Awaken the Dreamers

Co-Dependents Anonymous Step 3:
"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God."

Co-Dependents Anonymous Promise 3:
"I know a new freedom."





Fake it til you make it keeps running through my mind as I wake up everyday to the realization that things will never be the same as they were before. 


I found myself writing that like Jack in The Shining; "Things will never be the same as they were before." Over and over and over.  It was scary at first, one of those moments where you start to think you might actually be tip-toeing towards some serious meltdown(s). But it's all part of the healing/recovery process. Denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. Now that I look over some old notes like the one mentioned above I start to see the acceptance kicking in.


And I have no idea how to describe it; for once in my life I don't know how to word something and it's probably because I've never experienced anything like this before. It's the definitive name/reason/source of my behavior and all the crazy shit I'd been doing up until a few months ago. It's like someone breathing new life into me. There's actually a reason, no matter what that may be, worth looking forwards to in my life. 


The best I can do to describe what's happening to me is to say that it's...abstract. Like looking at a shattered glass on the floor and knowing that each shard belongs to one another; that the concept of autonomy no longer applies. You know it can be a glass once more, whole again. But picking up all those pieces takes a long time and as a friend recently reminded me...it hasn't been that long since I dropped that glass. I'd say I'm just now figuring out how to assemble the big broken pieces. 


It's good, bad, painful, relieving and so much more. Occasionally I figure out another connection between one event and another and sometimes I get overly eager and cut myself on those pieces of glass in my zeal to understand the why. That's when I have to start over. I have to do my step work, stop looking at pictures, and pick up the 2000 pound phone and call my sponsor, family, or friends. It takes strength to know when you need help and to accept it. 


The third step isn't an active process, or if it is, it's only a small percentage. It's probably the easiest step I've experienced thus far. All you have to do is make a decision to surrender control over the things we think are completely ours. That's it. Just say "yes" or "no." It's like taking the blue pill or the red pill. You can go deeper, experience pain and fear you never thought you were capable of alongside contentment and joy...or you can just go back to the safe, cozy, and inevitably chaotic life you once lived.


There's dogma within CoDa but it's as supple or rigid as we allow it to be. Nobody said I had to believe in some bearded dude with sandals or all 8,439 different version of messiahs and gods. Just "as we understand God." My understanding is changing everyday, and I don't need to share that with anyone. It's mine and I treasure it too much to try and word something that just is. Suffice it to say that my God doesn't throw lightening or raze entire cities. My god just...is.


A new freedom. There is, I'm slowly finding out, a small glimmer of hope in my world. And the scariest thing is...it's working. 


I used to hate it when people preached in my support group about the energy or love they felt in the room. That's not tangible. I can't smell love, I can't hear it being carried by the wind. Some may argue that you can taste it and I'll just leave that one alone. But as I was leading the support group (something I volunteered for for the month of June)....goddammit if I didn't feel just the tiniest little spark go off. 


It was quick, like a grey blur in your peripheral vision. I saw something but I can never prove it actually existed; just that I felt it for a moment. 


I sent an email to a person who is important to me. I asked for an address so as to send a graduation gift. It was difficult; having to initiate that conversation. I just swam around in this little pool by my home thinking it over and over. All the possibilities my amazing mind can imagine....right. But then I remembered a few words from my sponsor: "thinking's what got us into this mess in the first fucking place." All the over-analyzing and intellectualization of things so as to try and place my flag in that emotional unknown. T call it mine and feel safe & secure for once. 


It-never-worked. 


So as I was swimming tiny laps, a big fish in a little pond, I just stopped thinking and, floating there with a clear blue sky overhead, I surrendered a little bit of that control I thought I had. I asked for help. It takes strength to know when to ask for help even if it's from something bigger than myself but is of myself all at once. Love. That's all I got. Just a word and it...seemed right. I got out of the pool, wrote the email without trembling through the process and sent it off. 


I still haven't heard from this person and while a part of me feels saddened by this I've also decided not to let myself be carried away by that irrational emotional mind that can creates the most emo novels out of my present circumstance. Because I love myself... for once. I can live with the outcome. It doesn't change how I feel but it allows me to live my life without partitioning bits of myself to others, hoping they'll save me.


I simply don't know why this person hasn't responded. Maybe she's moved on, decided we shouldn't speak anymore? Could be that she's so busy that she simply hasn't had the time or any other thousands of possibilities. The point is that, while I still check my email to see if that's changed, I no longer obsess about it. I surrendered that part of me. 


The sleeper awakens and knows that he's been living a dream and a nightmare at times. With that realization comes the privilege of truly living ones life as it was meant to be; precious & free. 


There have been few "aha!" moments in my recovery. It's been slow, gradual, and cellular but it's good to see that it's actually working. That only 4+ months of CoDa has changed my life. 6+ months of sobriety and being on my own have given me a new kind of strength I never knew I had. 


I was so afraid of heights when I was young so I decided that someday I'd jump out of a plane. Having done that twice now I no longer fear heights like I used to. I guess it's the same with emotions to some extent. I was so scared of being alone for so long and when I volunteered for the experience I found my fears heightened, new degrees of anxiety, and a depression so severe I almost took my own life over it. It's sorta like the risk I take when I jump out of a plane, maybe the chute won't open this time? But fuck it; better to have tried and failed smiling all the way down as opposed to never knowing how great you can be.


All this feels strange and new. Still scary as shit and I have my bad days like any other person but it's getting better, I am getting better. I'm becoming healthier. Despite all the things I want, I'm starting to learn to surrender. 


And there is a difference between giving up and surrendering. Giving up means you never even tried before submitting. Surrendering means you stormed the gates, besieged the ramparts, and withdrew when you saw that you'd engaged in a battle that you could never win. Then it is time to surrender having done the best you can ever do. How else could you be? 


So I surrender, I'll parlay and bring my ceremonial sword to the enemy-in-me and say I've had enough. There's nothing within that place worth fighting and dying for. All the gold in the world won't change a mans soul and neither will any one person. Become your own treasure, become something worth fighting, loving, and surrendering to with grace and integrity. 


The Sleeper awakens.


