.

In my opinion much of the angst is often a result of what we are attaching our self identity to. There it is my view on attachment This is often a challenge because if we are on a continuum in life then how can I be anything other than human? If I attach to my athleticism and I become paralyzed then do I still exist? Yes of course but I have to change my self identity rom an able bodied athlete in order to move forward. If I attach myself as an intellectual and develop Alzheimer's well you have to change that attached identity.

In many ways what I see occurring in your Rob is what I have gone through this past year. If has much less to do with sobriety for me but sobriety opened certain doors to walk down the halls of self reflections and the journey of who I am. This is so much more than leaving the drink and drugs, although that was the prerequisite, for me at least.

Hope some of these opinions based on my experiences might help.

alphaomega

This is really good stuff JD. Wow. Really good. Thank you.

Soberpotamus

Robby, I wonder how much of this is your schizophrenia talking (please, I mean no offense at all here, psych background myself)? As far as integrating the child into your "self" now?

And Cow makes a great point. I'd tend to see it that way as well. The boy is no longer.

Fini also made good points... why the need to integrate the child, instead maybe accept him as he was.

RobbyRobot

Good question. Thanks Jennie. I respect your thoughts and insights too.

Schizophrenia doesn't "talk" to me or for me either. Its not a personality disorder. It's more that I have some proven extremes (psychotic) within my psyche, and it can be a challenge to my way of thinking and feeling, although this is very much linked with my alcoholism. I was diagnosed while at the height of my suicidal drinking a few years before I quit at 24. I've not ever taken medications for it. As well, I was, while in a mental hospital on a suicide watch formally diagnosed as "chronic stable undifferentiated schizophrenia" meaning:

"Patients in this category have the characteristic positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia but do not meet the specific criteria for the paranoid, disorganized, or catatonic subtypes."

So, for me anyways, "my schizophrenia" is not as debilitating without active alcoholism in play too. Not to say I don't have my moments with myself, I do. Nonetheless, I'm not victimized by my schizophrenia unless drinking that is, you know? It could be argued, by me anyways, what medical science describes as my schizophrenia is what I describe as my alcoholic mind. Of course, "alcoholic mind" is not a useful medical term, lol.

In any case, whatever they diagnosed, I'm not concerned. It really just gives a standard baseline window into how far gone I was within myself when statistically compared to societal norms. I realize the seriousness of it all, of course. But 33 years of sobriety seems to be proof enough that my alcoholism and schizophrenia are fast friends and locked at the hip (lol) as it were. Interesting you described schizophrenia as "talking for me"

Yes, Cow made a great observation. I've seen things that way too over the years, and in fact by the time I was 15 I certainly believed/thought as much. With that in mind, I purposely took everything I had that had any meaning to me, and burned it in a 45gallon drum my father used for burning. We lived in the country. I even burned my wooden crutches. I had to crawl around for the rest of the day until a new set could be purchased. These new ones were metal, lol.

Sadly enough though, I also burnt all my certificates, trophies, badges, etc that I had won. I also burned my writings, which at the time were several hundred pages. All gone. So yeah. I've been there with the reality of the kid is dead.

I don't really care if the kid is dead or not anymore, and haven't for decades now, you know? I do care that I'm struggling with my past, and my present, and my future in real challenges that reach back into my earliest experiences.

The kid being dead or not is purely a philosophic discussion. Such a discussion is worthy, but at the end of the day I'm really everything that I have experienced, and the timeline is really just a way to frame my experiences across the continuum of my life.

Aellyce

Despite of the fact that I am myself very much into integration when it comes to personal growth, I think sometimes dwelling on the means to such goals (and our past) can also distract us from dealing with issues in a practical way and finding real world solutions. Like others pointed out and is also my opinion and experience, integration and moving on to a next phase in life is a dynamic process, and it's not easily predictable. Often we also don't really recognize the process of integration is ongoing until it's been happening for a while. Even just based on this thread and your comments, Robby, I see a lot of dynamic and change of mindsets as part of an ongoing journey that will most likely continue for a while until a point in the future where you no longer feel the need to process it and make changes regarding this current challenge.

So going back to looking at it from a practical point of view. What are the actual problems here? Based on the info I have, it seems primarily two-fold:

(1) Your current physical challenges and what you perceive as decline in your physical abilities, and how this is in conflict with your current self-image (or the self image of the past 2 years since the last surgery, and just generally as someone who can always fight and overcome adversities). This inevitably creates a dissonance in your psyche, which has progressed to a stage by now that you acutely need to find some sort of resolution, one way or another. It requires shifting of perspective, but you don't know how to do that just yet.

