Relapse

And I’ll feel my world crumbling down
Feel my life crumbling now
Feel my soul crumbling away
And falling away
Falling away with you

Song by Muse, Falling Away With You

Our minds have amazing elasticity when it comes to overcoming obstacles and bridging gaps. This comes in handy when trying to get over something that has hurt us deeply.

Our minds also have incredible recall, instinctively revisiting old neuro pathways that once helped us get through tough situations. Unfortunately, when life gets tough it is tempting to revert to bad habits.

My bad habits are me receding into my old shell, isolating myself and using food and technology to numb my mind and emotions from the world. That all may not sound so bad, but for me it puts a hard break on being able to accomplish anything in my life other than thinking about where I can get my next “hit” of dopamine.

I was free for 2 years. Recently, it all became too much and I relapsed.

Sometimes I wonder if I do too much self-analyzing. I go to therapy but detest it because it always makes me feel worse and I rarely make progress. Therapy unearths things that maybe should stay buried. It pokes and prods at all my insecurities, scrapes my emotional insides and then leaves me to deal with all that emotion.

I paddle so much to try and escape the flow of my emotions, other people and situations out of my control in my life. I am tired of it all.

So here I am, a full grown a** adult, still not able to stop trying to self destruct when life gets hard. From my favorite comedian Taylor Tomlinson, ‘the lake is going to freeze over and now is the time to pick out the trash before it does.’ In two years I will be 30. I want to form some new neuro pathways before my ‘lake’ freezes over. As Taylor says (from GOT originally of course), ‘Winter is coming!’

I know I only have so much time on this earth to live and one body and one mind to do it in. I feel proud of most of the choices I have made in my life, but unfortunately I don’t handle change well at this point. It makes me sad that I don’t take care of myself how I should.

Thanks for listening,

-River

Temptation

Temptation is all around us. What becomes tempting is what you dwell on.

The things that you struggle with may not tempt another person at all. For instance, if someone who is not an alcoholic thinks about alcohol, it would probably not tempt them in the same way as it would to someone who has used alcohol as a vice.

For me, my vice has always been sweets. I used to think I was an emotional eater, binging when I felt bored, sad, overwhelmed, angry, happy… Now I know it doesn’t matter what I’m feeling. If I begin to dwell on sugar, those thoughts enter a sort of echo chamber in my head, getting louder the more I entertain them. And I have been entertaining them a lot lately.

Tonight I want a snicker doodle cookie. It’s 8:45pm and I can’t get it out of my head. At war with myself, my better half works on stalling me, insisting that I don’t want some stale cookie from the grocery store, what I actually want is a freshly baked ooey-gooey cookie. That does sound pretty good. I search for the best freshly baked cookies in my town, and my better half rejoices since all the cookie shops show as closed.

I notice there is one open. Insomnia Cookies is open until 12pm on weekdays (it’s a Wednesday night). I browse their menu, picking a snicker doodle and a deluxe oatmeal chocolate chip cookie to add to my cart.

As I enter my information on the payment page, I get distracted, thinking about how I haven’t given into a real sugar binge for over two years. Using my distraction as an opportunity, my better half closes the window and switches to a new browser with YouTube, hoping to numb my cravings with a less damaging vice.

Why was I doing so well for two years and suddenly I find myself seconds away from buying $10 of ooey gooey cookies at 9pm?

Why am I giving into thinking about this temptation now? What changed?

Right now, my answer is everything. Within the last month I changed jobs, broke up with my boyfriend of 4 years, sold almost everything I own, and planned yet another move to live rent-free with my parents for the next year. Who wouldn’t want a cookie at this point?

My guess is that the life raft inside of my brain that was keeping me afloat from this temptation has sprung a leak. I’m not in the water yet, but unless I get a bucket and some as-seen-on-TV flex seal to plug up the leak quickly, I will be.

I think the reason why my raft is leaking is my fault. I need to take better care of myself. My life is imbalanced right now, not necessarily because of the decisions I’ve made in the past month, but because of the way I have been handling and caring for myself through all these changes. I tend to ignore my hard feelings, drowning them in YouTube and lying flat until my feelings rage inside me, shouting. Dealing with my feelings at this level makes me feel so stressed. I know how to mediate and allow my feelings to flow through me, but I don’t make a habit of it. Instead, I get a message from my phone saying my screen time was up to 9 hours a day on average last week!