-Ian

Hunger Strike

Trust is a fickle thing. More so when the individual you are trying to trust is yourself.

There have been a few roadblocks to my recovery, more to come I'm sure but part of having some Higher Power or something greater than myself to believe in for help is being able to trust it. It's really fucking hard...how do you articulate into words how you feel about yourself? Especially when that self-image is pretty low at the moment?

I guess going years without fully letting people into my lives and then finally giving myself completely to another, losing that person, and feeling immense pain has left a large and still very sensitive wound in its wake. I'm supposed to continue to "fake it til I make it" and eventually this becomes my reality. I start to believe in something greater than myself, I have a chance at recovery because I surrender the idea that I have complete control; which I've never had.

There's a lot of trauma to experience. I've been storing it up for years and now I have the privilege of experiencing it all as a flood and not the gradual trickle that built this river. Emotional bukake. I really don't know how to handle it sometimes and instances like last night where I just lose control seem to happen from time to time and are seemingly inexplicable. My sponsor tells me how all of this has to do with really discovering who I am. It's so difficult; discovery. It means exploring the triggers, opening well-hidden boxes, and looking at old photos.

I feel as though I've just been scraping by lately which simply isn't good enough. I deserve better than that and I have many things to be happy about but my addiction is quite the contrarian.  My addiction has had years to mold itself into something that seems reasonable or even healthy. I sometimes forget that my old behaviors are what got me here to begin with. G (my sponsor) will say stuff to me like "you've been doing the same shit for years and look where its got you. How else could you be?" It's those days, where I play the old tapes, look at images that can only hurt me, that I let my addiction have it's daily bread.

There are two dogs. One is white, the other, black. The white dog is the healthy aspect of myself while the black dog is the unhealthy addiction I've fostered and fed. I can see the white dogs ribs while the black dog had gorged himself on years of self-doubt, insecurity, and denial. G says that I can never kill the black dog, it's a part of who I am, but I can starve the mother fucker. I'd like to leave an emaciated and broken animal behind me and see that white dog feed on the health and vitality I possess. I want to feed that dog and when I nurture him, I nurture My Self.

I remember reading about POW's imprisoned in the Philippines during WWII They had just been rescued and as one of the young, vital, and strong marines offered his comrade a bar of chocolate, the man crumbled the ground and wept. He wept for the generosity shown, the end of his fears, and he wept because he could finally release all the insecurity, fear, and pain he's used to survive for so long. When I read this story, I felt my gut wrenching itself and my eyes misted over. It was one of those simple acts, the kind we never expect to happen because we've lost hope. To experience such a simple gesture was like being embraced by a thousand arms at once.

I've starved myself both physically and emotionally. Much of the weight I lost within the last few months has yet to return and that in of itself angers me. I weighed 145 lbs. for so long. That was one of the few constants in my life was my body weight. And now even that has changed. I've starved myself emotionally; so caught up in the ascetic lifestyle I thought was necessary to survive my initial period of suicidal thoughts and then recovery. But just like bad habits from my childhood, I carried that Spartan-esque approach to health into the now. I'd often wondered if the prescriptions I'm on had somehow hampered my ability to feel. I know that isn't true at all now. I can see that I'd simply held back, like that prisoner of war, I'd clung onto what few scraps of sanity and hope I had even if it was hatred because that kept me alive and the fire burning. But when those gates fall down, and the people you never expected to see again because you just assumed you'd be dead before they ever arrived embrace you, it's the souls daily bread. The emotional weight of an embrace from another was so foreign and powerful that when I was able to embrace a family member recently, I realized it had been months since anyone else had even touched me, or rather, I let them touch me.

It's so easy to forget once the love we've become so accustomed to is lost to simply stop loving ourselves or anyone for that matter. I see how well-fed that black dog is, how vigorous his gait is and it makes me ill. In stark contrast to this grotesque emotional behemoth is the sunken-eyed, terrified, white dog I've neglected for so long...and I am so sorry for having done this to myself. I am sorry that I've let this part of my soul, my body, my life become so emaciated, tired, and weak.

There's an affirmation on my mirror. It reads "it is being strong, asking for help when you need it most." So, here I am, asking for help because I simply don't feel able to do so myself. Like the horse that gallops until it's frothing at the mouth from exhaustion because of it's reckless rider; I've nearly ran myself to death with my addictive behaviors whipping me all the way to insanity.

This is a plea, a cry for help. I know I have friends and family who love me very much so all I ask is for some support. Many people I count on are thousands of miles away but to just see something real, to know that there's hope...it's like that one penny a day to a Somalian child with a swollen gut. To you it may seem a small and fickle thing but to me; it's the bowl of rice that keeps me alive.

It's what keeps the white dog fed.

-Ian

MS Forget 2.0 (Beta Waves)

In transition. This is arguably the shittiest part of recovery. I don't say this because it's overwhelming or because it...underwhelming. It's an awful period...because you start to forget.

You start to forget what her face looks like, the smell of her hair, the things that made her laugh. You start to forget all those old tapes that have been on repeat in your head for the last 2 years and you start to replace them with quiet grey moments that I really can't describe as anything other than being in "transition."

I had an anxiety attack at work yesterday. It wasn't the worst I've ever had but within the last few weeks it ranked pretty high on my "oh-shit-ometer." I started to clench my right hand and I made this gesture that sorta came to me while I was in the middle of a yoga routine by myself one very emotional night. So I clenched my fist and placed my thumb in between my pointer and middle finger. I did this because, earlier that day, I had read something on a website I visit everyday that has some nugget of wisdom if you want to hear it (http://www.hazelden.org/web/public/thought.view?catId=1904). The woman who writes these passages is pretty amazing. I don't mean to deify her, she's human and has gone through things I literally cannot imagine or begin to feel. So I take her words with a small grain of salt and, despite my reluctance to make assumptions, try to expect and assume that she knows her shit to some degree. This is also based on a book by the same woman, Codependent No More by Melody Beattie.

You know that book you encounter during those incredible shitty times in your life? The ones where after you skim just a few pages at the book store you think "this asshole's been looking through my mail!" The kind of book where just seeing the cover, you think, "that's the one I need."

