I Miss You

It's been awhile since I've had obsessive thoughts about something or someone. I used to fall hard for people who didn't return the feeling and my brain would repeat over and over events that happened as if there was something I could unlock and figure out how to make them love me. I would repeat a song over and over again in a sad attempt to unlock the secrets behind the hook, the beat, the tone, one part of the quiver in the voice that could free me from my obsession on repeat. I found the only way to get a song out of my head is to play it. But then sometimes that song needs played over and over again to fully process and push through that feeling. 

Right now I am pushing through a super sappy song that reminds me of heartbreak from forever ago and for you readers who would like to fall along and perhaps get it stuck in your head too, it's I Miss You by Incubus. It's pretty much 1999 sappy rock ballad to the max, with that masculinity that is fringed with a twinge of heartache without having to go into the typical rap rock to get the point across. There's a part that pulls between the chorus and the verse that drones on with voices and then falls away that just solidifies that longing feeling of walking away from something or someone that you love but still holds on. 

And I'm fairly convinced that I've completely lost my mind. I feel like someone took pruning loppers to where my spine is in order to separate my head from the rest of my body. Or maybe it's just pinched and my body is numb but my brain is stuck on repeat in the sappiest point I've been in forever. 

I can't even describe what I am missing. It's just this overarching feeling of floating through my days completely detached or in shock and I feel like my feet aren't even on the ground or the ground doesn't even exist.

I need to put a seed in the ground and watch it grow. I need to look forward. I am pulling myself back into this slow moving, slightly distorted, guitar driven whispers of something that I thought I had. When life splinters and branches into a different direction, it's hard not to think of the possibilities if life had gone right instead of taking a sharp left. 

It's funny how I sit down with people and talk through their obsessive thoughts like I know what the fuck I'm talking about. Perhaps if I had someone to talk to, I could process these irrational thoughts. I'm not even sure what I miss other than that feeling of security, like I know what I'm doing or where I'm going. I can't explain. I'm 5 months sober. Maybe I'm shifting again. Maybe life shifted and I'm having trouble keeping up. Maybe fucking mercury is in retrograde. Maybe I need to let go of thinking I have my shit together and be honest with other people that I don't. Maybe I can say my head has detached from my body but I'm still walking around like I know where I'm going. Maybe I'm jealous of people who don't care. Maybe I'm getting too much sleep and my dreams are wandering far into the depths of places I don't want to go. 

I don't fucking know. I do hope I finally hit the point where I can listen to something else. I hope I can unlock the puzzle of what is bothering me enough to make it stop. I want to make it stop. I need to move on instead of missing something that I cannot go back to. 

Devastation, but Maybe Cautious Optimism

 It has been a rough few weeks.

I thought I had my shit together. I got thrown into an internship that I had been studying for but still felt ill prepared at a site that seemed a bit low on staff. I took on as much as I could and LOVED the work. I was given a lot of freedom and I ran things the way I wanted, meeting with my supervisor once a week just to make sure I was on the right track.

Our numbers kept going down and then suddenly all staff get pulled in and told our site is closing. I was devastated, but wearing masks is helpful in situations such as these. The paper ones aren't as good at hiding tears as the cloth ones, but I tried to hold it together. We were then instructed to go out and put on a solid front for the clients who would have to merge with a different site. They were devastated. I was devastated. I was told that HR would talk to me within the next few days.

I'm not sure how to articulate the stress of having 3 years of classes hanging over my head with required hours to graduate in December being linked to where I was hired on for health insurance for me and my kid. It's a lot of debt to lose my internship now. I was also hurt and worried for the girls. One client came into my office who was in her final few weeks and broke down that she couldn't finish without me. My boss said she can't say much, but can share that I'm not leaving and I'll be around to help.

It was a quick move, two days later I was sitting on a couch in a different residential setting after teaching my final group therapy session at the old site. It was like the first day on the job but with 5 scared people looking to me for guidance when I was still adjusting to the change as well.

The new site was a different from a theoretical standpoint. It's weird to know this and look back at the times I was in counseling and guess what theoretical standpoint each of those counselors was operating from. This site is big into AA. I come from trauma based supervision. The clients that moved from my site quickly noticed the difference.
AA and 12 steps seem to be more methodical. Trauma based dives deep and asks why or "where did this idea come from?" I learned to dig and find the source. When you use drugs for so many years, you don't really think "why do I use?" It's a valid question and one of my favorite to ask. I found that once I pulled out as many reasons that kept them in active use, I could start knocking them down with facts, brain chemistry, assertiveness training, and thought-feeling correlation through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) but they had to come up with their list first. 
12 step programs walks everyone through a series of questions and pushes going to meetings and reading the "Big Book." 

Anyway, I worked my way in and was so nervous the first few times I led group. My previous supervisor just let me go and said she would let me know if I was doing something wrong. These supervisors are much more involved, which of course makes me anxious. 

