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NKI, it's probably good for me to think about it.  But yeah, today is a better day for an ice cream party!  I'll think about it again next year   

< OOTS ice cream party. 

It really does look like that, I've seen the photos :-)

   

Happy New Year to all!     

Gabor Mate, who writes a lot about addiction, says that it can be helpful to examine what the good things are about using whatever it may be. What does it provide? He points out that in the absence of physiological addictions via their mothers, babies are not born addicted. At some point somebody tries something and wham! It has an effect they want to repeat. He also posits that no substance on earth can be described as intrinsically addictive, because there are many people who can dabble even with stuff like heroin and not become addicted. Therefore, in working out why we reach for whatever, we need to think about what we like about it. It has to be doing something that feels good or reducing something that feels bad. Once we truly work out what service it is actually providing we can give better consideration to whether that can be addressed by something else.

I guess you maybe could think about what cannabis does that ice cream does not.

 

This is interesting and useful stuff, NK.  I'm thinking about how I have at times in my life smoked cigarettes but have never been addicted to the point where I wasn't able to just decide I wanted to put them down and then do it.  And I know that some people have terrible addiction problems with klonopin, but I've had a low-dose scrip for that for 30+ years and the only time I've taken it even once daily for more than a week was after 9/11.  I attribute this not so much to my good habits and self-discipline as to the fact that those substances just don't do anything majorly exciting for me.  Cigarettes were more of a social thing for me, and klonopin is useful but only in occasional small doses to supplement all the other mental and physical coping methods I've developed to manage my anxieties.  It's very effective in that capacity without too much downside, but it doesn't give me any enjoyable feelings in and of itself, and gets evil very quickly if I take too much or take it too often. 

My remark about ice cream was sort of a joke.  I do love ice cream, but I've never been "addicted" to it the way I am or have been addicted to cannabis.  Ice cream was a too-frequent binge event for me but not a daily preoccupation.  And ice cream never helped me function.  Cannabis does in a weird way help me function.  It's something of a stimulant for me.  It doesn't always feel GOOD, but it makes me feel like doing constructive things.  I figured out a couple of years ago that I easily default to a state of freeze these days, and cannabis can kind of prod me out of that.  It enables me to feel my body more clearly.  It also helps with the suicide voices.  Again, it doesn't necessarily make me feel GOOD if I'm feeling that kind of bad, but it sort of changes how the badness feels, turns it more outward than inward.

The big downside is that the positive effects don't always last that long and my tolerance builds quickly, which leads to overconsumption which increases negative effects.  The main negative effects are that it can make me irritable and more easily triggered into fight-or-flight, it unbalances my appetite and makes it very hard for me to not either overeat or undereat, and it messes with my sleep.  So, yeah, lots of upside when I'm using it mindfully and moderately, lots of downside when I'm in tired old compulsive unrewarding use patterns. 


Yeccch.  I HATE thinking about this!

I have a cannabis habit.  Have for years.  It's not particularly helpful nor particularly harmful at this point after years during which I was in an endless cycle of it being one and then the other, but wow am I sick of it, sick to death of it being a more-or-less daily preoccupation.  Always thinking about whether I'm going to use it, how much, what form (vape or edible), whether it's going to be good or if I'm going to end up wishing that I hadn't.  A lifetime of this crap.

My relationship with cannabis changed two years ago after the floods when I abstained from it completely for seven months.  Since that long break, I have been less dependent on it, more moderate in my use, more able to take days off, less stressed about the whole thing in general.  Sometimes it seems almost like a non-issue, something I don't need to waste my self-discipline and self-care resources worrying about.  It's such a huge improvement over how I was with it years ago when I needed it just to get out of bed.  I'm truly thankful for that, but still every time I reach for it I long for a mythical time when I will be able to not even think about it for days at a time, and if I indulge I will properly enjoy it.  Hey, I managed that with ice cream, why not this? 