That was the title mentioned above. I read it once I got home, when I had first moved into a condo as a house-sitter of sorts and felt like it was a sort of deprivation tank. The grad student in me pulled out the highlighter and went to work.

It was pretty brutal, just reading a few pages and already starting to tear up cause you know that each successive page is going to be exponentially more intense than the previous one. It's fucking terrifying if you ask me and I don't feel ashamed to admit that that fear existed and still does to some degree right now as I write this.

So tying this string-theory of thought back together, I was in a yoga pose called Hero. It's one of my favorites poses. In Hero pose, you sit on your heels with your knees on the ground. It's a lot like a pose of supplication but instead of being called the Pious Courtesans pose, your back is straight, head held high and your hands rest on your upper thighs. It's a dignified, concentrated, and calming pose because it affords you a moment to simply sit with it.

I began to think about my reading for that day; about detaching with love. This is extremely difficult for me. Love aside, just detaching from someone, a certain person in particular, has been immensely difficult. Adding love has, more often than not, made the equation more difficult rather easier. I thought about mudras, or signs of enlightenment indicated by the Buddha and a number of other religious figures. Mudras are indicated by gestures with your hands such as Jesus who is often depicted with his fore-finger and thumb pressed together and the remaining three fingers stiff and rigid, pointed upward. This is a sign of peace, calm, enlightenment, etc...

My mudra for loving detachment was placing my thumb in between my pointer and middle finger. It doesn't matter who or what you assign to any of those three fingers, it's really just arbitrary. For me, I was the thumb, this person I must lovingly detach from, the middle finger with the index in between. If this gesture was about complete detachment without any love, connection, or memories to guide us from this point on...then I think my gesture would have simply been fingers splayed out, leaving those little frog webbing in between strained and red.

The thumb represented the love. It connected the fore and middle finger through the flesh they share. They were apart physically (much like the current situation) but there was still some kind of bridge of the intangible present. So that was it. Three fingers all connected though they are apart in another fashion.

It was pretty involuntary and after I had formed my hands into this gesture while in hero pose, I felt like that was...appropriate. It felt right. It also felt sad. Having a physical representation of my situation. And my fingers, they could grow closer or further apart. I have the choice...which is something I don't entirely trust myself with.

I've said it before and I have to rerun it in my head everyday; recovery is a process, not an event.

So there I was, all by myself in this house I wasn't quite ready to call a home. The soft breeze tussles a palm tree that the neighbors have neglected to remove from our side of the property. I don't begrudge them since I like to watch nature take over human-made artifices. A wind chime, more subtle and eerie than any I've ever heard elicits a sparse few hallow notes before it ends. It doesn't ring again that night and it always seems to punctuate whatever I'm doing; like some zen monk ringing a gong on top of some snow-capped mountain in Tibet.

My Higher Power is Carl Sagan and I lucked out cause it was a full moon and Venus was shining especially bright that evening. So I just sat on my heels for a while and started to weep; looking at a star and a moon with the lights out. It was just a moment for me to do exactly what I needed to do for myself because I was starting to forget things. I was starting to gain new memories. I felt sad...in transition. I won't say that it would have been the "easy" thing to do by stopping and simply crying 'til I was done. There is nothing wrong with that

How else could I be? 

But in this moment, I felt like Carl was pushing me to continue my osenas, to keep working through my routine in the dark. I have no night vision and haven't had any for many years now so I don't worry about the dark. If I trip and stumble, which I did a number of times, I don't admonish myself. I just get back up.

So I just wept and practiced my poses. It felt awful, liberating, confusing, and so many other combined emotions that we don't have a word for. And it was totally worth it. There wasn't any kind of break through; just another little baby step in my recovery. I've done my best to stop thinking in all or nothing, black and white kinds of ways. I won't just have one emotional night and be all fucking better. I wouldn't be writing this if that were the case.

All I could do was wash up afterwords and try to think of someone to thank for the experience. Nothing and/or no one came to mind so I just let it be. Sometimes, there is no one you can thank, praise, or hate for what has happened. Not even yourself.

Sometimes, it just is what it is. I laid my head down to rest and slept like a baby.

I don't write these things to garner sympathy, I know I have all the support I need from my family and friends so I don't feel starved for love. I write this because I'm starting to forget and just like some Reagan-esque figure nearing the end of his former life thinking about writing his memoirs; I want to have this recorded somewhere. I need to have this somewhere safe where I can see it a year from now. I want to look at this and think that's progress.

Ideally, the guy writing here will be unrecognizable a year from now.

And if nothing else, that small kernel of altruism within me wants someone else to benefit from this as well. There isn't a lot of fruit on this tree but what it has tastes sweet and nourishing I think, given time to grow.

I'm starting to forget things and sometimes I have to clench my fingers together and detach with love. Sometimes I just shout "STOP!" as loud as I can. But I keep forgetting and I keep acquiring new memories. None of them seem to be on the same level, one has become sacred while the other is mundane and pales in comparison.

I know they're all equally important memories, the memory of writing this in my special ed class, helping young boys learn to do double digit multiplication. They're all of equal importance. But I have to admit that the things I am forgetting hurt more often than not when I realize what is happening. But its like mental entropy, all the memories can't be taken away from or added to. They will always be there, they just go somewhere quieter, waiting for the right time to emerge in a new light; hopefully.

 Strange what some flesh, time, and thought will do to a man.

-Ian

Step Two: Say Again Carl?

Carl Sagan and I are sitting lotus in the middle of nowhere watching a supernova. This isn't serenity. Serenity would mean being at peace, feeling harmonious. No, Carl and I are watching the galaxy rend itself apart and letting entropy do the rest.

Step Two: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
                                                                                                                       -Codependents Anonymous

One of the biggest problems for a codependent is having a God-complex. It's very easy, when you believe so little in yourself, to reshape something or someone; to make them into a god or goddess. Some people make themselves their own god and not in the "my body is my temple" sort of way. This is pure worship of the self, like narcissism on meth.

