"It is hard to leave something when you are told you will die as a consequence. I can see why some people call it a cult." https://www.recoveringfromrecovery.com/leaving-aa/

I've been trying to figure life out in my head and it's getting all jumbled up so I figured, why not blog about it? Write it out. See if the picture gets any clearer.

I've been struggling the last 2 weeks. Goddamn March. Fuck you and your Irish clover and the color green and that stupid leprechaun!

I really have nothing against leprechauns or rainbows or the color green or clovers & certainly not gold. But come on, March.... Work with me here!

I missed several days last week due to being physically unwell. I wrote about that in the previous post. Catch up if you choose. The weekend was better. Saturday, I went back to a different doctor because mine wasn't in and this doctor I'm not fond of at all, but she said "You're fine" and so I was. Right? Right?!? *eye roll*

Sooooo not right.

Tho folks in AA said I was very different from Saturday to Sunday. Saturday I was much more subdued and down. Sunday I was much more up and perky. Well, sure I was. I'd been on Rexulti for 4 days. I was feeling pretty damn good. Almost too good. Like, uh-oh, is this turning into mania? Um, yeah.

Let me tell you something. Mania feels fucking great. Best feeling in the goddamn world. I can conquer anything and anybody. To do list? Fuck. How about To-Done list?! Sleep? Who fucking needs sleep? Not me! There are too many things I want to do! What can I get done next? Should I build a new house? Write a novel in one night? Scrub every motherfucking floor in my house?

Jesus.

It is not great.

In fact, mania is a far more dangerous place for me to reside than depression.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

So Saturday to Sunday, I took a turn. But not necessarily a turn for the better. I went to bed Sunday with every intention of going to work Monday morning and being a good Stepford employee. However, I woke up Monday and the first thought in my head was, "I'm not going" and when I have even an inkling of that thought, it burrows into my goddamn brain and I am incapable of turning it around. I haven't figured out how yet, and not because I'm sitting around doing nothing. I'm trying to figure it out. Goddamn, am I ever.

So, yah, Monday morning. Do you know how I got to work Monday? Because I was going to quit. That is the only reason I made it to the office. I was going to walk in, not even clock in because how rude to expect to be paid for the 10 minutes it's going to take me to quit?  I walked in and had to search for the HR woman, eventually found her and said, "I don't know what to do". I explained what was going on with me (depression, anxiety, sick) and get this. She understood. She was empathetic. She wants to work with me to get through this. She said very complimentary things about me, like, "I see such potential in you as a buyer. We need somebody stable."  STABLE. Can you believe that? As I'm sitting in her office, crying, telling her I suck at being an adult, I don't know what to do, I think the best thing is for me to quit. (AVOIDANCE much?)  I laughed at her.

She allowed me to take this past week off (unpaid, of course) to work out the problem and she said even if I come back on Monday and tell her I still want to quit, then no hard feelings. That was a relief, to One, have someone understand and Two, not have the guilt, anxiety and fear of calling in, stressing about going or not going, etc, etc, etc.

I grabbed my shit and, after telling my boss I needed the week off to deal with a personal family issue and that HR approved it, I booked it the fuck out of there and went home...and crashed.

Now, I could have stayed in bed all week, not doing jack shit and just wallowing in my misery....but  Rexulti wouldn't allow that and I guess I should be thankful for that much. At this point, I had taken .5 mg Wed, Thurs, Friday and 1 mg Saturday and Sunday (evenings).  Monday, after I crashed, I went for a walk with a friend to get out into the sunshine and get some exercise. I went to Salvation Army and bought some stupid shit and then I went to a meeting, where another member said, "I got a real problem with atheists".  I could have sat there and not shared, but, come on. How could I allow that? So, I very lovingly, kindly, politely and with a smile on my face and a lot of laughter, said "I'm an agnostic atheist. I don't have any knowledge of gods and I lack a belief in gods. But this is what I love about AA. We can all be so very diverse and respectful of each other's beliefs, even if we totally disagree." 

Yah right. Dude wouldn't even look at me the rest of the night. Whatever. I guess you got it all figured out, huh?

But I digress.

