I imagine how this blog is starting to sound. One minute everything is great - I'm happy, content, at peace, grateful, life is good, it couldn't be better. The next minute - I sound like I am complaining - I'm devastated, life is miserable and what is this thing called happiness that I can't seem to find? Then it's great again, my job is great, things couldn't be better, I have acceptance, I wouldn't change anything. Then I'm crying on the floor again about why I'm not happy. Are you picking up on the pattern here? My therapist actually suggested that I track this for a while, and that I try to pay more attention to what sends me spiraling downward rather than just acting surprised when I find myself there. Except that it isn't like a downward spiral, it's more like I teleport there. It's like flipping a switch.
I don't have the faintest idea how it happens. One minute I am one way and the next minute I'm not that way anymore. Nothing triggers it really. I guess I'm just used to it. I've cycled through this up and down every few days since I can remember - at least since I was 15. Sometimes the cycle is more than a few days - and it's never extreme - I just hover around the middle. Slightly better than normal, slightly worse, slightly better, slightly worse. Okay, maybe saying that I am devastated on the floor sounds more extreme than slightly - but I don't go very far into depression and I've never been manic. Although one could make a definite argument for depression. Anyway, I'm having a hard time sorting this one out. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the more I work the AA program the better I feel - and though I shouldn't say this - it's like a drug - work the program better, feel better. Which makes me wonder if at least half of feeling bad, if not more, isn't really depression, but instead, just untreated alcoholism
So anyway, today is a good day. If I had to really rate the day, I would say it is a "good day plus." It's not a "plus plus" because I am staying up too late and I have to work all weekend, but it's definitely one plus for being better than average. And I'm talking about the way I feel - I feel good - it's not just that my day was good. Today is one of those days when I feel overwhelmed with gratitude, happy (wait, did I just admit to feeling happy?), content, at peace with the state of things, accepting of the things that have happened to me, my faith is strong and I love AA. I know how it must sound - like I can't make my mind up. Am I grateful or not, happy or not, do I believe in AA or not? Of course I do.
I just have bad days sometimes - I have days where I slip into old ways of thinking and old ways of behaving, where my thoughts and actions are fear based and where I lose sight of the purpose, and can't pick out the details, where I lose myself in the future instead of staying present in the moment. I slip into the me of my former life, like slipping on a different pair of clothes. I just lose perspective sometimes. But even on my worst day, my most negative, and unhappy and miserable day - what I really believe is this - that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous saved my life. That it saved my life and changed my life and I had nothing to do with it. I have nothing but humility about it. Even on my worst day I am grateful beyond words and I believe deep down to the very core of me that the program works, that miracles will happen right in front of you, and that your life really does become infinitely more amazing than you could have imagined. Even on my worst day I know that I have happiness - it may not look the way I wanted it to or be what I want it to be - but it is there. Even on my worst day, I still believe that anything is possible and that things really will be okay in the end - even if okay doesn't look the way I want it to. Even on those days, I have unshakable faith. And I know that I'm lucky, even on those days - I don't have to be sober, I don't have to go to AA meetings, I don't have to carry the message - I get to. It is a gift.
Congratulations to A. on 30 days sober. You continue to inspire and amaze me.
1 comment:
I've already given you my spiel about antidepressants, so I won't go through that again.
Well, maybe just a tiny bit.
I used to have these micro-depressions, which sound something like what you're talking about. The bottom would just suddenly drop out for no apparent reason -- or for a really minor one. In some ways it was worse than being depressed all the time, because it was so unpredictable and I never knew when one would strike.
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