I created gods from the people around me. In CoDa, we learn that we have been doing this all our lives, that we have always made someone or something our savior because we came to believe that there simply wasn't anything worth saving in our own selves. In CoDa, we learn from the day we enter the dank church basements and fold out chair knights of the round  that there is something greater than ourselves. The cool thing is, we get to choose what that happens to be.

Before I go into what my Higher Power (HP) is, I need to tell you where I am right now, what I'm doing right now in my mind. I'm on a rowing machine pulling and releasing to the cadence of steel and plastic grinding together. I create the tempo, I am the flow that I wish to experience. My eyes are closed, my breath is an indicator of my pace. In my mind, Carl Sagan and I are floating outside of Earth's atmosphere, watching Madagascar slowly disappear on a globe tilted at 23.5 degrees. Envisioning myself as relaxed and loose is one of the hardest things to do. I feel like I have to be moving or making some kind of gesture but we don't. Carl and I just float there and watch coronal mass ejections get sucked into the Earth's magnetosphere, creating auroras that bombard the earth with radioactive particles which are perfectly harmless.

In my mind, Carl and I talk. He's my HP. Carl is the one person I can go to no matter where I am and no matter what is happening. Have you ever tried writing dialogue before? It's difficult; trying to make things sound natural and to make them flow in the readers mind like they would in real life. Not here. Carl and I just talk. When I close my eyes and begin to row, the words come unbidden to Me/Carl.

I won't share our words, those are private and they belong to me and me alone. What I can share is the slow realization that there is something greater than myself that I can and choose to believe in. If I hadn't made this conscience decision, I think I might be dead by now. I can share the painful moments like when my HP told me how afraid I was of being alone. I can share the hope I feel when I know that I'm not alone and I can share the hot tears that stream down my face along with the sweat and exertion of rowing through solar winds guided by the ionic storm of a nebula bursting into life from the collective gasses and dust of a trillion billion dead star particles. I'm lucky that I sweat so much in this regard I suppose. Nobody in the gym can see what's really going on inside my mind. And that is the way it ought to be.

This is where I am; three different places at once. In the uncomfortable chair on a campus typing, a rowing machine in a gym, and floating in the ether with Carl Sagan.

So...why Carl Sagan?

Higher Power....that sounds quasi-religious to me, or at least it did initially. AA, CoDa, SLA, we're all winners. Those like myself who've had multiple addictions are called "Double Winner." This is a concept that, when heard for the first time, made me feel violent. Not so much anymore, dejected and humored if you can be both of those at once.

The thing about our HP is that we feel out what that is as we understand it. It took me a long time to realize I wasn't an religious person and even longer to feel like it was okay to admit to. G, my sponsor, is quick to remind me that, "we gotta be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater." Chuck the organized aspect of religion, it's a control scheme and one that works exceptionally well. Keep the spirit, the spark, the "I" that chooses to be here.

So at first it was gravity. The empiricist in me needed some kind of tangible HP. I sure as shit wasn't going back into a church and saying the Lord of the Rings Prayer ever again. I refuse to become a victim and slave to shame and guilt under the yoke of organized Catholic guilt. I needed to feel my HP. I wanted to feel the apple drop from the tree and land on my head. I held my arm out one day, straight and rigid, then I let it drop. Gravity. I tried jumping as high as I could. Gravity. I looked at the drooping leaves of a a tree in my backyard that sought a photosynthetic source of nourishment all the while cow towing to gravity's relentless pull.

Gravity was the edge from which I leapt into space. It's easy to divide us from the rest of the universe. We are here. Everything else is "out in space." I suppose that's why my time spent with Carl initially started just outside of the Earths atmosphere. I couldn't imagine leaving that Pale Blue Dot. Just like I couldn't imagine leaving behind all my gods and false ideals that I'd fervently held on to for so long; thinking they were what was good for me.

Our minds, as we age, go through a process called convolution. Our brains become more wrinkled, defined, and pocked with age. As we learn more, since there's only so much real estate in our skulls, the brain turns inward so as to continue to expand intellectually without 'poppin our tops off. That's why, when they looked at Einsteins brain, it was like a California raisin.

I bring up convolution because I feel as though the same thing is happening within myself but on a cellular level. Almost as if I'm absorbing the idea rather than simply intellectualizing it. Knowing how a motorcycle steers is one thing but to feel the gyroscopic pull of each aspect of the machine in tandem with the direction you look is another thing entirely. You have to internalize it, make it a part of you.

This was especially hard for me. I was so burnt out by religion that I couldn't quite make that leap yet. G said something simple, "fake it til you make it." So I did. I spent time alone, with my eyes closed or open just trying to...talk? Is that what I'm actually doing or is the idea of talking a representation of the process of cellular internalization? Maybe both.

It felt disengenuine at first and one of the hardest things I had to share on my support group was that I was an Atheist. I spent weeks gathering the nerve to say it and was sure I'd be ostracized afterwards. How little I knew about CoDa is obvious to me now. There were plenty of people like myself there, G included. I guess that's one of the reasons he and I click, we both believe in ourselves and something greater but we don't want to smell like frankincense and mer afterwards.

I just realized I forgot my donut in my car, bummer. I was really looking forward to that apple fritter....shit.

So I turned inward. I attempted to fake it and become so convoluted that my mind would look like a circus fun house mirror by the end of my recovery. But it doesn't work like that. We all have our own pace and limits for personal growth.

I was still drifting close to Earth, rowing back and forth on the machine...but I started to distance myself from the Pale Blue Dot. Weeks of rowing and I was floating in the Oort Cloud, surrounded by cosmic dust and Star Stuff 15 billion years old. One day, I realized I wasn't faking it anymore. One day I realized that I was genuinely asking for help when I was scared or feeling alone. One day, I took my second step in recovery and came to believe in something greater than myself.

That's what codependency really is about anyway; Us. Our actions, emotions, decision are means of controlling others to get what we want. I manipulated others by using anger, guilt, and charm. I thought that if I could make someone feel bad for me or fall in love with me then I could get what I wanted.

There's a great lyric from a band called Fear Factory that goes like this:
I am the thorn in your,
I am the thorn in your,
I am the thorn in your,
I am the thorn in your I. 