I'm so overwhelmed by life. By feelings for which I have no outlet. I used to cry too easily and now I cannot cry at all. I think it would help if I could cry. Cry or scream or even vomit maybe. Something. Anything to release this feeling of being stuck, of being trapped, of being stuffed full of doubt and pain and discontent. Like a junk food binge without the junk food.

Optimism very much feels unsafe.  Optimism triggers impatience, which gives me the exact same bodily sensation as fear does, a sort of jolting twanging clench in my lower gut.  What a familiar feeling that is that clench, caused by all manner of things, but most problematically, caused by feelings of hope and positivity. 

NK, I have so many issues around food that it never occurred to me that there might be issues related to having sit-down meals with my family.  My mother was ragingly eating-disordered, had a terrible relationship with food and hated to cook, while my stepfather had previously been married to a gourmet, so I can well imagine that there was subterranean stress around dinners with my family when I was living with her.  I'm pretty sure that dinners with the family when I lived with my father and stepmother were better, but it's hard to remember.  I've always assumed that my problems with food stem from malnourishment as an infant, obesity as a teenager, and spending my early life observing my mother's aforementioned raging eating disorder, but there probably IS more to it than that.  What do you know, another set of mysteries to grapple with!

Feeling good feels unsafe.  I'm trying to rewire that.  Not much opportunity to work on that today, I'm afraid.  I didn't sleep well last night and today I'm low as can be.  That's probably a backlash from yesterday's conscious effort to nurture the positive feelings and stirrings of optimism that I experienced a few times in the past week, but I will not allow it to discourage me.  Even though it hurts.  Even though everything hurts. 

Thank you for the hugs and good wishes, friends.  Lately it feels like every day is a tough day, but I wanted to share that I felt good for a little while this morning after I worked out.  It didn't last for very long, but it was a distinct feeling of happiness and optimism.  I think it went away while I was eating breakfast, which makes me wonder whether a supplement I'm taking or something I'm eating for breakfast isn't agreeing with me.  I'll have to pay some attention to that going forward.  In any case, I want to make sure that I take notice when I have these clear moments of positive feeling so that I can hope for them with remembering that they do happen. 

 

Bach, my experience is that somatic work can very easily be triggering. And sometimes violently triggering... I've been working with vagus nerve and parasympathetic stimulation for two years now. For me it's working. Here's a good introduction if you're interested:
Pradip Jamnadas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irn3cFHmK-Y

Just a suggestion, ignore it you don't think it's a good idea for you.
 

Chart, thank you for sharing this video.  I've been doing vagus work for a while too and finding it helpful, and this video had some techniques in it that I was not familiar with.  I have a very limited attention span for videos, but this guy was pretty fun to listen to.  I'm going to check out his stuff about gut health because that's also something that I struggle with.

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After my success on Saturday night, I had a very good day yesterday.  I felt better than I have in ages, and was even able to acknowledge and appreciate that feeling without fear.  That was amazing.  I was hoping it would last for a while, but I had bad dreams last night and woke up this morning in my usual low state.  Disappointing.  Still, though, after a long period of no good feelings at all, yesterday showed me that it's still possible and gave me a touch of hope that I've been lacking.  I'll take it.

I'm in a flashback and I overstimulated myself with physical and somatic exercise because my body is so unbearable to be in right now.  I did those exercises sort of frantically because I had such a strong urge to try to "fix my mistake" (an interpersonal communication that I didn't handle well), which would 100% have made the situation worse.  The exercises did conquer that urge, but the flashback is still happening in my stomach and I have to just tolerate it for now because I must neither overpush the buttons nor automatically turn to a pill.

Life feels absolutely unbearable today. I feel worthless and miserable, an irredeemable screwup. I'm so tired of being me. Last night I went to sleep sincerely hoping that I would not wake up this morning. Though I knew I would, of course, and of course I did, too early and insufficiently rested.  It took me ages to get out of bed, but eventually I did.  Now I want to take mass quantities of klonopin and go back to bed, sleep for a week like I did after 9/11/01, but even if that was an option, it wouldn't be an answer, and even if it was an answer, it wouldn't be an option.  There's no escape from myself.

