#finding solutions

Stay quiet where possible,

Treat it like customer service,

Even if I’ve never had that role.

Hold the tongue, descalate,

Then walk away to scream.

Doesn’t matter what they think,

If the issues are big or small,

They’ll see the fastest to react

Despite not being fast at all.

It’s processing what is happening,

And scribbling as you go.

Perhaps half is nonsense ranting,

But that doesn’t have to show.

React where isn’t observed,

Go through bizarre insane solutions,

Then ask a question, clarify again,

Step backwards through the scene,

Break it down, get them thinking,

But speak before their puzzles fit.

And that’s how to do quick thinking

So the past couple days I have wanted to drink again, nothing too tough to manage, but interesting because I am now able to identify a pattern in what makes me want to drink.

Since beginning to attempt sobriety, the most likely time for me to relapse is 1) right before my period and 2) when work has stressed me out and my anxiety is high.  Keeping in mind that for me, anxiety manifests as being incredibly frustrated with people and feeling like human touch/voices are unbearable at times, this makes it pretty understandable (to me at least) of why those are the times when I want to drink.  At first I wanted to drink at A LOT of times other than that, but all the other triggering moments are things that I have mostly been able to work through and now can talk myself down from regularly, to the point that some of them don’t make me want to drink at all anymore.  Which is awesome.  It’s awesome to see that progress in myself.

  It doesn’t help that I basically always have a weird sliver of existential angst going on, like a dull background noise, and that said angst gets waaaaaaaaaay worse when I am either experiencing active mentally ill states or hormonal.  I am afraid to take regular birth control because the last time I did it made my depression much worse and I gained a lot of weight, but I am considering talking to my doctor about one of those arm-insert birth control things to limit my period, simply because it would make my quality of life better.  

Anyway, it’s good to know that at this point, I can pinpoint about 5-7 days a month where I will want to drink, and I can pretty much know in advance when they are going to happen because this is a regular cycle of my life.  That helps me prepare and make an action plan for how I am going to handle life those days in a sober, honest, and healthy way.

My friend/roommate reminded me today that behavior always is a function of seeking to meet a need, and therefore can be understood (we were talking about students/her clients).  I am no exception to that.  I am going to do some work on identifying what feeling is happening and what need I am trying to fulfill, when I want to get wasted during this time every month.  This weekend I am dog-sitting my favorite dog in the whole world so I will have some time with him and a safe space to just feel the feelings, journal, and talk aloud while I listen to the Killers and make emotional support tacos (TM) ((like regular tacos, but they support my emotions and fill me with healthy protein))

Creative Problem Solving

-the girl with anxiety to the girl with ADD

This was actually a really cool conversation. We were roommates and realized that the way we set up our surroundings stressed the other out to no end. Both of our solutions? “I just don’t look at your side of the room, and it works out pretty well.”

One of the amazing things I learned from her and our other roommate is that people often just think entirely differently. We operate almost in completely different worlds. We have different need and habits and ways of processing. And if we could all get that, if we could figure out what those things were and balance them, we could work together really well. But at the same time, there were these things that weren’t easily compatible.

I believe in conflict (not bite your head off conflict, but soft, yet direct) to find balance. One of them valued peace (a.k.a. complete lack of disagreement) over all else. This was another thing that caused a great deal of stress. When there was no conflict, I felt that there was no conclusion, no feeling settled for anyone. For her, when I tried to bring things up and ask opinions, she would fight it so hard by simply agreeing to whatever everyone else wanted. This tended to cause such an unsettled feeling in me that I would insist on receiving everyone’s complete, honest opinions. In turn, she would panic and further stress that “whatever you want is great!” The other was able to bring us together by explaining both sides in a way that was logically (although not often emotionally) understood by both.