That was my existence. Just Me in the most selfish ways possible. It's one of those paradoxical relationships because codependents give so much to help others but we do it to make ourselves happy. But after it's all said and done, there simply isn't a shred left for us. We've seen to our own destruction time and time again. I am the thorn in your I. It can go on forever. This cycle of fear, anger, obsession, and denial. They're all part of a codependent's balanced breakfast.

This creation of gods isn't new, I'm not the first and I won't be the last to do this. But I know now that I am guilty of it. Guilt and shame are two of the things I felt the most upon learning Step Two. I felt ashamed that I had let myself fall so far away from my own truths. I felt guilt because I had hurt so many people in the process. G was there to save me from yet another cycle of self-loathing. "Shame is thinking you are a mistake. Guilt is knowing that you made a mistake."

I didn't have to feel either one. Just like suffering I had a choice in the matter; I always did. Part of Step Two is taking the initiative to surrender (oxy-moronic isn't it?). Being willing to admit to something greater than myself was one was one of the hardest things to do. The idea that this universe was Ian-Centric was lodged firmly in place by the time I was in my 20's. Erasing all those old tapes, and throwing them in the garbage takes a lot of time but it is an endeavor worthy of our commitment and uncertainty.

It finally stopped at Carl Sagan because my HP was the Universe and who better to represent it than one of the pioneers of exploration outside our planet? That mean that everything was a part of my HP. I didn't have to pick and choose; there were no sacred or profane places. "We are all Star-Stuff" Carl once said before he died. It's true, we are all made from the matter withing the universe. That's a fact. It's Entropy and where else could we have come from?

Making the Universe my HP meant I was a part of my own beliefs, I didn't have to hope for images of Carl on pieces of toast, he's just hanging out wherever I go.

 Carl and I are sitting lotus in front of a supernova, side-by-side. There is no pain here, there is no fear of floating endlessly in the abyss of an endless vacuum. It just is. Carl talks to me without effort cause he is me. He's the indicator of peace and serenity that is possible if I am willing to surrender another part of myself. Another bit of the Ian-Centric universe I wish I could control.

Bathing is super-heated helium and methane gas isn't bad at all. Now when I row, when I close my eyes, I still feel the occasional sting of tears in my eyes but I know there is someone sitting close by read to listen with intent. Someone to remind me to breath. Someone who loves me without condition and asks for nothing in return.

We learn to surrender to something greater than ourselves.

-Ian
 

The Spice Must Flow.

Recovery isn't an event. It's a process. All too often, I've found myself wanting whatever it was I thought I needed immediately. The idea that I'd have to finally sit down and commit to something scared me shitless. What's more, the idea that I'd be doing it for the rest of my life was a dismal realization...initially.

I'm a fighter. I've been, throughout the course of my life, fighting to fit in, to belong, to be loved. I've spent almost 29 years fighting. Look where it has gotten me. Recovery is a process. Not only is it a process but it is also a series of surrenders.

I've told myself one thing for the last ten years: Never give up. Keep getting out of bed, pull yourself off the bathroom floor, get yourself to do whatever it takes to get back into the fight. But what is it I was fighting for? Never giving up has it's virtues...but what is it I'm not giving up on? I've told myself for years that what I was fighting for was a happier and more peaceful life. With someone to share that experience. But fighting to have something or someone you aren't ready for is like trying to stop a wave from crashing; the water will always find a gap in your defenses.

When I think about not giving up, it seems less virtuous and more self-defeating. I realize now that the voice telling me not to give up on finding the perfect woman, being loved without condition, finding a place to call home was, in fact, my addiction talking. Codependency is a subtle killer. Unlike alcoholism or sexual addiction, codependency creeps into your mind like a weed and leaves a dandelion in it's place. You think it's a flower but past the petals, stamen, and earth there is still a killer inside.

When I told myself to never give up I should have been listening to the rest of that sentence. With my growing awareness of codependency it probably would've been something like “never give up...or else you'll have to acknowledge this pain. You will have to recognize who you really are so never give up fighting because the pain of remembering is far worse than knowing and not feeling” (Shaughnessy, 2012, frontal lobe, pg. 185).

Anecdotal comedians will joke about people with “commitment issues.” Commitment is synonymous in our culture with relationships, love, bro/romance, marriage and so on. When I think of commitment now, I notice that my definition and understanding of it are gradually changing. Commitment is the genuine desire to have a loving relationship with ones own self. Commitment means, in my eyes, abandoning the belief that someone else can make me happy. Commitment means devotion to myself without reservation.

To Thine Own Self Be True.

I've written about fear before; the energy it takes to make fear-based decision making. This is inexorably tied to commitment, they truly are opposing emotional forces. This does not mean they are autonomous from one another, only that they cannot co-exist in a healthy manner. They're like two neighbors who know one another but secretly dislike each other. Commitment means embracing and then freeing ourselves from fear because that is exactly what has hindered the evolution of our emotions. Conversely, if we choose to embrace fear alone, we abandon the prospect of commitment (that is, in relation to ourselves).

I've always hated commitment. It means doing everything the hard way and only slowly getting results that are often vague and hard to discern at first. When my ex and I broke up, the fear, the addiction within me, screamed out for a substitute. Something tangible, something fast and easy. Something to keep me from delving into the pain. In my case, it took a type of emotional deprivation tank to force me to commit to myself.

It would have been very easy to replace my ex. It would have been easy to replace my fear of abandonment with someone else's feelings because there's no easier way to feel better about yourself then to please another...right? I'm a people-pleaser, a care-giver as it's referred to in CoDa (Codependency Anonymous). Being a people-pleaser means sacrificing things such as my integrity, morals, or genuine feelings in order to please another because the fear of losing this person, if I choose to be myself, is far more powerful than being alone with that pain.

Gift-giving, canceling plans to accommodate the higher power we've created, abandoning personal interests, sex when we wan't love; these are all ways I have tried to be the consummate caregiver. It's simple when you have so little self-esteem to continuously give up pieces of yourself. But if I can just show you for a one night that there are redeeming qualities within my facade that you find appealing, then I've found my fix. It's like that Nine Inch Nails song, “You are the Perfect Drug.”

