The Merry-Go-Round That is Recovery.

I

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I fall in.

I am lost…

I am hopeless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I’m in the same place.

But it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in…it’s a habit

My eyes are open; I know where I am;

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

V

Client Centered: Unconditional Positive Regard

Adlerian: Inferiority Complex

Psychoanalytic: Oedipus Complex

Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy: Confrontation

Solution Focused Brief Therapy

Narrative Therapy: Name your autobiography

Gestalt: Mirroring

Existential

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Re-framing

Art Therapy:

Some simmilar story: One time I start laughing in middle of some serious topic, and was barely getting any word out at the moment..

T: What made you laugh?

Me: Nothing… just.. you just sat in your “I’m gonna wait here silently, looking at you until you find some words” position.

T: (laughing) Do you want me not to do that?

Denial: Lol no I’m not behind, I totally have time to catch up before deadline

Anger: The fuck, prof?? This is impossible, nobody can do this much work in this amount of time, lower your expectations, damn

Bargaining: If I skip meals and sleep for a week I can def get this done, and if not this book has a chapter on pacts with the devil but that’s for sure like a last resort

Depression: What have I done. Who let me sign up for five more years of this. Oh God I’ve made a huge mistake somebody drown me

so often when recovery isn’t going well we blame ourselves; we feel that it’s a personal failure. we’d do much better to look at our circumstances and assess how supportive they are of recovery, or the ways in which they might be keeping us clinging to the disorder for emotional survival. 

we can’t always change our circumstances, but a) sometimes we can, and b) we don’t necessarily need to change them in order for our insights about them to do their healing work… that is, we can start to separate our selves from the disorder when we see how it functions for us, and why.

so often when recovery isn’t going well we blame ourselves; we feel that it’s a personal failure. we’d do much better to look at our circumstances and assess how supportive they are of recovery, or the ways in which they might be keeping us clinging to the disorder for emotional survival. 

we can’t always change our circumstances, but a) sometimes we can, and b) we don’t necessarily need to change them in order for our insights about them to do their healing work… that is, we can start to separate our selves from the disorder when we see how it functions for us, and why.

you almost say seven but the answer floats in your lungs like rising mud. you shift your shoulders. some part of you is already forming an excuse. that it’s not that bad sometimes. one, two, three on a day that the clouds are out. you’re just complaining about stuff. yesterday you laughed past a brick of a four, does that make the brick come down to a two-point-five.  the solid seven panic attack of last tuesday feels somehow like a little thorn, just a regular day full of a gentle three-point-nine earthquake rocking after yesterday’s close-to-an-eight. see but if tomorrow you have a real bad day, it will make today look simple.

and what if. what if tomorrow it’s a big old red eight-point-nine. like one of those days where sirens are going off in every part of you but you’re stuck behind a glass window watching it all burn down. like one of those days that your skin against the air feels foreign. like too much of everything. like sitting-in-the-shower, like can’t-eat, like the tide isn’t just coming in, it came while you were sleeping and now you’ve gotta learn how to swim. like bounce me against a bullet hole kind of day.

you keep numbers like nine and ten way out of reach. those are for the people who really are suffering. you’ve got no excuse. nine and ten are funeral numbers, for real problems, not yours, no. and sometimes you’re fine. and you’re kind of used to it. and it’s not sad, it’s just numb like a television caught on static. numb like i can’t remember if i care about this. numb like nothing works but i can’t be bothered to fix it. that’s not sad that’s every day stuff. everybody feels like this, right? feels like they’ve been shut off. right.  

maybe five. right in the middle. like not gonna shoot myself but i’m not wasting your time. a nonanswer. like could be worse could be better. like i need help but i don’t want you to worry even though i need someone to worry about me because i can’t worry about myself. maybe five. but what if five is too small. what if five is too big. what if -