I was so happy when I found this online forum because there aren't very many meetings in my area. I found it about an hour ago, found myself struggling with what to say ( i have a need to be the perfect writer/speaker - drawing people in, motivating, capturing, enrapturing & mesmerizing them.) and was suddenly not so happy anymore, but I said "fuck it. just go at it, and if I tell a boring story, so what?" It's my story, darn it, and people love me. :)
From the time I was a kid, I felt a bit odd & out of sync from the rest of the world. There are nature/nurture reasons for it, but as a kid, you don't get that & don't know how to overcome it. You just have to live the turmoil without a choice. Feeling like a piece a shit was a pretty standard daily belief. I won't go into the gory details. But today, if I'm not perfect (I'm 41 yrs old, btw), I still have that "piece of shit" feeling rising up through the crevices of my primitive brain.
I think that along with being flat bored with life at the time I started using prescription opiods were the reasons I used.
I've been recovering now for 37 days. I got my 30 day keytag on Friday, and I feel grateful and excited now about the possibilities in my future. I'm searching for what I enjoy. I cope by walking, getting in the sun, finally eating well & getting scheduled sleep, but I, as you all probably can guess & know from experience, lost complete enjoyment in everything I once liked as I slowly got more depressed & used. I want my life back so I can do it right.
HI and welcome! Your story sounds alot like mine. For 51 years I always had reservations, and that black hole of low self esteem, constantly sucked me in, and sapped any good will I would try to muster. My obsessive complusive thinking helped make me the addict i've become. It took me atleast 9 months before I started changing.
I didn't come out of my corner all at once. It was many revelations, meetings, step work, sponsor, new friends, and especially a belief in turning things over to a higher power that took my focus off of myself. To me, these were all keys to changing.
last night I reviewed some of the pamphlets that I've kept with my basic text. Had to smile at the pain I was living through...the way I filled in the Just for today pamphlet reminded me of the struggle...
If you can surrender yourself to addiction (you can't change your past), and admit your life has become unmanageable, you CAN move forward and grow. There's so much i'd like to share with you, and to keep it simple, just try to be honest, open minded, and willing
Susie, welcome to MIP. I was also a perfectionist in early recovery. Well, it's more like I knew I wasn't perfect, but I wanted everyone to think I was. I finally got so sick of it that I decided to be very publicly imperfect. They I opted to do that was to trash my car. Rather than clean the trash out of my car, I tossed it on the floor and left it there. This included food wrappings and other items that literally stuck to my feet! I stopped washing my car. I didn't clean the windows. What a relief that now everyone could see that I wasn't perfect.
My next challenge was to share at meetings what was honestly going on rather than sharing something to make myself look good. I always wanted people to think that I was together and had amazing perfect recovery, etc. I also thought that I was supposed to share a certain way about certain things. Somehow I got all that mixed up in my head and had a really hard time. I had one friend who knew my struggle and she always encouraged me to share the real me. When I finally was able to, what a relief!
Anyway, welcome again, and thanks for your post! As you can see, it got me thinking and reflecting.
Thanks for sharing your story with us, glad we have you with us here at Miracles In Progress.
Keep coming back, what we cannot do alone, we can together with others.
This has been a very loving and caring place that I come back to regularly for support and guidance in my recovery for a long time now.
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"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