(2) The above challenge about your health has reconnected you with your vulnerability and many emotions you had experienced as a child and then repressed at an early age and in most of your adult years so far. These came to the surface now and confuse you as to what to do with the emotions this time around.

Personally, I see no need to either "integrate" that child into your current and future self or declaring him dead. In this case, I see this "integration" is just an empty word that beers no real practical relevance to your present situation. That child did grow up physically and also changed and developed over the years. He exists. He is you here and now. You are what you are now and need to deal with the challenges in the present; IMO pondering what was lost in the past and how that happened does not seem much more useful than what you have already learned and processed by now.

Your challenge can be broken down two smaller bits, for example:

- A necessary decision on your part whether you want to continue living the way you have, with a lot of activity and physical exertion, knowing this is has become destructive now. You can do this probably for a while albeit painful. But then what? You will have to face the unresolved challenge yet again, probably even more difficult. Or check out of the whole thing, escape the challenge completely?

- You need to decide what to do with your new emotional state. Again, could probably go back to the old strategy, dissociate the feelings and use repression (if it would work at all, I don't know). This might give you temporary solution, but like with burning you out physically, sooner or later you would have to face the challenge again. If not this, you will have to learn new perceptions and interactions with both yourself and the rest of the world, this time allowing your feelings and vulnerability more into it, to give you a more complete sense of self (and possibly peace?) that you already seem to seek. It's not integrating your younger self, much more developing your current self on a dynamic scale. You appear to desire this transformation but also fear it. So, I believe you will need to dissolve the fear to proceed. Maybe not fight

There is a large part of you that does not seem to want to choose old, most likely temporary solutions (go back to your previous ways of coping ways...) - this is the core of you who seeks authenticity and justice. Very adamantly.

I see a few decisions that will need to be made here, but I would not rush them. Your new growth as a person (or integration if you wish) is already ongoing, I would let it unfold for a time, you will see more clearly that way compared with grasping on it too much.

Soberpotamus

Well, I didn't mean it literally either

RobbyRobot

Works for me, Jennie. Awesome.

RobbyRobot

These are interesting and helpful insights, JD. I also believe this is not directly about sobriety, but more about my life journey of which my sobriety is fully intertwined. Thanks for realizing sobriety is importantly within life, it is not life itself. I believe this is a mature progression enjoyed by free-choice rather than a realization of a natural philosophy of sobriety. Some choose to live in a protective bubble of sobriety defined boundaries. That's okay of course. Whatever works. Some choose otherwise, and this too is okay.

Attachments. We have useful and interesting differences in how we understand and appreciate the dynamics of attachments, as you acknowledge by way of the winking happy face, lol.

I'll think on this more before I respond.

RobbyRobot

I appreciate the above, haennie. Thanks. My physicality is always changing, always in flux betwixt two extremes, and then this whole boundary identified within the extremes is in decline. I'll forever be processing thru this decline as there is no realistic plateau of static change in my future. It is normal of me to wake up weak as a kitten one morning and strong as a dog the next. Or have sudden changes throughout the day. Fatigue is ongoing, but I can't trust my resources. The (my)wheelchair is as much about safety concerns from falling as it is about ease of mobility. So, as you can see, this is a huge dynamic in my everyday practical lifestyle.

Yup. I can distinctly separate much of my childhood and teen years from my adult years in my mind. In my physicality, not so much until up to 2012. The thing with my recent amputation, is I'm now also able to reflect on my physicality before my '69 surgery since I'm now restored back to that unrestricted movement. The hip-fusion blocked me from actually feeling my natural physicality for more than 40 years. This blocking created a barrier which was physical and beyond my ability to breech. This created extreme angst in its own right. This particular angst is now removed. This created a vacuum if you will, and as we know, nature abhors vacuums. So, in a way, I'm very much driven to really feel out my "new" physical opportunities, you know? It turns out my efforts are hastening my decline by way of my post-polio syndrome. This quick decline unfortunately ignites a strong passion in me that brings me back to 1969 on a physical level as well as internally within my totality as present day 57 year old Robby.

I'll think on this last quote before I respond back. There is a lot offered. I'm much appreciative by your attention to details.

