How do I make myself care about myself again?
 

I have entered a bad place where I simply don't care and I have stopped trying.

There is no out of control behavior, but everything seems to be in suspended animation. I'm just floating through life.

I have been writing about this and I think that in order to break out of this, I need to make an amend to myself, to forgive myself, and to make myself care about myself again. However, since I have lost faith in everything I do and say, how can I do that?

How do you make yourself care about yourself again?

We're all worth caring about, but having a chemical addiction will dull our senses and essentially make us like zombies (in my experience anyway). It's important to understand that the past does not equal the future - it's never too late to take control of our lives and make things better, sober and with a clear head. You're worth it.

It takes time, Jazzfish. You may find that you can forgive yourself for one aspect and then lo and behold another issue pops up out of nowhere. Our drinking lives were messy. Sometimes recovery can be the same. Too many people expect everything to be neat and orderly when we get sober....nope. I think life is what we make it. I'm in counseling. I also have learned that it takes time for this addict/alcoholic's brain to be rewired to the extent that it can. I did a number due to the years of using. Things will work out as long as you don't drink. This too shall pass. Don't be afraid to experience the uncomfortable. I have learned to lean in to it :)

I found by caring for others I started caring for myself. Lots of great volunteer opportunities at this time of year

Hi Jazz :). It's hard feeling like that. Self loathing and regret is such a vicious spiral. Hopefully in time you will forgive yourself, the longer you stay sober the more the past will begin to fade. I have over 2.5 years & am still hard on myself for things that happened while I was drunk for years. Sometimes it is hard to not obsess. I think that in your writing and introspection on this issue maybe it would help to start really small and write a few very simple things down that could help. You could start with a question to yourself in the morning. What is one thing I can do for myself today that shows self-caring? Is it taking a shower? Doing some laundry? Cleaning up a mess? Do one nice thing for yourself. You'll have to force yourself but keep at it. Sometimes when I don't care about myself procrastination becomes an issue too. I don't want to go on & on & on, tho I could. I hope you feel better soon. Best wishes to you :)

I was the president of the, "I hate myself for no damn good reason club"
I always knew I hated myself, but never cared enough to turn that around. After all i "wasn't" worth of caring for. Even up until I was 4-5 months sober I had yet to discover self love. With my clear thoughts and emotions I realized I built my castle on self hatred. Every key player in my life knew it was "ok" to treat me that way.

So to your question how to make you care about you. You just do it. You give that hurt child inside of you a big hug. You tell that child you're not going to every hurt them again!! And you tell that little lost child from here on out you are going to protect them, make them whole, let them grow in a nurturing environment and then set that hurt child free!

Once you get started on loving you look out world!!

Well said, ImperfectlyMe.

I think you do care about yourself, Jazz. But despair makes us blind to the gifts around us.

I know that in my own case, my trips down misery lane were the way I usually sabotaged my recovery. Don't look for what's wrong, for faults...they are way too easy to find. Search for the hidden gifts, for there lies the greater reward.

I think it's all about building a purposeful life.

I feel like this on a constant basis. Although mine comes with a addiction and that dark ugly word bipolar that makes it 100x worse. I remember before I got married even in the beginning of my still strong marriage I kept my hair done, my nails done, and I didn't have a blemish on my face at all. I was fit and healthy and above all HAPPY. I had a social life now I stay home. When I got pregnant with our daughter at 5 months pregnant he was deployed leaving me in california and all my family on the east coast. So I put everything in storage and flew home for the birth. After that... it began to spiral. My mother and I flew back to cali to set up a new home for us. Not only had I changed I had a baby and became a mother but eventhough my husband didn't see major combat he came home a completely different man. For the first 2 weeks he would barely say anything to me or even touch his daughter. I went into a state of depression found out about spice through a military friend and have felt hopeless lost and just down right hate myself how i look and probably other things i hate about me if i thought about it. Now its sweat pants and hoodies and my hairs in a bun my daughter is my world and reason for ever beat my heary takes but I don't like her seeing mommy like this. Rehab is pretty much out of the question. The embarassment it would bring to my family I would be disowned. We all found that out the hard way when a cousin asked for family love and support she got yelled at spit on and disowned because "no one in our family does these things and we won't put up with it don't embarass us or else." So absolutely no support system there. I just want to be happy again and to love myself like I used to I look in the mirror now and see a failure.

Tinkfreak, welcome to SR and thank you so much for your post. I had to laugh as I sit here in my sweats and hoodie, unshaven for 4 days. I am lucky that my family would be very supportive of my recovery efforts. Many people find that they had to make new families in the process of getting better. If you start a separate thread with your story, I am sure you find a flood of good support here. I wish all the best for you!

Thanks to everybody for your responses and kind words. I don't know how I got into this spot, but I see that I am just going to have to bare down and stay focused on my well-being and what is necessary to get there. Sometimes it is good to see that there are others who do care about you, especially when you can't see it yourself.

I have two lovely daughters and a wife who I love dearly and who love me. I have a good mind, if I care for it and many opportunities, if I work for them. Sometimes this recovery business isn't easy and the rewards seem elusive.

Your caring nature come across in your posts as far as I can tell. So the caring is not far away. x

jazzfish can I call you Clarence?

I like you Clarence, always have always will

Only if I can call you Victor and ask for our vector.

.... the fog is getting thicker and Leon is gettin..

Hi Jazz, so sorry to hear you're feeling like this. I often feel much the same - and as Doggone observed, the 'trips down misery lane' can also be a trip back to alcohol. That's how I've experienced it, anyway. And once having picked up, and really relapsing for weeks on end, the misery / despair gets worse and worse.

No one here wants that for you. I suspect you don't want that either. Hence your post. Even the fact THAT you posted about this shows to me at least, that there IS still an ember of caring for yourself. That's hope, believe it or not.

Your use of the word 'make [yourself care....]' is instructive, I feel. To me, it smacks of our Western modern need to FIX, DO, ACT, etc. and we're all caught up in that.

If you'll allow me: I'm finding that this time around - day 11 after nearly a full year of multiple long-ish relapses - I'm 'doing' just small 'actions' each hour of each day with a view to accepting the simplicity of Be-ing. A bit like tickling a fish (not that I've fished much, but you take my point I think) - or if you will, just very gently and non-judgementally blowing on those tiny embers of hope and caring.

Go easy on the 'making yourself'. Simply having acknowledged, and writing about, this not-caring is a path towards bringing those embers back to life.

Hope this adds to all that the others have offered to you from their own reflections. Our gifts to you until you can give them to yourself....

Blessings

Do a little research on The Dark Night of The Soul.

Mine lasted for years.

Yeah I think when I drank it was a cycle, I'd wake up hungover, felt awful, had no motivation to consider my health, concluded I hated myself and so began drinking again, the cycle then repeated for years.

Going sober broke the cycle, suddenly after a few days of not drinking I felt healthier with more energy, had a motivation that I could do things in life, and so wanted to maintain my health.