But this kind of love, these kinds of relationships have an expiration date attached from the moment they begin (just think about any rebound relationships you've ever had).

There's a great book by Frank Herbert called Dune. A young man, Paul, prophesied to become the Muah-dib or leader of his people must undergo a trial called the Gom-Jabbar. Paul must place his hand inside a box all the while a seer has a needle pressed against his neck with a poison that will kill him instantly if he flinches from his trial.

Paul's hand is, for lack of a better word, incinerated within the box. The bubbling of flesh that sloughs it's way off to reveal meat and ivory bone is a tangible image in Paul's minds eye. But there is a credo Paul recites over and over again while he envisions his hand melting, the threat of death pressed against his neck. "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear's path, and only I will remain."

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear kills our rationality. Fear blinds us to the mistakes we have or are making. Fear kills our sanity and, in a sense, renders us insane. Synonymous to insanity is drooling inmates with straight-jackets. That is mental illness. I'm talking about losing control of our selves. When we let fear govern decision-making, we lose sight of our own ideals and goals. We abandon the prospect of a life full of joy even if it's spent alone and in solitude. Fear will do anything it can to survive which has served it's purpose in humankind’s ancient past. The “fight-or-flight” reaction of heavy breathing from the chest and adrenal glands pumping battery-acid into our veins has it's place when confronted by a predator three times your size. But like all things humans interact with, the environment becomes a reflection of our current cultural and emotional zeitgeist.

The predators we fear now are not saber-toothed nor are they mythical unknown beasts we cannot understand. The predators of the now are bills stacking, an unfulfilling relationship, a friends choice to not be a part of our lives. The prey of the 21^st century are the intangible and insatiable appetites we are conditioned from day one to want. Our Great Hunts don't rely on bringing back deer slung over our shoulders. We've opted out of that for drunken coupling that still requires some kind of carrying of one another to the bed.

When I found myself in this very position a few years ago, I let fear take the wheel. I let insanity be my guide and I externalized my hopes and dreams on the off-chance that I had just had a one-nighter with “The One.” The wisest thing to do would have been to say “that was a good time, nice knowing you.” But when two codependents wake up pretzeled around each other; it's pretty easy to mistake desperation and fear with love.

Inflicting pain is easy when you're insane, you just act. The rest follows suit. Months dragged on with this woman who was wonderful in all sorts of ways. Kind and gentle, she accepted me despite our significant age difference and made an on-going effort to see me during our time together. When she dropped me off at the airport, she started to cry. I was so surprised, but so was she. Like myself, the idea of giving up was a thousand times more harmful than to continue fighting. It's so much easier to simply stuff those emotions down because we let ourselves believe that those feelings are abnormal.

It ended like most of these kinds of relationships do; poorly. Fear is the mind-killer. It robs us of our sanity to make decisions that benefit ourselves, even if that means causing another person pain in the process. Fear deprives us of the opportunities we deserve if we'd only shirk off the shackles of desperation. Fear takes all the things we deserve and makes us feel inadequate and undeserving of them.

Once we've lived this way for long enough, it becomes normal. It certainly did for me. Codependency is a subtle killer, moreover, it's an addiction that replaces the need to nourish ourselves with the insatiable and never ending desire to please others; believing that we simply are not worth the same effort we lavish upon others.

To commit means to be free of fear. Or, if nothing else, to take the first steps towards that goal. When we commit ourselves to a cause that is for our own good, we can find peace because at the end of the day, you are all that you have. I know that sounds bleak but I mean that in a very realistic way. We don't have control over others so it behooves us to be kind to our minds. To commit to taking better care of ourselves which may require saying goodbye to the one thing or person we are convinced will make us happy.

I don't know where the strength to make the first step towards committing to healing myself came from but when I told the person I cared the most for in this entire world that I couldn't speak with her, I felt...terrified. It was my addiction rearing it's head once again. Pleading for me to take back those words, to stop erasing photos of us together, begging me not to place all the things we had together in a box and then have my father hide them so I could never find them on my own. And, trust me, I looked fucking everywhere for that damn box in those first few weeks.

Strength, serenity...those are things that are already inside of ourselves. They never were and never will be within someone else. It isn't anyone’s job to make you happy. When we take the advice of those who have gone before us, when we are ready to finally listen and not simply hear, then the teacher appears (in my case it was a rowing machine so....you know...shit's weird sometimes).

I'm nowhere near free. Fear has taken ahold of me time and again today. The “what ifs?” and all the unknowns that are so damned intrusive. We do this to ourselves. No one is telepathic, no one is projecting shit-images into your mind so it's important to own up to our own self-flagellation. It's best, I've found in times when my mind begins to make a rolling snowball made of shit to simply admit to the one thing I abhor and that's this: I simply do not know.

When we can admit that we do not know what he or she is doing, when we can be okay with uncertainty (or as I like to call it, “Diet Fear”), then we've made another step towards healing.

I'm no guru, just some guy with great friends and the immense blessing of a second chance but I do know this if nothing else: Fear cannot exist inside the hearts of those who wish to be free of codependency.

-Ian 

Unexpectations

Sometimes...shit just happens. 

There's the grad student inside of me that looks at things in relation to the past; a sort of emotional benchmark. It's a qualitative way, I think, of gauging progress within myself. So whenever, in my past, an event that was troubling or unexpected occurred, I immediately sought some frame of reference. An emotional benchmark I could use to put my feelings in context. 

An 8th grader should be able to read 230+ words per minute but when the test results come back and he/she's at 180 WPM, we deem that as below our standard(s). That's quantitative analyses. Looking at a number and saying, "that's not progress, we have not met or exceeded our expectations." I know I still do this from time to time and I'm lucky because taped onto my mirror is a wall of affirmations. My first and favorite one is "I no longer need to compare myself to others to validate who I am or the decisions I make." So now when I see that my emotional WPM has dropped or isn't where I'd like for it to be that day...I can be okay with that. 