Aellyce

I would like to add one more thought in this direction I mentioned before:

In the context of integration, as many of us like to visualize personal growth that way, perhaps one thing that would need to be "integrated" into a more complete sense of self is exactly the acknowledgment of fear. And uncertainty, not knowing, etc. That it's OK to be afraid, confused, vulnerable, sometimes lost, etc. For me at least, these have been some of the hardest challenges in my life emotionally. This is why it's so important to learn how to seek help and support, and Robby you are doing that wonderfully. I'm still far from being that good at it myself, very far. Many (most?) of us have this deep-seated desire for independence and self-sufficiency, to be our own "higher power"... we want life to be limitless as far as it lasts or at least within reasonable boundaries... but in my view, it is little more than an illusion or a dream we love to cultivate. Boudaries and limits change as we go, and you know this probably better than many of us responding to you here. I struggle with this dichotomy a lot: on one side I am absolutely into the idea of "infinite" growth (as far as living goes), but at the same times I've run into so many difficulties due to desiring and envisioning my "power" as unlimited. Before my drinking problem, during, and now I'm still struggling with finding a reasonable and realistic compromise in sobriety. It is hard. But I believe we have no choice

Cow

But Robot, EVERY adult is incomplete adult. I not think is even any such thing as complete person. Or, is it, every person complete in every moment. Or, is we both complete yet changing at all times, thus violating Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Or, ...OMG! Help!! I caught in Escher drawing that is Robot thread!

If you wish for new identity, maybe you try mental exercise. Visit clinic from “Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind” and order total memory wipe. Then, next time you wake up, past is gone! Boy is gone! Torment over past life choices is gone! Knowledge of you many medical trial and tribulation is gone! So, you simply can no percolate over these thing.

Of course, reality of you situation still there to be dealt with, but like person born blind, you not haunted by sight. Everything just neutral blank slate. Now what? Where would divining rod of spotless new mind take you?

I find, is sometime when I going full on FUBAR dismantled is powerful exercise to deny self to chew on things that mind really really want to ruminate over. Certainly, it free up lot of the neural net. And lot of time, answer just quietly unfold. Turn out it not really require all my despair and agonizing ruminations to move forward. (Although, dramatic creatures that we is, who can resist.) I think this how those damn lucky non-human animal types live such halcyon lives.

BackToSquareOne

This all gets very confusing when doctors and other care givers are involved. Most view their job as giving us the unvarnished truth, they look at what usually happens in the progression of the disease and most are against giving us what they see as false hopes. I experienced this in a big way with heart failure but that's another story.

From what I see you also seem to have some conflict with your treatment team. You may find that getting a new team will yield you the same results. That's a tough one Robby, should you get a new treatment team, just parts of it, or stick with the same one?

Soberpotamus

My two dogs are inspirations in this way, more so each day. I'm genuinely amazed and in awe of their living in the present only. It's what I've been trying to do for a while now, and failing at. They do it effortlessly.

P.S. As much as my childhood sucked at times, I wouldn't do the Spotless Mind erase trick. I wouldn't give up my memories.

RobbyRobot

One can meditate oneself into a state where blankness overwhelms and emotions are much to distant to be significant. You know this better than me on many levels other than meditation we both realize, yeah?!

For me, I'm okay with me warts and all. I'm not hurting as a complaint offered. I'm hurting more as a person who is lonely in my present hurting season. Yeah. The wealth of insights offered to me by my recognized SR friends and fellowships has easily brought me back from the abyss of selfishness that such angst was enticing me to wallow and sloth myself to the point of forgetfulness.

No matter this outcome of my present challenges both subjective and objective, I'm a happy enough guy. I'm not a victim of my own existence even though my song this moment in time is full with sadness, hurt, and confusion. These is a time for all this, and this time is obviously now. I can't avoid these reflections without also avoiding my own self. I don't do such avoidances anymore. Alcohol did all that for me, and I don't drink no more no more, so that door is forever closed. Amen for that, lol.

I agree every adult is incomplete as a matter of practical fact, even though I do yet understand a life journey and existence can be complete in the sense one has satisfaction in simply being. The I AM moments are everything.

I don't regret my angst. I do not even mind a measure of suffering for there is real purpose to be discovered which otherwise is forever hidden or at least obscured. Suffering without judicial cause is pointless, goes with saying, yeah?

I have more than enough of such cause, and so this too is a confirmation of my realness and existence in an altogether surreal universe.

Beam me up, Scotty.

jdooner

Remove logic and reason and you would have your wish. I love my dogs too. Although one eats frozen poop in the winter as a delicacy. Nah, I will stick to being human.