Brainsoup

Today was a pretty ****** day. Im starting to see that i am nothing but ********. I lie to myself and everyone else just to lie. I hate seeing the truth. The truth is that I have no idea who i really am and neither does anyone else. I know that i run from who i am because i know if i really see myself i am going to hate what i see. I have nothing to add to conversations and everything i say is based on wanting people to look up to me as if i have all the answers and as if i am perfectly fine. truth is i am not fine. I realized today one of my big personal patterns in everything i do. I obsess about something, make myself (and everyone else) believe i understand it, truely dont have a clue about it, realize that i truely dont have a clue about it, then give up and move on to obsess about something different. I have done this with almost everything i have been interested in. I hate it and know that because of it, i really know nothing about anything and cant hold an intelligent conversation about anything because all i do is ******** my way through the conversation (ussually successfully) based on just enough research to convince people and myself that i am an expert on the subject. I did this with the AA program aswell. up until today i thought i understood exactly what i needed to do, and it was just a matter of time before i became the amazing person i think i am. Thats BS aswell. This is gunna be a lot harder and emotionally draining than i thought. God help me.

Dee74

It's not easy for most of us to face who we really are sober Brainsoup - especially when, as you say, we've spent years running away from that reality.

I found the fear of that was way worse than the reality tho

Once I got to know myself, although I was no saint, I wasn't the Antichrist either - but alcohol had warped my perceptions for so long, even when I sober, that I really absolutely hated and detested myself.

Give yourself time to get used to who you are, and give yourself time to trust your perceptions are real.

Support is vital too - noone does this alone, Brainsoup

D

Sapling

You always hear about how much work the 12 steps of AA are....Working the steps...And the only work involved is getting honest with yourself...And others. Some people can do that...Some can't.....I think you just did...Good luck to you...And nothing wrong with asking for God's help...I'd recommend it.

Brainsoup

I just talked with my sister for about 3 hours about basically everything in both our minds. I showed her she is a codependant and how the problems shes been having in life might have something to do with her codependant tendancies. She forced me to remember a lot of memories about my childhood that i had blocked out such as my father doing very inappropriate things, mother scaring the living bejesus out of me several times, the whole feeling of when my father left us for his religion which he practiced in complete hipocracy. I explained to her the experience of being so deep in your head to run from reality and eventually getting stuck in your head because its becomes the only thing you know and the only thing you can find comfort in. I told her that for the longest time the only real conversations i had was with myself. Really i shared with her things that i could not share with any other human being (not out of fear but truely incapable of sharing these things with anyone but my own flesh and blood). I got to the roots of my anger problems which were centered around a ****** up childhood. About how i am hypersensitive to my surroundings becuase when i was young i was always on edge about when i was going to be abused by my father, yelled at by my mother, or made fun of ruthlessly by my sister (she humbly admitted her contribution to my anger problems). I beleive that i picked up drugs in the first place to run from that immense anger i felt 24/7 but didnt know why. I made up BS to seem awesome because i was made to beleive i was a useless idiot (self fufilling proficicy because thats exactly what i became). My childhood and family was 1 big clusterfuck of negativity and woe for me. I feel so much better knowing where these feelings come from. After this discussion, the only feeling i have left is fear. Fear of people. Fear of showing the rest of the world who i am. Fear of the fact, (and it is a fact) that my brain is so messed up right now (i put alot of chemicals in there) that i will lose this clarity i have now and forget this stuff and lose all the progress i have just made. The clarity required for me to understand these things comes in waves and though this one was a tital wave (with a lot of help by my sister), i am afraid that it will soon crash and recede into the ocean of my unconscious brain. Hopefully the content of the tital wave was changed by bringing it to consciousness and when it does recede into the ocean, it will be an oasis rather than a shark-infested whirlpool. I hope that this feeling will last and i hope that with enough time sober i will be able to hold on to this deep level of understanding that i have now. I hope that i will have the courage to face these things again and again and again without anyones help but on my own. I hope that i will have the strength to face the things that have yet to happen in my life with the clarity that i have now. Im hoping for my life, which is way better than despairing my life. So what am i left with? That hope for change, and that fear that i wont change. i guess the choice is up to me. Thanks D, Thanks Sap, Thanks God.

BS (this time for BrainSoup... Not ******** )

Sapling

Good stuff BS....I wasn't sure about this part....No way I could do it on my own. That's just me.

