Sometimes I go back and read the stuff I wrote in that journal. I don't know why I do it. Maybe it's to see how I've weathered the storm. Maybe it's to see how far I've come as a person. Or, maybe, I'm just a masochist. Whatever the reason, a couple times a year I'll double-click "journal.doc" and reflect on was happening on this date all those years ago.
I did that this morning. And for January 31, 2007, this is part of what I wrote:
January 31, 2007
6:43am: You know, I was thinking in the shower…I'm in so much pain internally that I don't even seem to feel it anymore. I know it's there, but it's like I've become numb to the feeling. A very weird sensation. I'm hurting, yet I don't hurt. I wonder what that means. Am I losing my emotions? Have I reached a point where I’m just like Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo's Nest? I don't know. But if pain was a visible entity, and you sliced me open, I'm sure you'd see that I was full of it. I heard some injured Winter X-Games dude say something in an interview the other night after he injured his knee skiing or something: "Pain is just negativity leaving the body." If I no longer feel pain, but I know it's inside me, does that mean the negativity is no longer leaving my body? Does that mean I'm just going to become one big ball of negativity? I hope not.
I remember feeling that way. I remember it like it was yesterday. Being in so much emotional pain that I couldn't even feel it. Completely numb. Like the post-electroconvulsive therapy version of R.P. McMurphy near the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, just before Chief puts the pillow over his face and puts him out of his misery. Devoid of any feelings whatsoever.
That was not a fun time for me. Or my family.
Ten years later, though, I can honestly say I'm in a much better place. Sure, things with my son are better--not great, but better. But I know I've grown as a person, too. (Therapy helped. I highly recommend it.) I don't let things consume me like I used to. And I try to relax and embrace whatever life throws at me, as best I can. Am I perfect? Of course not. I'll be the first to admit that I still have my "moments," when shit hitting the fan can get the best of me. But even when that happens, I am usually able to recover relatively quickly. That, my friends, is progress. And life, like recovery, is all about progress, not perfection.
Thank God I didn't become that big ball of negativity. That means there's hope for everyone.
"We have a choice. We can spend our whole life suffering because we can't relax with how things really are, or we can relax and embrace the open-endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, unbiased." --Pema Chödrön
I feel that way. Numb. 6 years together. 4 of which were constant relapses on xanax, heroin, and meth. Back and forth, small glimpses of the man I loved. Uppers and downers he says to make it through the day... Some relapses were really bad. Others still managed to be functioning. I do anything I can to help him succeed and get sober. I even raised his son (whose mother died when he was a baby in a car crash while on heroin) and kept him every time his dad went to rehab. Just this month I went to Florida with him so he could detox privately.. As soon as we got home and he was sober, he dropped me like I was nothing. Like the flip of the switch everything between us was gone. He wants nothing to do with me. All those years of torture to help him for this? I feel numb. Broken. Worthless.
ReplyDeleteOK, I believe I've mentioned that journaling for me is a huge release. I've been journaling for years. I go back occasionally like that. Rare-because I get so depressed at what I wrote-but I do. Dean this gives me chills. I'm very sorry anyone was that sad, ever. I don't wish it on anyone.
ReplyDeleteI've had that feeling before I even think I said something to the effect of feeling like Nicholson once. You quoted a line from the movie. But to have someone put into words the deepest depair that I have ever felt so perfectly did excactly what I just said. Gave me chills. It's like Floyd's Comfortably Numb.
I've tried to tell someone in a meeting this numbness was real when the pain got heavy enough. Not one person there could relate. At least I'm not broken, or alone. As selfish as this is then I'm grateful to have read that post. But sad at the same time. Thanks for writing that.