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Friday, April 29, 2011

Just for Today (an ongoing series)

I'm stealing a little bit from Mr. SponsorPants. He has an "ongoing series" about things he's learned in recovery. I still have a lot to learn, and my emotional pain is consistently getting in my way. I want to wake up tomorrow and be over this. I want to have a different job that I love with co-workers and an office, and some meaning. I want to have a nice place to live and be able to afford it. But most of all, I don't want to be in pain anymore over Roi and his deceptions. 

That's not how life works, and I get that. The way I see it, I have to break all of this down into baby steps, all heading in the direction of my bigger, long-term goals. Because right now, when I wake up every day and I'm still in pain, still working with Roi, still somewhat financially dependent on him, still living with someone who continually deceives me, it's just so overwhelming and depressing that I find all I can do is write. The writing is damn important, I know that, but the more important writing is ahead. The writing where I tell the truth, and face the truth about my experience. While this blog is helpful, it's still cycling over and over again on the same pain. Pain that I want to free myself from. 

If I had to go all psychoanalysis on this "cycling-recycling" shit, I'd have to guess that while I don't like the pain I'm in now, it's a known pain. All I know about the pain of separation is that it will hurt, and it will be new and different pain. I would also guess that I'm suffering from the phenomenon of "learned helplessness" which comes from random, and unvalidated emotional abuse, because let's be clear -- whether they mean it or not, the tactics that addicts use to protect their addiction has all the same characteristics of emotional abuse. AND then there's the whole self-esteem in the toilet bit. Sex addiction has a way of doing a number on the partner's self-esteem, no matter how much they consciously know or repeat the mantra, "it's not about me, it's not about me, it is NOT about ME".  And lastly, there's all the cognitive dissonance that being close to active addiction creates in the mind of the partner -- cognitive dissonance which the brain demands must be ruminated on and RESOLVED dammit, because we need things to make enough sense so we can move around the world (this is why I still bristle at the codepenedent model).

Add to that my particular complications of living with and working with/for Roi, and it sure can seem like an insurmountable mess. But it's not, and I'll survive -- thrive even. Still, I need to be realistic about what I can do and what I can't do in a given day. Tomorrow won't be magic. Tomorrow I'll still be in the same situation now, except that I can make small changes that will eventually add up to an eventual complete paradigm shift in my life. 

So that said, JUST FOR TODAY, I'm going to do these small things to shuttle that paradigm shift a little faster. 

  • 10 minutes of meditation immediately after hitting the publish button on this post. 
  • 20 minutes of fun dance exercise. 
  • 5 hours more of work (yes for the "man" but I DO need money to get out of here and I can't forget that).
  • Getting out of the house and away from him for at least two hours.
I may be biting off more than I can chew, but let's say I'll definitely do two of these things, just for today. 

As always, tomorrow can suck it.



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