Scolova

It's good you are writing this down. I can very much relate to your first post and a good bit of your second, but I am terrible with saying and even typing what I really mean. I had the whole thing going on in my youth; bullied at school, bullied at home and my parents did absolutely nothing but destroy what self worth I had left. The only relief I had was sleeping and talking to myself... and slowly but surely even my own mind started ripping me apart, then comes the drugs and alcohol. I've tried to start focusing on just things I want to know about and just stay out of the other conversations, it's difficult but worth it.

sugarbear1

Well spoken, Brainsoup! I, too, was once gripped by fears. The steps changged all those fears. It would be cool if you delved in the steps and maybe sis would get to al anon for her issues. I see a soberly bright future evolving!

Brainsoup

I do beleive our problems begin when we start to internalize the negative things that people say. For me the worst things was "You're lazy", "You're awkward", and "You dont try". I truely became the things that i was most afraid to be simply because i had no fight left in me.

Threshold

In recovery, we learn to replace our faulty perspective with one based on reality, present reality. So, following that I suggest considering the following. Taking the steps will be emotionally invigorating, even challenging, but lets not assume it will be "draining". Keep an open mind, you may very likely find it emotionally fulfilling.

My story and childhood are much like yours. I find it ironic and amusing, given your OP in this thread that your screen name abbreviates to BS. Ha ha.

Stride34

It all comes down to how you feel about yourself. If you think of yourself in a positive light- that you are worthy and deserving of love and all good things - then you don't believe or care so much about what others think. This shows in how you interact with the world. When your self concept is negative, then you're ruled by insecurity, fear, anxiety, guilt, ect. You believe everyone views you the way you view yourself, and convince yourself that how you feel must be true. In reality, people are mostly focused on themselves.

I would spend less time trying to figure out what in your past is causing you to feel like this now (what does that really accomplish?) - and begin taking the necessary steps you need to take to move past it. I don't know your background - but if you haven't been evaluated by a mental health professional, it would probably be a good idea. All of these issues can absolutely be overcome - it may require therapy, possibly medication, ect, but there's no reason that you have to continue feeling like this. You deserve to be happy.

Brainsoup

I hate the idea of having to be medicated as if something is wrong with me. Maybe its true but i want to at least give natural recovery and natural happiness a shot without the use of medication. after all, isn't being medicated an addiction in its own fashion? Relying on chemicals to feel "right" again.
I have been down that road. I have been diagnosed with ADHD when i was young and put on stimulants (messed me up more than it helped i think) and eventually got off the meds. During college i asked to be put back on it to help me socially and academically which did work for awhile but eventually i needed to take more to get the effects and eventually i was popping over 80 mg of adderall a day just to deal.
Sounds quite reminiscent of my pot use, my drinking, my opiate use... u get the picture. Of course, i was also smoking pot everyday and using MDMA / psychedelics every now and then, while i was on the adderall which probably screwed with the effects.
Overall i do feel like i am different in some way than most people. Even my fellow addicts and alcoholics i meet in AA (recovered or not) seem to have more sense than i do. Sometimes i feel like i just dont get life like most people do. This could be because along with an addict i am also a bipolar / ADD / Schizo / Autistic... really any number of possibilities.
Maybe the following is my addict brain creating options that arent really there but i beleive that somewhere in me is the ability to "snap out of it". but every now and then i get a feeling of seemingly reality shining through that says your never going to snap out of it... your different. That thought hits like a military tank (a truck analogy wont suffice). But that feeling in itself could be my addict brain creating reasons for me to give up and start using again. AHHHH MY BRAIN HURTS!!
That being said i am going to a psych in jan to get an eval and we'll see what he says. But until than i guess imma keep second guessing whether I am mentally unhealthy purely because of my use / flight from reality and i can snap out of it, or if I am mentally unhealthy because my brain is wired differently than most peoples and I was born and am stuck in my little bubble and the only way out is death of reality through ignoring it / drowning it with drugs, or death of self. BTW I am not suicidal (i do have thoughts but I beleive thats normal and I KNOW I WILL NEVER ACT ON THEM) so please dont take that last sentence too seriously.

Pigtails

Oh I can so relate. I often wonder who the heck I really am and what I even want. I was so good at projecting an image and being what other people wanted and morphing myself to adapt to any situation. My friends and I used to joke that I was a chameleon and I thought that was a good thing.