(You could almost skip this entire section because I basically give you my agenda for each day, which you probably don't give 2 shits about, but I need to do this for my own record. So skip ahead if you like. I'll tell you when it's safe to read again. :)  ) 

Monday evening, I took .5 mg because I could feel myself ramping up. Tuesday, I tackled a bunch of shit at home, made phone calls to get in to the med-check lady and my therapist and was just busy all damn day. Didn't even nap. Nor did I sleep much Tuesday night... a few hours, at best.  My alarm went off at 4 Wednesday morning, I shut it off, but still woke up 20 minutes later. I needed to wake up and get ready to go to the CB AA meeting at 7AM. I went. It was good. I was rather perky and for the first time ever in that meeting, chose the reading. I'd never done that in that particular meeting before. Odd. Almost 7 years later and I did. Better late than never, right?

I then went to NFM with a friend and bought a new living room set. Because I'm practically jobless, so that seemed like a good idea. *eye roll* I bought a loveseat outright, so at least there's that. I put the rest on credit with 0% interest for 2 years so at least I'm not a total fucking idiot. But still. Come on, Amy! You have to have a job to pay off even 0% interest! So maybe I am a total fucking idiot. I was excited. I didn't stop moving. Ever. My body is so goddamn tired, I can't even explain it.

I met with my med-check lady after NFM and she said, "Whoa. I was expecting crying, sobbing, catatonic Amy. But this isn't good...." At least she got it. I couldn't shut up. I just talk, talk, talk. How annoying am I? So, even though I was high, presumably because of the Rexulti, she thinks we just need to find the balance. The right combination. Maybe every other day. Maybe every 2 days. Maybe .5 one night and 1 mg the next and so on and so forth. It's just finding the right combination.

My insurance won't cover it. Of course not. And it's $1200.00.  Luckily, my provider has a plethora of samples which they're giving me. They're my dealer.

After med-check, I went back to Salvation Army and bought more shit I don't need  (at least I'm shopping thrift stores and not Kohl's). I got home around 4. I did not nap. I went to bed that night after 9 and was awake at 11. Wide awake. I painted. Until 4AM. I slept for a couple more hours and then back at it.

Thursday, I got a massage (I love this masseuse and the massages she gives), went to therapy where Tausha pointed out my behavior pattern of AVOIDANCE. No shit, Sherlock. How do I fucking stop it is the question!!  So she suggested doing yoga, meditating (I already do every morning, work or not...hasn't helped, tho); Going for a walk with a friend. Um, yah, who exactly is going to get up at 5AM to go walking with me? I don't have a good enough friend who would do that for me, nor am I ballsy enough to even ask. Tausha suggested making a PRO's list. I don't needs a CONS list. I've got that down pat. I need a PRO's list to remind me of why I wanted this job in the first place.

And that was pretty much it. All very good suggestions.

New furniture. Accent chair is on backorder.

After therapy, I borrowed Dad's truck and drove to NFM to get my new furniture because I was too antsy to wait 2 weeks for it to be delivered. I hauled it home, a friend & I unloaded it. I hauled my old couch to a friend and almost died carrying it up his stairs, so after that, I wasn't in the mood to be around him any longer....without throat punching him.

It boggles my mind how few people know how to pack and move shit. Like, obviously your father was nothing like mine because mine taught me the proper way to pack the bed of a truck, tie shit down and carry stuff up stairs and how to properly get it through the doorway. Thank you Dad! But it so irritated me that I knew if I hung around, I'd do, if not physical harm, certainly verbal harm. So I left.

And I went to bed at 9 and finally slept. Jesus I slept hard. I woke up at 6 this morning feeling like I could sleep another 9 hours....but I didn't. I got up. I meditated. I yoga'd. I bathed. I went to lunch with Shan, tho didn't really get to talk about what's going on. *sigh* Stopped by the library, got the key, got some movies and ran errands downtown. I came home, in a food coma, and napped on my new loveseat. I got up and intended to write this post then, but got distracted by going through family pictures on my computer and moving them to my phone and I got sad and cried and then I saw a picture of Chris (the ex, not the brother) & I and felt like I was going to vomit. Goddamn, I loved that fucking asshole and even now, I want to message him. What the fuck is wrong with me? I just turned my phone off to make it more difficult to do so. I don't trust myself.

(You can resume reading now, if you took the break you so richly deserve from reading this crazy fucking madness.) 

Then a guy friend came over and he was his typical self which just annoys the fuck out of me and I'm just not in the mood to cater to anyone's needs right now, nor is he helpful at all, so I reached out to my sponsor....who I had not spoken to since last weekend.