If I were managing my stress well, I would focus on putting processes in place to live my life well. I am an emotional person, and I know it takes consistent work to attend to myself and keep me in balance. If I were to take care of myself, I would focus on whatever I was doing: working when it’s time to work, and actually relaxing when it is time to relax (with a book this time).

Stuffing my face in YouTube all day is relaxing on some level, but there is also a feeling that isn’t immediately noticeable: anxiety that grows the longer I use it to ignore whatever I don’t want to feel or deal with.

I have always known how to be healthy and live a healthy life. Right now it just feels like so much work. YouTube is not enough to block it out right now and I want to graduate to my favored temptation: sugar.

Today I am #strugglebus

What tempts you? Leave a comment if you want to share.

-River

Choosing Happiness

You are the same you were when you lived there, the same as you will be when you leave here. I would argue that happiness for each person can be found through a set of factors that cultivate mental growth and expression of self.

My happy place is walking in my favorite park, admiring how it is on that day, as I have done for more than a decade. I find happiness in nature, and lots of it. Trails that are easily accessed and varied, for me and my dog.

I value independence as well as supporting other independent voices. If you have a true story that needs to be said, I want to listen.

My story has been tumultuous these past 9 months. I moved across the country for love, and instead of finding a stronger self, I came face to face with depression. Instead of building my partner up, we slid into each other sideways, doing things that we each needed for ourselves, not necessarily for the other person. The dishes would get cleaned and I would thank him, but then later he would say he did them “because they needed to be done”. I would do things I needed like go to our local park, but I stopped asking him along when I realized he would come to make me happy, not because he actually wanted to go.

Why be with someone who doesn’t have the same goals as you? He wants to stay home, to relax and do math. I want to adventure, to discover myself more deeply in nature. I would rather be honest with each other, and we are two different people.

I have felt confused about my future, changing between wanting to get engaged and wanting to take off and travel. As more time has passed and nothing happens towards either future, I fold into myself more and more. My phone, or my “bink bink” as we jokingly call it (a.k.a. pacifier), is glued to my face 100% of my day, numbing out my emotions and keeping me under water. I am afraid to surface.

Depression is a third person in any relationship; it is impossible to see and love the other person if Depression is in the way.

Sometimes I wonder if I should stay. I moved across the country and I generally enjoy my life there, can’t I just pick up the pieces and stay? Could I make it work, quit my phone and find a hobby or three to keep myself happy? I’m not sure, but I do know that I moved there to be with him rather than for any goal of my own. That is not the best start, but I have found adventures there that I do cherish.

I don’t want to hurt him, and I know it will hurt myself deeply to let him go. Almost enough to make me wait. If I am any kind of decent person, and if I trust myself enough to make this decision, it has to be done as soon as possible. I do need more time to listen to my thoughts about this idea and settle on a decision. To stay or to wait. Once I have my thoughts straight I can talk to him.

So how would one choose happiness? By listening to yourself, then following your path. If you enjoy certain things, look to expand them. If you dislike certain things (like working on a computer all day), look to diminish them. If your happiness cannot be found in your current environment, whether it be because you are lacking connection or place, be strong and discover what you need to make it better, or change it altogether.

Take time to listen to yourself and it will make all the difference. You got this. 🙂

Love,

River

Flow

Energy is flowing everywhere all the time. How we choose to interact with it says a lot about us.

If you choose to let things flow into you but do not give them attention or try to bottle them in, the energy will build up, and a cycle of emotional breakage begins. I know I bottle things up because I am afraid to process the energy I feel all the time. It seems easier to stuff it down and away and ignore it, but it always comes through. And when it eventually comes out, it feels like a rouge wave that sinks anything trying to swim.

Jim Carrey said something in a university commencement address about his father who was afraid to try to live his dream to be a comedian, who chose instead to do the “safe” thing and work a 9-5 job instead.

“When I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job,” he added. “Our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which is that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”

Jim Carrey

I think this idea hits home for a lot of people. Because of our fear of failure, we will choose the “safe” path when in reality no path is safe and all choices come with consequences.

I have been afraid of my flow for some time. I am afraid to sit with the emotions I feel, afraid that they will destroy my relationships and make me look weak. I wish I was brave enough to do this because I am certain that me attempting to block my flow to be “safe” has caused a lot of unnecessary confusion and residual pain for myself and the people I love.