When I really look at myself, I don't like a lot of stuff. But I do like some things. The good thing is that we can work on the parts we don't like, and be grateful that we have the parts we do like, without having to work on them as hard. I really think a big part of this journey is loving ourselves and being positive with ourselves in addition to doing the hard work to change ourselves. I'm sure there are things about you that you really like, and I hope you don't forget about them when looking at the things you don't like.

Thank you for sharing and best wishes in this journey.

Pigtails

I can really relate to this too and I feel the exact same way. I do think that sometimes there is something missing/wrong in some people's brains, maybe mine?, that requires a drug to "fix," or, "make normal." But they didn't always have these drugs and people had to go on living. Maybe they were the ones killed off by enemies? But sometimes I think the same things that make us "less normal" also give us special strengths and talents and maybe we were the ones leading the pack! I'm really not sure but at this point, like you, I am trying to deal with issues naturally and be the best person I can be without any chemicals interfering. If it doesn't work out I can always try medication. Maybe there isn't even anything wrong/abnormal about my brain except that I just don't have good coping skills and have problems living in reality, and those are things that are within my control to change. I just want to accept myself, love myself, and be myself. When I look at it that way, I feel like it's quite simple. But it's often hard to put into practice because my crazy brain starts running a million miles a minute and I start to get obsessed and doubt myself etc. But in all this craziness all I can do is be myself, and try to be the best me I can be... and that is all you can do too. (And we can both stay sober of course). Good luck.

Brainsoup

It's unfortunate that adaptability to situations is seen as a negative thing in our society when in nature (aka naturally) adaptability is what life thrives on. Changing to survive in any envirnoment. Most people cannot do that. I beleive that society as a whole is centered around peoples egos and the "problem" with us is that we realize that the ego is simply a figment of the imagination (an imaginary self so to speak) and therefore have cast off our own. In the rooms we really speak to each other as PEOPLE, not to each others ego (which is 90% of conversation in the real world though few realize it) which is why we feel comfort there. The reason we run from reality and get in our heads is because we cant relate to peoples egos because ours is beaten to a pulp... we see through ego. Its unfortunate but a very real part of life these days. In a world full of ego ******** we see through it because we have managed to get sober (which requires seeing through your own ego ********) and therefore can recognize ******** very easily. I believe that this is our primary "problem". We see what others choose not to see. It sounds like i just flipped it so the rest of the world is the ones living in a dream world and it is us that lives in reality and perhaps this is true but perhaps it is in itself my own ego ******** protecting itself from being the one with the problem (aka the one whose dreaming). I really dont know but it sure is interesting and mindblowing. Either way it doesnt matter because whether or not the world is dreaming, or we are dreaming... the majority rules so we better find a way a way to join them in their dream / reality. If anyone is still reading this I will be surprised. Damnit God... why did u give me this ridiculous thinker... the only thing stopping me from poppin xanny is the knowledge that if i do i will wake up months from now with no idea how i got there.

Stride34

I only suggested that you get evaluated. They may or may not recommend medication.

To touch on your rant for a second - psychiatric meds have not only greatly improved the quality of life of many people, they have saved countless lives. If a doctor told you to take a medication for a serious physical ailment, you wouldn't think twice about it. This would be no different. Comparing addictive and destructive drugs that get you high like amphetamines/opiates to non-abusive antidepressant meds ect that help return your brain chemistry to normal balance really isn't a fair comparison, and you're in no position to not be open minded right now. That said - it's your choice and your life. I'm glad you have an appointment setup for Jan.

Brainsoup

I was not aware that antidepressant meds return your brain chemistry to normal balance. I wasnt even aware that there was such a thing as a normal brain chemistry. I was under the assumption these meds change your brain chemistry and once you stop takin them, your natural brain chemistry kicks back in. But then again i am no doctor and have little to no experience with such meds. I have nothing against giving these things a shot but i would prefer as most would to not have to alter my natural brain chemistry to feel "right", and be able to function happily in society. but perhaps this is not in the cards for me.
I do take every thought that enters my head (at least the ones i am aware of) with a grain of salt knowing that after 5-6 years of flooding my brain with various chemicals it is completely possible that my thoughts have little to no substance. They make sense in my head but then again, so did a lot of the ******** reasons i made up to keep using.
I am planning on printing out this thread (ill take out the other posts other than my own) and showing it to the psych and see what he thinks. I'm sorry if im being difficult but im just trying to be honest with myself and let what is going on in my mind out because i have kept it in there for way too long.

Sapling

You're a trip BS......