The learning curve for emotional growth and development is less like a winding road and more like one of those optical paintings by M.C. Escher. The concept of up or down is irrelevant. Some days you wake up feeling fucking great. Taking a shower feels like this cathartic massage of your muscles that steams off the emotional fat of the previous day. Brushing your teeth becomes a ritualistic cleansing of the place where you allow the "I" to flow from. Even the same shitty knock-off brand cereal you can barely afford tastes like the milk was ambrosia. These are the days where you just are because...how else could you be?

The post-modernist in me immediately seeks the polar opposite to what is mentioned above: The Shitty Day. We all have these. Sometimes they're simply because of circumstance or a difficult event. More often than not, they're a combination of the two. But there's just something highly fucking irksome about not knowing why it happens on some of those Shitty Days. Again, we can choose to use emotional benchmarks to gauge our state of mind and emotions (funny how I never seem to do this on the good days). Now it's about units of comparison, like going from kilometers to miles. Do they meet in the middle, is one greater than the other, is one superseded? The point is, on the Shitty Days, we try to rationalize the "why" and then find a way to either draw ourselves further into that dark void or use some kind of survival strategy to simply push on through.

I see these things as being similar to the Light and Dark side of the Force. If the Force is life and all life is the Force, can anything be inherently good or evil? Is there such a thing as a good or bad day? No. The Force, just like our emotions and our environment, is Unified. We are the ones who decide whether or not today will be shitty, great, or simply a thing that is. Anakin Skywalker commits terrible acts but he does them out of love. So does that make him inherently evil or inherently good? Can these seemingly opposing philosophy's intermingle? I believe so. I think that things simply are. I believe people simply are. Because, how else could you be? 

A friend said this to me and I'm grateful for hearing it: Pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice. 

We choose to have the Shitty Day or the Great Day. Neither one is right or wrong, they simply are. It is okay to have a fantastic evening with your friends and then ball your eyes out on the drive home. It's okay to smile at a fart joke after unwillingly becoming single. It's okay to simply be. How else could you be?

A very strong woman I know described to me the difference between emotions and feeling. Emotions are like the seasons such as Fall, or Winter. Feelings are just that; feeling good, bad, so-so. It is alright to have a good day in winter even though things are cold and dark. It's okay to be unhappy or melancholy during a beautiful Spring day. We can let emotions be like the weather. We can let them come, experience them, and let them go. You know the futility of trying to stop a beautiful day from being clouded over. You can't stop the snow from melting. So shouldn't we also be able to recognize the futility of trying to hold onto feelings that aren't ours or simply cannot last?

We all know there is heartbreak around the bend. Many of have parents whom we will probably outlive. Some of are married and may experience a divorce in the future. Many of us know that, quite frankly, shit happens. It's when we try to divine these things ahead of time that we create self-fulfilling prophesies. "I don't think this relationship is going to last." "I think I'm going to do shitty on this test." What else can we expect when we create an entire worldview based on assumptions and negative expectations?

Another affirmation on my wall is this: Assumptions and expectations can only hurt my feelings. I touch my tattoo when I say this one because it's an image of a bird in flight and, to me, there is no better way to symbolize freedom than by escaping the confines of a presumably circumscribed environment. We have the choice to take flight emotionally, we have the choice to stay rooted and afraid to take our first leap off the branch. 

The amount of emotional energy required to make a fear-based decision is a thousand times greater than the decision made from acceptance and utilizing our own personal power. When we chose to be our own Higher Power in the sense that we deserve to live free of fear, we can experience freedom. We as human beings think there are a lot of things that we have to earn. This is true in many regards, such as a work or academic setting. But when we talk about simple human needs such as shelter, food, social interaction, family; these are things we deserve. 

When we decide we are unworthy of these things and make fear-based decision making, we not only deprive ourselves of the things we deserve, we deprive our souls of their daily bread: our happiness and freedom. 

While fear-based decision making takes tremendous energy to continue doing, making the conscience decision to live a life that is free of self-criticism and spiritual neglect takes a massive effort to initiate. I say initiate because once the choice has been made, there simply is no going back. When we have admitted to ourselves the nature of our suffering in a critical and purposeful manner, we are beginning the first steps towards true self-awareness. This is nothing like enlightenment, I don't think that's an actual state of mind. I think true enlightenment, if we're going to use the word, is someone who is not simply okay with being themselves despite the consequences but rejoices in every moment unfolding. You need not glow or float to be this person. It starts by simply admitting to powerlessness. It's initiated when we admit to ourselves, first and foremost, that the things we have done to survive simply were not enough. There truly is a difference between surviving and thriving. 

So when I received an email from my ex this morning, I made the choice to reply honestly to this person. To let her know that I was in a 12 step program, that I was determined to become my own man. I did these things not to garner pity but because...how else could I be? It's because I owe it to myself and deserve to be honest without fear.  

My emotional benchmark is January 1st, 2012. It's the lowest and most awful I've ever felt and the following days were nothing short of misery in its purest form. Today is March 23rd, 2012. My hands did not shake when I typed my response to this woman. My eyes didn't tear up. My breathing was steady and from my stomach, my center. 

This is how I know I have grown more whole, more human. This is how I know that I can be okay with simply being myself. This is how I know that I am worthy of love and that I deserve to live a happy and fulfilling life. Because I can look back at that scared and shivering man from a few months ago, smile, and tell him that things are going to be okay.

Because...how else could I be?

Lemon Party.

It's a Lemon Party and we're all invited. 

There's something strangely disturbing about walking into a room and seeing a very large basket filled to the brim with lemons. J (pseudonym) brought all these lemons in from her house which she had plucked that very morning for our CoDa (Codependency) meeting. It's strange...but I could not stop looking at those fucking lemons. It wasn't as if there was some analogy screaming to be discovered; it was just so out of place in the room I was used to being in, which was lemon-free. Isn't that a Pine sol commercial or something...?


Flux. Dynamic. These are words that describe change. Everything changes, constantly. It never stops. Grabbing on to the present moment is sorta like saying "toilet" over and over; it just loses all meaning. You're brain takes a dump and shuts down. I suppose, if I had to attribute some kind of meaning to that basket of lemons, I'd say they were an indicator of change and I might even go as far as to say that they were intrusive. Support groups are one of the few semi-static environments I've encountered. The chairs are always laid out the same, the coffee is always generic and tastes like carrots for some fucking reason, and most of the people you're used to are there as well. There was no room for a Lemon Party in group today!