Have to stop whining and do some work. 

I took a walk this afternoon.  When I take a walk by myself, I have a tendency to walk very fast and get wrapped up in my thoughts.  I noticed that yesterday when I went for a walk, and I made a conscious effort to slow down and feel my body instead of escaping into my head.  I made an effort to take note of how the sun and the wind felt on my face and body, and how the ground felt under my feet.  It wasn't very comfortable, and I really had to focus to do it.  I had a moment when I was thinking about turning left to extend my walk instead of right to go home.  I had a destination in mind, not an important one, just one to keep me moving for a while longer.  My mind, fixated on the idea that more exercise is always better, very much wanted to do this, but I felt a faint protest from my body, a sort of "Yeah, you can drag me around some more if you want to, but I'd really rather go home."  So I listened to my body and went home.  Then today when I was out for a walk, I noticed myself walking fast and being wrapped up in my thoughts, and I realised that I do this because being in my body is difficult and uncomfortable for me, and I'm trying to escape from the difficulty and discomfort.  That made me think back to my childhood, how my mother was very big on walking, and how I was always having to keep up, an enormous and seldom pleasurable task for an unaccommodated child whether in the huge, busy, noisy city where we lived, or on endless mountain trails when the family went hiking.  So again, I slowed down, made an effort to feel my physical self instead of hurrying along, and to take in my surroundings with curiosity and openness instead of turning inward to my thoughts.  The result was better today.  There were no conflicts between my body and my mind regarding the route or duration of my walk, and I even felt some stirrings of pleasure.  This makes me feel a little bit hopeful that maybe it really is possible to unprogram at least some of what was programmed into my body so very long ago. 

My whole life, I've done everything wrong.  I really wish that it could just be over already.  I'm not going to do anything to purposely end it, but wow am I tired of everything.  Tired of dealing with everything.  Tired of the pain.  Tired of trying and failing.  Tired of trying and succeeding only for the briefest time before sinking back into failure and hopelessness once again.  Tired of feeling old.  I'm tired of my bowels not working right.  Tired of therapy, tired of drugs, tired of advertisements, tired of social media, tired of false hope.  Tired of politics and of everyone going crazy.  Tired of the general lack of hope in the world today, at least the parts of it that I'm exposed to.  I'm tired of worrying about money.  I'm tired of having to figure out what's for dinner.  I'm tired of waking up in the morning wishing I could just go back to sleep.   

I'm tired of living with having been born unwanted.  Tired of all the things I don't know happened.  Did my mother really break my leg when I was an infant, or was it some mysterious freak accident involving the bars of a crib?  Did she really try to suffocate me or was it a near-miss with a pillow or blanket or crib bumper, because those were the days when people didn't know any better about that kind of thing?  I'm tired of thinking about it all.  I'm tired of blaming her.  Blaming all the adults that failed me.  I'm tired of having to live only barely as my present self and mostly as 8 or 9 or 10 year old unwanted unnurtured me.  I'm tired of not being able to let it all go. 

I'm tired of so many things, I could go on and on and on.  But now I'm tired of this ranting, too.  I really, really, really REALLY wish that I could just go to sleep and not wake up. 

Today my therapist made me talk about why I'm angry at my parents.  I wonder if that's why I spent the whole afternoon feeling like I have nothing to live for.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to be patient and take good care of Left Hand who wants to do ALL THE THINGS, NOW! but gets tired quickly and will burn right out if I'm not careful.  If I don't watch out it will be like when I tried to learn how to play bass guitar in 2020 and trashed my pinky after about a month or so of compulsive overpractice.  I was making real progress, but I never got back to it after my pinky healed because that's kind of how I am.  The thing I'm best at is disappointing myself.   

This is what Left Hand says:

I'm scared.  Afraid of success, afraid of failure.  Freeze isn't fun but it's SAFE.  I love you Left Hand.

Left Hand also drew a picture:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/31314134@N06/shares/sQ6Jz574Ya