Day Treatment 10

I identified today that the depression preceeded any usage or addiction. The therapist in Sacramento through EAP suggested meds. Francisco in '97 suggested the same thing. The drugs and drinking didn't start until way after that. It's always been the pain inside that I've never wanted to deal with; never known how.

Day Treatment 9

I had a late last night. I was unsure if it was something I should have done at this point and time while focusing on myself. I 'm glad I went. Something--instinct--told me to go despite feeling tired and plodding through traffic. More on this later.

Kaiser is showing a video on HIV/AIDS with a production date ofo 1994. I shake my head at how old this is compared to what we know now. Yesterday I crystalized a thought while being berraged by the rest of the group about my lack of spirituality or belief in a "higher power." I believe in the higher power of the self. Someone remarked that no matter where you go, there you are. Simply, no matter what environmental factors you change, you have to deal with yourself & what's in your own head. Ultimately, it is the addict who makes the decision to goto a meeting, to continue to go, to pick themselves up and go back after relapse. ((Even if intervention is performed, or court order, the self has the ultimately decision to continue treatment or not to do so.)) I believe in the energy cycling inside of each of us that is recycled from matter through time. The energy particles are connected to things in other people--links of the past and present that are eternal. No matter how strong the bonds of people are, it's you that makes the final decision on the type of life to lead.

Can people influence you? Sure.

Treatment Day 8

Have I put off going to the gym because it perpetuates a depression that I can point to or struggle with? If I know what I can look like and how good it is... do I keep this from myself because I feel I don't deserve it?

Treatment Day 7

I feel myself automatically not wanting to feel again. I feel like I have made progress in opening up and starting to share, but a sense of danger is associated with this and without even trying to close up I'm doing it.

Yesterday, I stopped my journal entry after starting to express something bad I was feeling. Uncomfortable. I never did return to the thought or try to work it through. Maybe I'm not ready, but that shouldn't throw me back to square one. Square one is safe, predictable. There are set boundaries...equal on all sides. But, true to a square, it's a false sense of security because feelings--like a wise enemy--learn that there are ways over and around boundaries. It's not cube one, it's square one, so the walls that are so strong to repel the armies of one's self are no match for the cunning of emotions that are simply piled higher and higher and eventually spilling over the wall that cannot be built as fast as the emotions come.

I woke up to my phone ringing. It was Chuck. After our conversation ended, I saw that I had two voice mail messages that I slept through. When I don't hear my phone ring I know that I'm in a deep sleep that I really need or else the sound would wake me. One of the messages was from Mark (sure, I could say Mark W, but why?) and the other was from my Mother. What do I want and/or need to say to her?

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A first pass at the answer:
I keep you at a distance until I feel it's safe enough to approach you without being hurt. When I'm around you and I feel that hurt coming back I withdraw, retreat back to some place that I feel safe again. Sometimes I'm able to look at you as a person and not a mother and in that light I can say that no one person is perfect. No one person is without flaws, and that being the case, you're human like me; you make mistakes and that's okay. Unfortunately, that is not how I'm able to see you most of the time.

Most of the time.........and just typing right now my fingers halted with such pain. And I'm breaking down.

And I can't stop crying. (long pause)

I take a deep breath, through my mouth as my nose is stuffed from crying. I wipe away the streams of tears from my cheeks, chin & the small resevoirs where one's bags are stored. My breathing becomes more regulated again and I wonder what just happened to me. What hit me so hard that everything folded in and took away my spirit? Even right now as I try to slow my head down and analyze, that powerful feeling comes over me again and I get glossy eyes. It's a child in me that is weeping all the time. It's a part of Jeremy that was never allowed to grow up or be himself so now in adulthood he's lost because how do you develop a part of you that was stunted before the skills to develop were nurtured? All these years later I am still so angry and hurt that I was left to endure the pain of abuse---YES ABUSE---without acknowledgement or acceptance or responsibility from you as a parent. Too many times I have heard, "He was a good provider. He was there when your father wasn't. He made sure you were fed and clothed. It only happened a couple of times." These excuses mean nothing to a child. If Ruben were to have run me over with a car would it have been okay to say, "Well...he only did it one time." Were the abuse to have been sexual in nature and I were to have been raped just ONE TIME, would it be acceptable to say, "He was a good provider?" What I don't think you have ever understood in all of my pain is that I have been so hurt & lost that I have never been able to explain these feelings------I'm afraid to. Sharing feelings was never allowed in our family. I was made to cry when I tried to share my feelings a child. I didn't always have the words to express exactly what I was feeling so I was made silent because saying nothing was better than being spanked or hit for saying something honest.

These days, when I try to share I see how you change the subject or don't want to talk about it or EVEN WORSE... how you push back on me as if I just need to "grow up" and get over it. HOW DO YOU GET OVER SOMETHING THAT CRIPPLED YOU BEFORE YOU WERE OLD ENOUGH TO LEARN HOW TO DEAL WITH THE REAL ISSUES OF LIFE? To this day I can't have normal relationships with other males/men. I don't date people that are older than me, bigger than me, stronger than me. Of course, I never realized that right away... but the pattern became evident over time.

I love you. I realize that you're the only mother I'm ever going to have. I've tried very hard to keep our relationship moving forward because that's important to me, but it's exceptionally difficult when I carry this around with me. And often--and I know you feel it or sense it--I am unable to reconcile the two feelings in me and so I don't call, or withdraw, or will visit and then leave. I'm sure there is much more that is going on in side of me, but I need to go back to cleaning because I don't want to wallow in this feeling any more right now. I feel weak and I need to feel strong again.

