so i ‘track’ the recovery tag and it sooo depresses me. people are so bummed out about having to be in recovery. the path of recovery is a beautiful thing and should be embraced. people should overcome whatever their fears are, the fear of the unknown. jump head first into positive thinking.
…I hear that. The thing about tumblr and blogging in general is that it CAN be a little down-trodden - this is where people VENT their shit! I’ve said it before somewhere else in time, but someone in my AA said that I farted sunshine. Well, yeah. I am a pretty chipper person outside of this computer and this house, too. (My husband would NEVER say that I was ‘chipper’). But I wear that mask because it’s how I am. I do wear my heart on my sleeve many times and hate having to explain myself when I don’t feel like it. But this place is where I can complain, be funny, laugh a little and cry a lot.
There have been some really depressing people on here that I have unfollowed. One guy wrote a suicide note then disappeared for about two weeks and, man, it sucked. Another girl was a cutter and would post her slips. People would ask her how did she get such great blood flow. URRGGGHHH. That’s the stuff that I shy away from. Complaints, please do! But that’s my own boundary.
Recovery can be tough, especially for the younger-somethings that get so much of their identity from their people, places and things. I’m over that part, so it’s easier on many levels. Depression about figuring out what your major malfunction is can be a kick in the teeth, but it’s do-able. One small trudge at a time to happy destiny!
And I have to disagree with you on the ‘should be’ this and ‘don’t be’ that. Everyone needs to find their way (sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly) and it will materialize eventually. But no one’s feelings are wrong. It’s the actions they take after the feeling. Depressed? Ok. Drinking about it? Ehhhh. Not so much! If you are an addict and didn’t use today, regardless of how great or crappy you feel, it is a victory in my book. Whatever it takes…. Not picking up can suck donkey balls. Whatever it takes, though…. You don’t have to smile in your mugshot, either.
I feel the need to weigh in on this because I think it’s really important to clarify this issue. If recovery was really a choice between positive and negative thinking then we would all be binging on sunshine the way we once sucked down vodka. However that is not the case. Sometimes, you have to get down through the negative, beyond the nitty gritty to get to the positive.
My first year in recovery, I thought the whole point of recovery was for me to ok, fine, happy, etc. So much that I pretty much stuffed every feeling that didn’t feel great to me. I rode the pink cloud for the better part of a year and when someone asked me how I was I would always say, “I am good, you know, I am working on stuff. But I am good.”
Shit, I wasn’t working on shit. I was eating cupcakes like it was my job and trying to fit all my feelings into a nice neat little box so that I could cope with the world around me. Positivity isn’t the absence of negativity. It’s what happens when you do the real digging. When you put all your fucked up neurosis on the table for the world (your higher power) to see and you step forward and take responsibility for your part in it. You take your inventory, you work through the bad, and you get to the other side. You acknowledge that we create our own reality and by letting go of the old, only then can you truly begin to create a new reality- one that is positive and built on a solid foundation.
They aren’t kidding when they say no major changes your first year. The first year is rough, sometimes it’s just enough to make it through a day, a minute, an hour. And the second year gets harder. You start to feel everything. And you don’t just feel one emotion at a time, it’s like 5 at any given moment (try feeling happy, sad, angry, guilty, and euphoric all at once!). It’s like having rocks thrown on you daily. I will always be so grateful for 2011, it was the hardest year of my life. And I didn’t give myself enough credit. I was so hard on myself, I constantly felt like I could barely keep it together, and I was definitely hard on others.
Recovery is hard, life is even harder. There is no one process to this but I think we have all earned the right to feel our feelings in whatever capacity that means and trust me, it gets better. But you have to get through the layers of the onion. Happiness comes through the chaos. Relax and take it easy, I definitely spent way too much time in early recovery worrying about whether or not I would change. If you show up even a little bit each day, change will happen.
It’s not about sounding good, it’s about being honest and being willing to do things a different way. Be kind to yourself, it’s an incredibly brave thing to change everything. Give yourself space to get a little messy, you have earned it.