How can I hope to be in any kind of relationship with another person if I can barely stand to be in a relationship with myself?

Another way to stop flow is to try and block anything from coming in; to become like a stone in water. I know from experience that doing this has a huge negative impact, and the flow will continue to beat at stone until it is molded into what the water wants.

I am tired of trying to block my flow. I am tired of stuffing my emotions away with endless hours on my phone, fatty foods and sugary highs. I am also afraid to change my constitution because it both a comfortable place to live and something that is killing me slowly. If I can break this cycle, it will be the hardest thing I ever do. I think if I can do that, it will change everything for me.

Feel free to leave a like and share your experience in the comments.

-River

My Emotions are Ruining My Life

My emotions are ruining my life. Any small trigger will cause any bottled up emotions to flow out over me, uncalled for, like a second skin. When my emotions take over it becomes difficult to see anything clearly, and I have a tough time finding my balance after an emotional storm.

When I feel an emotion, like frustration for instance, it is never just about a situation and a feeling in response. Usually, any given situation will trigger a deeper feeling which flows upwards like a flame on gas, lighting me up and overpowering any logical reaction that might have been there to start with. Unfortunately for me, my most powerful deeper emotions right now are the negative ones. Fear. Insecurity. Anger. Judgement. Sadness. Greif.

Here is an example: I was walking my two dogs this morning when I noticed a person with their dog walking my way. Knowing my dogs will react badly to other dogs and people, the only thing I wanted to do was leave fast. Unfortunately, I was also working on cleaning up the poop my dogs had just left beside the road and was stuck. My stress level immediately went through the roof, and I was afraid of looking like a bad dog owner as I barked at my dogs to stay close, and when that failed, I yanked them to me. The wash of negative emotions I felt were not about the situation itself but my fear of being viewed badly and resulting stress and anger towards the innocent dogs. Plus, my emotional response didn’t end when the person was past us. I carried it with me for the rest of the walk home and well into the rest of my day.

When small things happen that unleash my deeper emotions, I feel caught in a waterfall, unable to move until the water pressure gives up. Stopping the flow of negative emotions feels almost impossible, and mine have begun to leak into every other part of my life. I wake up with sadness, spend my day with anger and go to bed with fear. I am poor at regularly expressing myself because I have felt and am afraid of how intense my emotions can get, and I worry that if I give them new pathways to flow from that I will get washed away. I will bury my emotions in my work, my phone, or anything else I can think of.

I am so tired of dealing with this. I don’t know how to stop these huge emotional reactions, and it is running my life at this point. Does this train have a stop? Why does it seem to be getting faster and faster? Does it even have a break?

Thanks for listening,

-River

Anger

What is it about me that makes me feel so angry at times? Am I really that spiteful, that judgmental to feel actually angry when something doesn’t go my way?

Anger can be a scary emotion, especially if you are on the receiving end. The people that are closest to me seem to receive my anger the most. First my family, then close friends, and now it’s becoming a problem in my romantic life.

My boyfriend tells me he never knows when my emotions towards him will turn sour, and when they do he feels disrespected by me. For me, I hold myself so close at times that my fear of getting hurt or of being misunderstood results in an angry attitude when he’s trying to figure me out.

“You don’t understand what I’m saying?” I’d snark at him. “Well fine.”

When someone makes me feel vulnerable, instead of opening up, I feel threatened. My anger bubbles up from my stomach and escapes in the form of a nasty tone of voice. I know I need to change this reaction in order to stay in a relationship with him, but I could just as easily perform surgery on myself than look for and purge this anger from my life.

I want to be loved and I want to give my love, but this cage is so ingrained in who I am. I get angry to protect my heart when I feel vulnerable or in danger of being laughed at or mishandled. As a kid my opinions and thoughts were laughed at, and it has really shaped who I am.

At the bottom of all this anger I feel hurt and invalidated. I’m not sure how to unlock the cage around my heart and begin to let love in from the people who are close to me. They had to work hard to get close to me, so I feel like the least I can do is lower my wall.

How do I stop this self-defensive mechanism from ruining my life? I push everyone away in some way or another. I really believe if I opened up and let everyone know my real thoughts and feelings, they would be misheard, or worse, disregarded. squashed again.