Let me be the not-first to say that change, in my experience, is usually a pretty shit process. Most of the times I've encountered  change, the effects were usually quite severe. My best friend getting cancer right after x-mas break in 4th grade and not seeing him again for 10 years. The divorce at 14. The very painful breakup/emergence from adolescence at 22. That same boy with cancer dying at the age of 24 and I never got to say good bye to him. 


So I guess, for me, change has always been associated with negative repercussions. 


I sat down with my sponsor today, G (pseudonym), and really hashed it out at my place. It was weird, having an adult who wasn't a member of my family at the condo. "It's pretty spartan in there" I warned him. But then I remembered that this was a guy who'd been shot at and ass-deep in mud in Vietnam for a few tours; G can hack "spartan." So we do the "Step-Work."


The deal with the first step in any support program you go into whether it be AA, Sex/Love Addict, CoDa...the first step just fucking sucks. For Coda, the first step is as follow: We admitted we were powerless over others - that our lives had become unmanageable. Unmanageable...? What the hell does that even mean, to say that a persons life is unmanageable, like some dog that just won't stop pissing on the rug? You really have to scrutinize each one of the words because they are chosen with extreme care. It's sorta like looking at a Picasso; there are no mistakes present. 


I never thought of myself as being "controlling." That, to me, was some part of the step I felt I could ignore...and then you do the step-work with a sponsor. You get the opportunity to flip control on it's ass and look at things conversely. What have you done or acted out to get a desired result or thing from someone? Without going into detail, I found out that there were quite a few ways I had learned to manipulate and control others. In the same way an alcoholic will drink reckless amounts of booze to gain attention, CoDa's will charm, say, or try to impress others with facsimiles or half-truths. I remember doing this to a woman at a bar and ending up in her bed a few days later. I had no idea how I did it or why. I just knew that I could control certain kinds of people. Sick attracts sick. People with fucked up parenting and/or childhoods tend to get into destructive and abusive relationships as they grow older. What a fucking concept. 


G said something to me as he was sharing his eclectic life-story. He said, "I had no idea what a normal, healthy relationship looked like!" That was a kick in the dick because when I tried to answer that quasi-question myself...I had no idea either. I had had "relationships." There were goals attached to those relationships such as sex, comfort, being needed. But I wouldn't call any of that "healthy" I had no idea what a healthy relationship looked like. 


Modeling. It's a term used in education a lot to help you, the teacher, set a good example. You model the correct way to read, write, speak and so on and the kid gets it. Good modeling, usually, leads to good students (I know that's a HUGE generalization and that there are a lot of other factors but my back hurts from yoga so I don't feel like elaborating). I really believe something I've heard from my sponsor and folks at CoDa. It's this: We all do the best that we can at any given moment. I really believe that. Even when we're acting shitty and pulling people into our misery, that's the best that we can do. So when I think about my parents relationship, I try to keep that concept in mind. 


My parents did the best they could but it's easy as a child to take information that is odd or abnormal and normalize it. I never wondered why my mom always slept on the couch. I never wondered why they didn't do public displays of affection. It was normal. So when you have all this..."normalcy," being taken to a strange office, not being told why my whole family is there, and then finding out my parents are getting a divorce...normal goes ass over tea kettle. 


And, yes, I am going to tie all this back together at some point, hang tight.


So...what's a normal relationship look like to a 14 year boy who has to choose which parent he's going to live with look like? I had no idea, but I did know of a way to take care of it. Alcohol, drugs, getting arrested (B&E 2nd degree, aw yeah). When the normal environment suddenly changes, your whole paradigm shifts and it does so according to what you know at the time, what you think is the best that you can do. 


My life had officially become "unmanageable."


I decided, on a very subconscious level, that the only way I could be happy was if I was in a relationship. I was never going to make me happy cause I just didn't have the stuff. Fuck self-esteem, I can get it from other people if I can just keep them happy, right? Serial dating is a term I just recently heard and had been an active participant in for years but after you do some reading, after you start to see the patterns of control, the active choice not to be alone...it's a "face-palm" moment. 


And, I mean, this shit continues for YEARS!


There's a step way down the process where you make amends to those you've hurt so some of you reading this may be getting a heart-fucking-felt letter from me sometime in the future cause man....I made some mistakes. But that's the idea, admitting it. Becoming aware that, "hey asshole, your shit has become unmanageable and all the girlfriends and booze in the world isn't going to fill that void!" 


But, we do the best that we can do at any given moment.


The first step is hard because you not only have to understand that you have an addiction, you also have to embrace and internalize it. It's like watching cell mitosis but backwards. Two seemingly separate entities becoming one because, for me, all that shit that happened in my childhood and in my teenage years, EVERYTHING previous to January 1st, 2012 was an autonomous series of events perpetrated by some other guy. Now you have to be accountable. 12 step programs are great cause they help you out but they never let you off the fucking hook. Keep Coming Back. And, if you don't, we'll be seeing your sorry ass again after the next bender, the next break-up until you get your shit straightened out. 


You have to accept that you have lost control of yourself and that you never  had control over anyone else. Never. The first step means embracing all the good and bad parts of those relationships, the black-outs & benders, the time spent with family. You can't have your cake and eat it too; you gotta take it all in...which is great. I think it's great because you no longer have to live in this black and white world. You have a choice. You have perspective. You get to take your life back. 


So as I sat there looking at this basket of lemons, I thought "I'm okay with these being here. I'm okay with being single. Or at least I am getting to that point." I think I'm starting to understand what a healthy relationship looks like. It's based on interdependence, not codependence. There's reciprocity and compromise. Most importantly, at the end of each day you can still discern where you end and the other person begins. 


I'm not blaming or trying to guilt anyone who may have relevance to this blog. Things could not have happened any other way. We do the best that we can. I'm just glad that I actually have the opportunity to start living my life as it was meant to be; Precious & Free.


And, no, I didn't write this blog on the can.


-Ian