What I learned is that over the past few months and feverishly reading, I've absorbed a shit ton of material and can lead 3 hour discussions easily without having to rely on handouts as much. I learned that engaging people is an art, some people who initially hate you may eventually change their mind, and an easy way to make friends at a new place is to take the most hated job from all your coworkers while not complaining. The only problem is that once I took the most dreaded job, they started to expect it and HR called again and placed me at another site.

Now was my turn to be devastated. I had my few clients left from the other site, but I had been running about a group per day with the other residents. I adjusted to their program and worked my way into it. My new site director paid me a compliment which really helped reaffirm that I like working in this field and especially with women. 

My last day at that site was so perfect. I got to run music therapy with my 4 favorite songs and then go into how to meditate before bed to let go of the day. I did notes, chatted with residents, chatted with staff, tried to hide my tears, played volleyball with staff and clients, and then sat in the living room with a client I am very close to and had such a good conversation while other clients came and sat around and listened. 

My heart is breaking right now. I wish I could have stayed. I didn't know I would like working with that population so much but the pain from their stories and how they were trying to get through it by destroying themselves is so amazing to work through. 
I walked away from there with part of my heart still with them. And I thought that maybe I'm not a good fit for this job because I'm too much of an empath. But fuck, that's a hard way to leave someone after I've invested so much mental energy into figuring out where they are coming from and how to help them stop destroying themselves in spite of their own best efforts. I have this fear in the pit of my stomach, this dull ache all over like walking away was not right or that there was something more I could have done to fight to work at that site. 
But I got transferred. I picked the available position within the company and in a few days, I get to see how things go. It's going to be different, but maybe I'll learn different things. 

I think one of my clients was poking at me for leaving her. I wasn't sure what she wanted from me and she is the one I warned about only being around temporarily. I don't know how I'm going to go from seeing someone every day and having such long talks about everything that is going on in her world to...  nothing. 
I'm struggling with what I can and what I cannot control. I know she needs to stand on her own two feet, but this is like telling her that and then taking the rug out from underneath her. I understand why she was poking at me. She was wondering if I was still alive and in there and trying to help her. It's just making me miserable now, but I know the other staff at that site will be fine. She is a bit dramatic at times, but her life has been pretty turbulent so I understand. 
I just want to reach out but I'm not sure how or why. She has a long way to go in recovery and I was only one tiny piece of it. I cannot hold her hand all the time, but I feel like I'm walking away far too soon. 
I only hope that she falls back and regroups. 

I guess I look back at the people who made a huge impact on my life and I see them in different time zones of my life. I look back at the good and the bad events like time stamps and scars I hold onto. I hope she keeps the good parts and builds on them. I hope she stays well. 

I prefer when clients graduate out of the program. I've been able to better walk away knowing that I've done everything I could to work through things that were holding them back. I don't feel like I was finished and I had to walk away. 

I wish them all well. I'm not sure what my next chapter looks like. I am trying to stay optimistic. 

Step 1: I Quit

 It's been awhile. I don't know where to start. But I know I want to keep going, keep moving, keep writing. And so this small corner of the internet seems fitting place. 

First, I quit drinking. It's been several months. I don't count days. I'm not in AA. And quitting drinking  wasn't something that I planned. It just kinda happened. I guess major tectonic shifts may all start out like small rumblings of subtle movement beneath your feet foreboding of things to come. 
It started with that weird feeling that something isn't right. That -I should be doing something better, something different- feeling that usually a drink would quiet and make go dim just for a bit. 

Drinking used to quiet my mind. It stopped me from trying to do so many things all the time. And somehow, drinking found its way into every facet of my life. I thought people who didn't drink were weird and not to be trusted. Fun times all involved alcohol in one way or another. But then something shifted where all times involved alcohol in one way or another and the fun kinda wasn't there. And then most days somehow became excuses to drink or waiting to drink or lying to get out of a situation in order to get more to drink. And it wasn't fun anymore. But I couldn't stop.

I had my first baby a few years ago and quitting drinking while pregnant was a no-brainer. But I felt like I was missing out. I, the child bearing mother, wrecked myself while creating another human while the father would bring home a 6 pack of "good beer" and sit it on the table, enjoying it with dinner and commenting on how much longer his alcohol lasts now that I wasn't drinking half of it. 
I had quit drinking, which made me think I sacrificed sooooo much for this child that I put beer on my baby registry because I couldn't wait until I could drink with a good conscious again.
But with breastfeeding, there is no good conscious. 
I would be at home with a baby all day, not sure what the fuck to do with said baby and stressed out just thinking and planning and waiting to feed and hope my baby wouldn't be hungry again so that I could have a drink. No sleep with an infant. I wanted my trusty -shut my brain off- drink, but even the timing on that was stressing me out.

