you may have been worse recently, you may have relapsed recently, you may have taken a lot of steps back recently, but please don’t be too hard on yourself. i know that you are disappointed with yourself, i know that it hurts, but now is not the time to give up on the fight; please keep trying, as best as you can. hope is not lost, and you will get back to the place you were before, and continue to recover.
I’m embarrassed to tell you this and I know it will disappoint many, but last winter I fell into a terrible spot and I broke sobriety.
Until then, I hadn’t drank alcohol in over a decade. I don’t talk about it much, but it was a problem for me. I was drinking frequently at parties until I had memory gaps, then drank by myself, until I was waking up the next day in time for dinner. So all at once I quit. For good.
But last year on a winter evening, when my wife and daughter were at a friend’s place, I descended. Badly. I knew it was coming. For weeks I was not myself and I hid it the best I could. I found a bottle of wine in the pantry, and normally we don’t carry such a thing in the house but it was an early Christmas gift we were saving for someone. I broke it open and drank it all.
At the time I had been on antidepressants for a month or so. The alcohol plus the medication threw me into a psychotic episode. My wife found me on the floor shaking and hallucinating. I didn’t sleep all night. My body was wracked with spasms. At some point I couldn’t stop talking and I told my wife everything: every dark secret I had carried from my abusive childhood for years. Things she has never heard. Things I will never say out loud to another human, ever.
My wife stayed up with me. I felt terrible for her. She has never seen me that way. I can’t imagine what it looked like from her end. Well, I can. Seeing my mother that way when I was a kid. I remember. It was—is—terrifying.
I still think about drinking. It’s always there. A bottle. A beer. A glass. Always at the corner of my eye. I think of drowning all of it, my broken brain, every racist voice, every bully, every terrible thing that my five year old eyes never should’ve seen. I know I am lucky; I haven’t had it as hard as many. But my pain: some days it is too much. And if I could drink enough to make it go away, even for a night, it feels like a good trade. I could go the rest of my life forgetting. Just forgetting.
bestie did it ever get better in the first place??? or did you just shift all your attention, affection and focus into another person, giving them the love you wished you had but never receiving it so it’s just becomes a bottomless well of you just giving and giving and soon you realize you are so addicted to self destruction your 'love’ became the manifestation of it
If you haven’t heard…Demi overdosed on heroin today. She is thankfully “okay” now, and is recovering according to news sources. Thanks to her new song, Sober, I knew that she was struggling again..but honestly, I didn’t think about it too much.
People with mental illness tend to have higher rates of addiction and as a fellow bipolar warrior and a woman with a BA in Psychology, I knew it was bound…
We’ve all been there. Its a very common occurence in the hypnosis community, because the kink we enjoy is an edgy thing. We enjoy the mind wiping, personality erasing, brainwashing regions of trance. We enjoy the deep mind controlling, transgressive, reframing regions of trance.
You may try to claim that you don’t. That you’re different. That that’s not you. But, the fact is there you’re here, on tumblr, reading my words and you know at a very deep level that its true.
This call goes out to all of the wayward sheep. All the ones who have been here, left, and returned again… only to leave again. You know who you are. All are welcome here. Its always OK to come back and say hello.
Say hello… there’s always time for another chapter.
I posted about relapse prevention previously, but the handout from IOP was too long for one post. So to follow up on what relapse is and how to identify your “relapse signature”…
Questions to Consider in Identifying Warning Signs and Relapse Signature
What was the very first thing you noticed at the time?
What happened to the days and weeks leading up to your relapse?
When did you first know that you were unwell? How did you find out? Did anyone tell you they thought you were becoming unwell?
Did you go to the hospital? How? Did you avoid going to the hospital?
Were there any changes in your symptoms you noticed at the time? Were there any changes in your symptoms you did not notice at the time, but that you now think may have been warning signs?
Were there any changes in your mood/behavior that you noticed at the time? Were there any changes in your mood/behavior you did not notice at the time, but that you now think may have been warning signs?
What was the most obvious or severe change before your relapse?
What changes did you make? What happened next?
Strategies to Cope with Warning Signs
Coping with warning signs or relapse symptoms means something different for everyone. It may mean you do or do not do something, but generally it involves stress management techniques and distraction activities.
Reduce stress and stimulation
Do some relaxation - relaxing activities, exercising, playing sports, stay clam
Use self-talk
Use a diversion - a distraction, music, earphones/earplugs, meditation, TV, talk to someone
Initiate social contact
Do some reality testing
Note people’s advice
Try suppressive techniques - wear and flick a rubber band on your wrist, say “stop!” to symptoms
Seek assistance - tell someone, a friend, your doctor, therapist, case manager
Think positively
Keep taking your medication
Get more sleep
Plan your day
Engage in your action plan
It’s always important to have an action plan. Think about which coping strategies have worked for you and some you are willing to try, and remember that some strategies won’t always work, so have backups. Talk to your mental health therapist about helping you develop an action plan.
