I hate everyone and everything
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Join Date: Jul 2012
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I have been drinking heavily for many years and I have noticed that my good friends slowly started to diminish because I put my drinking ahead of my friends. I noticed in my brief periods of sobriety that my negative energy switched to positive energy and an automatic magnet to new friends.
My point is drinking by you and your friends create a negative aura over time and strains the relationship. Put the drinks away and you will see more positive situations and better stronger relationships.
My point is drinking by you and your friends create a negative aura over time and strains the relationship. Put the drinks away and you will see more positive situations and better stronger relationships.
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Join Date: May 2015
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 139
Originally Posted by Aellyce 
I find the insights in Beccybean's and FreeAssociation's posts especially interesting and worthy of consideration. I definitely got stuck in my self-imposed darkness and nihilism when I was drinking heavily, in my worst periods. Depression with psychotic features as well. And I wanted more or less nothing else but expand all that and pull other people into it with me, a lot of it online and in the end almost exclusively in the virtual world or even if not, it resembled more a fantasy world than the reality I much prefer to live in now. And while I did not always recognize it in the moment, most of the "friends" I had during those times mirrored my own state very well -- that was also how we tended to find each-other, looking for the familiar. I think relationships and ways of interaction we choose at a given time closely reflect ourselves at least in some aspects, and unless we have done some serious exploration and work on this, we are often not aware of it so we keep repeating it also because we are not equipped with the skills to establish and cultivate good boundaries and inhibitions. If these are long-standing patterns, I think we very rarely are able to break it on our own -- just like a substance addiction. It was a challenge for me to change it in sobriety and it took time and some external help. Not the "help" of those friends I gravitated to as part of a maladaptive pattern. And it would have never worked to change this in any effective form while still drinking or using drugs.
It's just a messed-up cycle for me. I'm either drinking, or hurting myself badly enough that I could die without medical assistance. It's been in and out of hospitals for 12 years, so I'm so sick of living with that anxiety. The hospital does give me anxiety because I've spent so much of my life in a cage. Other people don't have to deal with having spent over 2 years in a cage, unless they're serious criminals. At some point it just doesn't become possible to interact with others normally.
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Join Date: Jul 2010
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I think it's easy to get attached to the darkness and nihilism and self-identify with it such that we believe that diving into it is our role in life. I had periods like that myself, some lasting for years, and the image actually got even reinforced by others, by my friends of the time. Especially one of them with whom I had a long-term relationship and who was also an alcoholic. He would see and describe me as "dark and mysterious" and many similar things and while these descriptions were accurate at the time, we also very much saw our own selves in the other person. There were really no boundaries, where one ends and the other begins. At the same time, I always felt he was the most enigmatic person I knew, a dark puzzle hard to solve but just as alluring and actually, addicting. Well, it was a mutual addiction (to alcohol and to each-other) that lasted for several years, and then a few more years struggle for me to get out of it and move on mentally.
I also did art work when I was younger that always had strong elements of the "dark side", and I felt I liked myself for the ability to dive into that and to express it, it made me feel competent and that I was doing meaningful things. And again, many others complimented me on that way of being over years. Those who did not or worried about me, I would tend to avoid and detach from saying it's not my kind of people, not my kind of world view.
You know, I think it's perfectly possible to do terrific artwork and explorations of the darker and more disturbing elements of human nature if that's what you are interested in, without hurting ourselves the way we do. It is weird and feels alien at first, again, because it's unfamiliar initially. If you want to be able to control yourself better and become less impulsive, I think learning to live clean and sober is the best training ever, and the acquired skills from early sobriety can be applied to many other areas of life and excessive tendencies. As for the anger and other intense emotions -- well if anything, art can be one of the best and healthiest ways to channel these out as you probably know. History is full of wonderful works that were born that way and then touched the soul of millions. But if you destroy yourself, it won't last long and you won't get chances to explore/express much more.
I also did art work when I was younger that always had strong elements of the "dark side", and I felt I liked myself for the ability to dive into that and to express it, it made me feel competent and that I was doing meaningful things. And again, many others complimented me on that way of being over years. Those who did not or worried about me, I would tend to avoid and detach from saying it's not my kind of people, not my kind of world view.
You know, I think it's perfectly possible to do terrific artwork and explorations of the darker and more disturbing elements of human nature if that's what you are interested in, without hurting ourselves the way we do. It is weird and feels alien at first, again, because it's unfamiliar initially. If you want to be able to control yourself better and become less impulsive, I think learning to live clean and sober is the best training ever, and the acquired skills from early sobriety can be applied to many other areas of life and excessive tendencies. As for the anger and other intense emotions -- well if anything, art can be one of the best and healthiest ways to channel these out as you probably know. History is full of wonderful works that were born that way and then touched the soul of millions. But if you destroy yourself, it won't last long and you won't get chances to explore/express much more.
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Join Date: Feb 2015
Location: MN
Posts: 8,704
Might be a good idea to take the focus off of your so called friends and put the focus on yourself. I also agree with others that getting back on schedule with your meds and not drinking is a good start. Sorry to hear you are down. It can get better. People here can help you. As you've seen in this thread, there are some pretty smart cookies here.
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Join Date: May 2015
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Posts: 139
Originally Posted by Aellyce
He would see and describe me as "dark and mysterious" and many similar things and while these descriptions were accurate at the time, we also very much saw our own selves in the other person. There were really no boundaries, where one ends and the other begins. At the same time, I always felt he was the most enigmatic person I knew, a dark puzzle hard to solve but just as alluring and actually, addicting. Well, it was a mutual addiction (to alcohol and to each-other) that lasted for several years, and then a few more years struggle for me to get out of it and move on mentally.
I don't go on the mental health forums anymore because I posted something a while back about how I think trigger warnings are stupid, and that people need to grow a backbone. Every single post I made on that stupid site got a million trigger tags attached to it. Why are you on a mental health site specifically about self-destruction if you have all these triggers? I'm not running out the liquor store just because I see an Absolut vodka ad, or reaching for a razor blade every time I throw on a depressive suicidal black metal album. I don't understand people. Weak. I nearly lost my life in 2010 at someone else's hands, but I don't have all these triggers because I dealt with whatever fears I had head-on. If you just shelter yourself from your fears, you will never overcome them. That's why I'm not afraid of spiders anymore. I forced myself to be near them, and I studied them, such that I am no longer afraid.
I'm supposed to be on a combination of anti-psychotics, and anti-depressants just to keep me normal. I can't do my work on the drugs though.
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Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Australia
Posts: 11,352
Originally Posted by SoberJohn
I have been drinking heavily for many years and I have noticed that my good friends slowly started to diminish because I put my drinking ahead of my friends. I noticed in my brief periods of sobriety that my negative energy switched to positive energy and an automatic magnet to new friends.
My point is drinking by you and your friends create a negative aura over time and strains the relationship. Put the drinks away and you will see more positive situations and better stronger relationships.
My point is drinking by you and your friends create a negative aura over time and strains the relationship. Put the drinks away and you will see more positive situations and better stronger relationships.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 8,614
Maybe try and find a meditation based AA group (they do exist, sometimes more word of mouth) or elsewhere, I attended a few and they really worked well, I had sober time that way. One of the meditation groups was led by an individual who had overcome BPD which I think is a pretty good testament to it's effectiveness. She was a very dedicated ad admirable individual.
It couldn't hurt?
It couldn't hurt?
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