I forget I have one! I really do. It's odd. I'm not really the type of person to call on people when I'm in need, unless it's my mom & dad, and even then, I'm less likely at this age to call them for talk-therapy because that's just not who they are and I know that so rather than expecting something different from them and then being disappointed because I didn't receive what I needed in that moment, I just don't expect that from them. They support me in so many other ways....let's give them a break from crazy Amy, shall we?

I'm just not one to call people when I need. Am I? Maybe I am. I don't know. Right now, I'm not. I try. I do! I tried to get with Shan all damn week but it never worked out because of life and then today it did work out, and I tried to share with her my struggle, but it wasn't really being received (distractions), so.... yah. One person. I reached out to one person. Tho I did go to med-check lady and I did go to therapy. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do....but I guess it's not enough.

I should've called my sponsor much earlier than this evening.

And here's my problem with AA.

After sharing with her everything....literally everything.... she did what a sponsor does. She asked how we can work the steps through this problem...and that I should think of the steps in terms of alcoholism, not alcohol, because it seems to her that my problems are alcoholism.

Hm.

So my depression and anxiety and mania and craziness are alcoholism? They're all a result of my alcoholism? They're not stand-alone? Or maybe, just maybe, they're what brought on or caused the alcoholism. How about that? Because that's what I think. I don't think the depression, etc are a result of alcoholism. I think alcoholism is a result of those things. But what I took away from her was that, I clearly have issues with my mood, but that alcoholism is the core.

Is it? Am I just too stubborn to see that? Or is this just shit?

I do just fine with AA as long as I don't delve too deeply into it. Do you understand what I mean? If I don't look too closely at it, if I only look at it peripherally, then it's fine. I can make do. But when I start to go deeper into AA, I see such religious, AA-righteous, "do this or you'll die", ambiguous teachings, antiquated teachings, Steps that aren't effective (3%, folks. 3-fucking-% success rate). I see gossip and hurtful things. I've read the Big Book much  more recently because of the meeting I started and think, "How have I stayed in AA so fucking long? This is really a religious program." I read the Daily Reflections every morning. It's 95% of the time about God and God with a capital "G". They don't even try to pretend it isn't about GOD. If they did, they wouldn't capitalize G. If it wasn't religious, why do we say the Serenity Prayer and the Lord's Prayer? Why do I need a higher power to pray to? I don't believe in prayer. I believe in the power of thought. Is that all they mean? I think not. I believe in nature. Does that mean I should pray to it?

*sigh* It's all so frustrating to me.

My sponsor is funny and smart and lovely and I would love to be her friend in real life (outside of AA), but this is my problem. She wants me to look at AA a little too closely and ya know what? I wanted to work the fucking steps. I did. And maybe I still can....just in a different way. Hm. That's a new realization. Maybe I can rewrite the steps. Keep the basis the same, but remove all religiousness. I think I shall at least try. I know there are secular AA meetings that have probably already gone though the process. I can pilfer from them.

Back to my sponsor phone call. She also questioned my med check lady and how my Rexulti is dispensed and the terms in which I take them. My med-check lady basically left it up to me. "As needed". She just said to call her when I need her. I'm capable of that. Clearly. Yet, my sponsor said that's a dangerous place for an addict to be.

I've never abused drugs, except to try to harm myself, lol, so I guess I have. But not in an addict-sort-of-way. Never. It just doesn't appeal to me. I don't enjoy the effect of drugs. Hell, I don't even enjoy the effects of alcohol at this point. I honestly think if I were to go to a bar or buy alcohol at the store, it'd be shocking for me to do so without having a major catastrophic crisis of conscience. But say I did. Say I went to a bar. Imagine that glass of beer (or whatever) sitting in front of me. Do you think I would be able to pick it up and drink it?

Writing that, as I was writing it, I thought, "Oh god, yes I would. I would guzzle that beer so fucking fast, I can almost taste it."  I would. And god, I can taste it.

(pause)

I took a 1.5 hour break from this post. After I wrote that last bit, I freaked out and immediately texted Shan and got my ass down to her house and cried and laughed and talked and listened. And now I'm finally hungry and tired so rather than finish all of my thoughts on this tonight or even wait to finish it tomorrow, I'm going to post what I have and hope to get back to it tomorrow. But if I don't.... I was going to say "Don't worry" but that's ridiculous. My sponsor said one good thing tonight that I'll take with me: There's good selfish and bad selfish. Right now, I'm in need so being selfish is good. Think of the stewardesses speech at the beginning of each flight. Put the mask on yourself first and then help the person next to you....because if you're dead, you can't help a damn soul.