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Gee... who knew that was in me? As much as it hurt to type it, it felt good to get out. But what now? Back to cleaning the room. Maybe when it looks nice again I'll be surrounded by a comfort to feel secure and explore more later.

Two people "graduated" from group today. When I'm honest with myself I see the sensitive side of me surface with words of love and encouragement and I love that part of me. I can see how when I share myself--that part of me--how their eyes change. I've always had that miraculous relationship with my close friends. It's so warm and I glimpse the kind of person I want to be without fear, without walls up, without a primitive self-preservation instinct that was over-stimulated as a child and never told that it could be turned off. This group experience overall is great. I can take what I need from the time and leave behind what works well for the rest.

Treatment Day 6

I need to write Randy Avery and apologize. It's been in my head for a while---a long time; ever since I made the last entry here about spending the night with him months ago.

Treatment Day 5

Dinner with Byron went well. I can see this man that he has become and it doesn't match the memory of the little brother that I have. That person will only be a memory now. He was 15 when he smoked pot for the 1st time. The Navy exposed him to a slew of other drugs.

Jose and I hung out. Lot's of fun. Tigerheat...80's dancing... FUBAR....strip contest to the music "Fucking on the Dancefloor"...WeHo strip.... IHOP...hot chocolate, Banana Pankcakes... people in the booth next to us, Jose driving home, spent the night on the couch...wake up to Alarm---->$100.

I think my next "cut-out" will be caffeine. Hello headaches.

He looks like Tony Almeda (sp?) this guy in the class. Strangely attracted to him. Num num. With the Zoloft a week out of my system, I think my sex drive is coming back. We shall see when it's completely gone over the next week.

Treatment Day 4

Byron called me yesterday and left a message to have dinner with me tonight. I don't know if it's because he wants the phone or because my mother talked to him because I wasn't responding well t her. Whatever the case, a part of me is happy to have the meeting. A part of me feels lost---not knowing what to talk about. We are strangers.

Last night I went to "The Boom" with Art, Mark & Chuck. As we got in line to go in, Eddy & James were right in front of us. Ha ha, a good chuckle. Steve Tanny was there. I visited with Ali for a while. Jonathan said hello. There was plenty to look at, but I was disinterested. I think I will be for a while as I'm finding more ways to remove my armor so that I can expose myself to myself. Hmm...where to go to dinner with Byron?

Treatment Day 3

Saw the 1st showing of The Matrix: Revolutions at The Block. I cried at the opening because of references to love and what it means. I don't know that anything could have been a fitting end to the movie trilogy because the original was such a phenomenon really.

Sitting here the past few days I remember feeling the pieces of me being stripped away by Ruben. I remember never being able to express--in words--how I felt inside or that even if I had them. (feelings) I see this picture of myself staring in his eyes while my eyes would well up with tears and he would taunt me about crying. I was always trying to exert my own personality, but anytime I would show that person, it would be crushed. Looking back now I'm not sure that I ever really liked school, but it was an easy way to get some amount of approval from Ruben. It also was a safe place where he couldn't hurt me. Sadly, he is the only father-figure I will ever have. The person who has blacked out years of my memory. I'm angry and each time I try and let go of that I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to talk to my mother. I don't always have respect for her... and then, there is LOVE.

Smiley faces have been in my life as a way of keeping a reminder of who I want to be. And how it just makes me cry when the two worlds collide.

A couple of times today I've pictured holding & hugging Chuck.

The internet is a way of avoiding.. It's like anything that takes me away.

Treatment Day 2

They want me to chronicle in a journal. They don't know how often I write. The second mourning of group was focused on two people mainly. Sitting and listening, I realize how lucky I am or have been. On paper, I feel like a loser by my own standards. The whole idea behind this program is that you have to admit that you have no control over usage---that your poison of choice is more powerful than you. Hog wash. But I can see how some of the people here need to believe that for themselves. Mark W. and I are probably on the same page here. Now it's time for a Hepatitis C video. New fact: Hepatitis simply means an inflammation of the liver.

Yo! Ga! I almost fell asleep. At one moment of the guided meditation, the yoga person said something--->Think of love, breath it in---> and I started to cry.

Emotionally stunted at 16 or 17 because of Ruben. So I know this and it effects all of my interactions so why can't I move past it?

Tears in my eyes again---- when people who aren't that bright use eloquent words to describe their feelings, the realness of it touches me.

Treatment Day 1

What am I doing here? I've tuned out of this video because it's heavily ingrained in "god" - blah blah blah. I've surrounded myself by good people. I've always done that. Mom remarked yesterday how she has never met a friend of mine that she didn't like.

When I ask friends if they think I have a problem with drinking, they say no. If I ask the same question about drug usage--they say yes. I think this is simply because they will drink themselves, but they do not do drugs.

I don't know what is going on with work and that bothers me. STRESS... do I have a job still?

I feel like I'm in Mr. McCoy's science class in 8th grade. Brandi Carrick and I sat together; lab partners. That class & P.E. Class.

People go through years of schooling to spew these words out and I see now why there is such an industry for this.

!!! The 40 year old Chuck is my class !!! OMG---TOTALLY!!!

These counselors have a way of "dragging" their words.