I went to bed early again last night, not doing a whole lot after I got home from work (as usual). I went to sleep around 8:30, which is becoming my standard bedtime. It had only just gotten dark outside. The last thought I remember having before I fell asleep was, "I don't want to live this way." Actually, it was more like a quiet little voice, something I heard rather than something I thought. I kept waking up through the night with that sentence in my head.
It's significant because that was my "mantra" when I quit drinking again last year. After hashing and rehashing, knowing I was becoming obsessed by drinking once again, I just decided that I didn't want to live that way, my life revolving around my next drink and the associated anxiety. It was a simple "bottom line" resolution of my ambivalence regarding whether I was actually an alcoholic. It made it easy to quit again and saved me from drinking on a few occasions during the year, when Fred died, for example, and when I had to get treatment for my staph infection. Big picture thinking. From ME. Go figure.
So now my "mantra" comes back to me. I don't want to live this way. Obsessed about something else I can't control. Working, sleeping, working, sleeping. All I want to do lately is sleep. But what do I do instead? My two "old" girlfriends don't answer my e-mails anymore, I can't go to Bonnie's house every day, and I don't have the money to take myself out to dinner every night. And I don't even want to think about exercising right now, although that's the one thing that I SHOULD be doing, and would probably make a difference in the way I feel. In fact, I know it would.
I don't know why I'm so stuck, except that depression does tend to do that to people. Even my "professional help" isn't helping right now. She also encouraged me to start exercising. I can't even visualize myself walking on the beach right now. It's all I can do to take the dogs to the park on Saturday morning.
I don't want to live this way. But what other choice do I have right now, when everything I've ever tried to do has been a failure? When I feel like a complete failure? When will I ever be successful at SOMETHING?
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You can't solve your future right this very minute. It unfolds with every step you take.
So don't walk on the beach today. Walk around the block once. Then go inside and make yourself a glass of iced tea.
Chop wood. Carry water. Take the next step -- not the big metaphoric one, but the one right in front of you.
You're feeling some big feelings. It's okay to be worn out by them. They won't go away when you snap your fingers. They will resolve themselves as you move through your life and treat yourself with kindness.
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