Screw the Crawling...Let's RUN!

I tell my students, "There are no shortcuts in life. It's kinda like Monopoly. You still have to go around the board. Some end up hanging out in Free Parking or get thrown in Jail (yeah, i know...you're innocent), but you still have to go all the way around. You can't cut a path across the board between Community Chest and Chance, skipping from Connecticut Avenue over to Marvin Gardens!" Of course, half the time I have to explain what a Monopoly board looks like, because Lord knows they grew up with themed versions of Monopoly, like SpongeBobOpoly, if they even played 'bored' games at all. But that's a different rant.

And it's true. You pay your dues, you move on. You've got to crawl before you walk. You've got to walk before you can run. Erik Erikson wrote a lot about the stages of human development, and you can't skip one. If you do, it will resurface as a problem requiring much medication and therapy later in life.

I'm writing this particular entry, however, not on the life stages, but on one particular aspect of human development: adolescence. During the teenage years, development revolves around identity. The Intimacy vs Isolation part isn't supposed to come into play until the age of 19 or so, but I think it's happening at a younger and younger age. Case in point: it happened to me when I was still a very young teenager.

There were many horrible things that happened to me as a young teenager, coupled with the fact that I was already dealing with juvenile depression (which didn't 'exist' when i was kid...). Many of the very adult situations I had to deal with were beyond my adolescent capabilities of processing, so I simply didn't deal with it at all. I passed it off as, "Oh, I'm okay. It was no big deal. See? I'm fine..." and either everybody bought it, or nobody wanted to be bothered with it. Either way, nobody in my life actually stopped me and made me take stock or see a professional or whatever.

At one point, I was hospitalized for months on end. I was totally misdiagnosed. For starters, it was an insurance scam (that's a whole other entry), so although I had a real opportunity to get some assistance for the problems I did indeed have, because of the intentional misdiagnosis that would get them more treatment money, that opportunity was lost. I did not get the help I needed because they were too busy trying to treat something I didn't have. And I was on the defensive, frightened, victimized, drugged up, and humiliated so often, all I wanted was out of there. I wasn't going to say, "well, no...i'm not an alcoholic...but i do need help for x, y, and z! since i'm here, why don't we get to work on that?!"

I was released and the rumors had circulated. People thought I was either crazy or an addict or damaged; they didn't understand what had really happened. So my more 'normal' friends sort of abandoned me. All that I had left was to join the ranks of the rejects: the drug-addicted, sometimes-homeless, failed a few times, raising themselves, goes-to-school-when-they-feel-like-it kids that I, apparently, had a lot more in common with than I thought.

I put myself in more situations that caused me pain. Then I began doing it to myself because, hell, I'd rather be the one in control of it rather than having someone do it TO me. And all that time, I was slowly breaking myself down. I just skipped over dealing with the feelings, the issues, the root of the problem. "Oh, I'm fine..."

If I had to print a motto on a business card, that's probably what it would say. "Oh, don't worry...I'm fine!" with a little caricature of me with Alfred E. Newman features to the side of it. The truth of the matter, however, is that I really didn't have anyone in the world I could talk to. My 'friends' weren't really friends. We thought we were, but I see now how wrong we were. I'm not entirely sure they ever really cared about me, despite how loyal and true I was to them.

So, the point of this horrible ramble is to say this: I became an addict and an alcoholic to escape the painful emotions of emptiness, unworthiness, being unloved, being used, being ignored, and everything else I was experiencing. For years, I abused myself through self-destructive and high-risk behavior because I was just in pain.

The straw that broke the camel's back was when I was in a very bad car wreck. The car I had spent thousands on restoring and was almost done with was totaled. It was a road rage deal, although I couldn't prove it. I had thousands of dollars in medical bills and, although the other driver was at fault, his insurance wouldn't pay up. That resulted in a lawsuit. I did win - eventually - but I barely got enough money to cover my medical bills. I was in so much debt and I was traumatized and I had no control...and I tried to take my own life.

It was an absolute fluke that I was found and saved. Someone I hadn't seen in many years happened to stop by my parents' house and could tell something was wrong, so he found the hidden key, let himself in, and saved my life. And then disappeared out of my life for another couple of years.

Finally, as a non-traditional student in a 4-year university, I recognized that I needed help. I tried for months to obtain that help. I had little to no money, so I either needed a free service or a sliding scale service. The university offered psychiatric assistance...if you could get them to stick to an appointment. They canceled on me 4 times and I finally just gave up.

I slipped farther and farther into alcoholism. I'm not going to say I was a sex addict, but I was definitely addicted to the power I seemed to have over men. How I managed to graduate is beyond me. I don't remember much. It's all a haze of bottles, essays, lingerie, loud music, thick textbooks, smoky bars, and lots of skin. Seriously. It's like that weird montage from the movie "30 Days" with Sandra Bullock.

Now. After all of that...do you think I've learned to confront things head-on? Fuck no. Don't give me that much credit.

Alcoholics Anonymous is getting another go in my life. I've been sober now for...I don't know...around 4 months now. I really don't know. I kinda stopped counting many tries back because I kept messing up and getting drunk again and it would make me start my date all over again. So I'm not sure. I bought my most recent project car the day after a terrible bender and I had such a bad hangover I had to keep excusing myself while examining the car because I thought I was going to start dry-heaving. So, I guess I could technically track down the day. But whatever. I got off on a rabbit trail again.

The key to maintaining sobriety and finding peace is to unearth all those triggers. What happened to make you feel the need to numb your entire emotional self? Seems like that is yet another discovery process I'm just not really willing to undergo. I don't want to talk about why I drank, because that's going to lead me to discuss why I did all that stuff. The truth of the matter is, really, I don't know if I really know why. I think I know, but that's not really knowing, is it? And I don't want to drag my parents back into this.

First off, there's a lot of stuff about my life they don't know. They don't need to know it. It would hurt them unnecessarily. It just doesn't need to come up, yet if I asked for their help in some clarifications of things, that information would come out. Secondly, they think I'm fine right now. If I start asking questions again, they're going to freak out. Mom calls it 'recovery mode,' and she refers to it like it's some kind of hypnotic state I fall into. "Uh-oh. She's going into recovery mode again..." She doesn't mean it in a mocking way, but she means it in a 'oh no, my baby's in danger of falling off the edge - again' kind of way, because I only go into 'recovery mode' when I'm about to do something stupid.

So, an alcoholic can't just 'get better.' We know this is a lifelong struggle (i refuse to call it a disease), but there are certain steps you must take to reach the summit. For some reason, I seem to think I can skip some of those steps. You know what happens if you reach the top of a mountain too quickly? Your body doesn't acclimate. You get very sick. You get disoriented. I can't expect to reach enlightenment if I'm not ready and willing to tackle all those things that have been barriers for me my entire life.

I'm just not ready.