Once the kid was weaned, I had some catching up to do. I drank. And I drank a lot. It was the father of the kid's turn to drive me around now while I drank to catch up on the past couple of years. I wanted to find the fun, stress relief I had known before having a kid. 

I worked in the alcohol industry. I made wine for years, but I'm not a big wine drinker. I could explain the subtle notes and all the other bullshit that the industry flaunts to make those "in the know" feel important and the people who admit they only like it to be fruity, sweet, and cheap to feel less than. Oh honey, with enough practice, you'll totally learn to appreciate a dry, tannic, full bodied red wine. It just takes time and a lot of drinking... er, I mean practice.

But then my work added a distillery. I love learning. I love working with my hands and putting things together, so I was very proud of myself when I took the pieces and parts of the equipment and help put together vessels, piping, and orchestrated where the crane operators would place different pieces. I like puzzles, and building two stills from pieces was a fascinating puzzle to assemble. 

And then I learned how to make hard liquor. 

It's not difficult. It's just another skill that takes time and a mentor. I do not have a nose for it. All the distillate smelled gross and I couldn't tell the heads and feet and tails or whatever shit makes you not go blind from the stuff that people actually want to drink. The cuts are made for the "hearts" of the run, but it didn't make much of a difference in my nose. It's all pretty fucking disgusting. The only good part about whisky that I liked so much usually was what was extracted from the charred oak barrel  and the fact it warmed me up and got me pretty drunk. Honestly, vodka smells like it will kill you. Gin, I love, but I could probably make juniper tea with some citrus peel and be just as happy now. But I will admit, gin recipes and production are fascinating. It ties together my love for botanicals with my former love of separating my mind from my body for some fleeting moments.

I share my experience in the booze industry for context. I say this because I'm sitting here and I can not believe that I got out of drinking. It was what I did for a living. And then I came home and drank some more.

Now I'm not going to tell you that drinking on the job while working at a winery is the norm. It's not. There's plenty of people who work in the alcohol industry who do not drink at all. Most days I was respectable. But most people in the industry drink and want you to drink with them. Most customers are having fun and they want you to have fun with them. And in production, liquor seeps through your skin and so on bottling days with short sleeves, anyone working the line was bound to get a little tipsy by the end of the day. Blend trials are another industry pitfall where it's the opposite of a drinking game - you have to drink a lot (you can spit, but who would do that?) and you do not want to get drunk.

And there's something about being surrounded by booze and people who appreciate booze that just makes going home and drinking seem almost second nature.

I tried to cut back. I tried to drink only on the weekends. I tried to drink only 3 drinks per night (fucking laughably failed at that on so many nights) or switch what I drank in order to get all the happy, relaxed feelings and none of the bad effects. But I could tell something wasn't right. 

There is a general hum when you're dependent on a substance that is like a cricket or a cicada, an uncomfortable noise you just kinda get used to hearing. Or like living next to train tracks -where it's sooooo fucking loud and annoying that you don't even notice it until the trains aren't going for a few days and something just feels off. At first the noise is unsettling, but then you accept it and it's weird when you don't hear it.

The corona virus hit and I get laid off from my job. I had already started an internship at an alcohol and drug treatment center to finish up my master's degree. I saw myself as different, as high functioning and able to keep it together more than the patients, even when I came in with a hangover or would feel like garbage from being up at 3am again.
Then my best friend quit drinking. She was my drinking buddy, the person who was always way more drunk that everyone else, which made me feel not so bad. 

But I think what really shifted was when I realized I fucking hated myself. I hated falling asleep on the couch at 7pm or was so lazy or cranky that I couldn't bother to help my kid brush his teeth. I was tired all the time, my stomach hurt, and I always felt fuzzy in the head. I either couldn't fall asleep or couldn't keep my eyes open. And then every night at 3 I was wide awake but ravenous for sleep. I would drift back into sleep around 6am with my alarm going off at 6:15. I would swear up and down that I was not going to drink again because I wanted sleep, but being tired just makes me want to drink and once I made it all the way through work, I deserved a drink. 

So on my birthday, I quit. I remember drinking friday night, going to work with a hangover on saturday while trying to walk patients through a stages of change discussion and thinking, ugh, I need a drink. I came home and drank in a frantic search for the "fun" it used to be. My newly sober friend came over and I snuck beers when she wasn't looking and tried to talk. I fell asleep early, house was a mess, I felt like garbage, the garbage needed taken out, and I was up at 3am again. 

But then I woke up on Sunday and didn't want to drink anymore. So I stopped. I just couldn't do it anymore. It wasn't fun. I wasn't sleeping. My guts felt inside out. My head felt fuzzy. And I wasn't sure if it was mom brain or just my brain going mushy but my words were getting garbled up in my mind and my memory was really dull. I knew I wasn't being the best version of myself. I wanted to stop, not just cut down like I tried before. That failed. And those failures stung. I didn't want to beat myself up. 

I was done. I quit. But I had no idea how hard the next step would be....