I work incredibly hard to keep up the appearance of happiness, sanity and smartness. I have a good body, a well paying job, and I upload happy looking posts semi-regularly on Instagram. So where is the self-love? Where did I go, and how can I start looking for the content of my real self rather than wasting time projecting strength and hardness to other people who are only asking to be closer? I don’t have the slightest idea of how to start.

Anyways, we’ll put a pin in that.

Goodnight.

-River

My depression story

What it felt like to fall into my depression was like failing to keep treading water after too many hours lost at sea. For me, my head swims all days with ideas, floating from one to the next without much direction. Unfortunately for me, something foreign was accepted into my head space at a very young age that changed everything.

When the depression started…

When it started I became aware of a certain social standard my environment accepted and loved. Someone who was skinny and submissive was well respected. When my sister lost weight after going to college, there was a noticeable increase in the praise and respect my parents would afford her. I began to notice all the ways society enjoyed a person who had that trait, and from there it was a slippery slope for my young unburnished mind to latch on to the idea. In this I had been failed by my environment. Around the time the idea became an obsession, my mind was no longer my own, and as a result I sank underwater.

The idea gained a total possession of me. I was no longer the bubbly, confident and happy person I knew and loved. I became extremely reserved, afraid, and ultimately depressed by the knowledge that I wasn’t able to cast it off as something foreign and malignant. I remember being absolutely sure that if I were to let go of the idea, I would never become my old self – bubbly, confident and happy again – I could not see or rationalize through the fog. I truly believed if I just weighed less, ate less, spoke less, and became less, that I would finally reach a point of true happiness. I wanted to shrink into a point of nothing and then disappear.

My body refused to head the command of the alien captain and shrink into nothingness. Instead, my body began rejecting my control, and so began a war I fought with myself. When I was worn down from my negative internal dialogue all day, I binged uncontrollably at night. I was terrified of what my body was doing, and thought there was something wrong with me. I ridiculed and hated myself for every bite, and obsessed over my “goals” during every moment of the day.

After a while of fighting with myself, I reached a low I did not know existed. If my old self had been hiding close by before, it now retreated to some forgotten corner of my subconscious. I was exhausted, and the “beast” as I called it, had full access to my every waking thought and action.

How the depression ended…

I think a combination of environmental things helped me coax my true self out again. The real change came internally though. One day, during one of my binges I was at a gas station, setting down my load, and was dreading the off looks I usually got from the clerk. This time though, the lady’s expression was so compassionate, so kind and accepting, that it made me feel like crying. I knew then what I needed to do.

I began in small ways to consciously deal with my binge eating with kindness and acceptance. It did not feel like the truth, at first. Even saying the simple words “I love you, I’ll take care of you” to myself in a mirror after a binge felt like a lie. It felt like a lie when I burned the pages of my notebook that had “I HATE YOU” written in huge font across entire pages, among other things. I didn’t believe myself, didn’t trust myself. What didn’t feel like a lie was my depression. That was something I knew very well, and began to sit listlessly in my room, sitting in uncomfortable silence after having done a positive affirmation. I knew what I had done to myself, and what had been done to me were the result of a bad reaction to a terrible circumstance.

Eventually, the pauses between my negative thoughts and a resulting action became longer, and the negative side of me became less loud. Simply said, I was no longer interested in feeding the fire that had consumed me for so long. It still burned, but I was becoming more like water each day.

After those steps, I changed my environment to a new living space and began cycling as a hobby. Let me tell you, the success I achieved in my head became more real when I approached my health and fitness from a compassionate and adventurous perspective, rather than a fear-based results-oriented one.

I think the idea may be something that I have and believe forever. However, leaving this chapter behind I also have tools to see it for what it is, and I have developed a compassionate and accepting voice towards myself that has been my harbor through the storms that come and go.

My storm at sea has settled a bit. Nowadays, I sit in the lifeboat I made for myself and watch the passing ships and islands as the sea takes me where she will. I hope someday to find land. I believe I will. But for now, it is enough to be out of the water.

-Sierra

Law of Attraction

The law of attraction states that anything you focus on will be attracted to you. Your thoughts, when focused, will manifest the very thing you were dwelling on. If you invite good things in and positive thoughts, those thoughts will shape your perception and the way you act, which will reinforce the idea through results.

I never realized how much of our reality is created in our thoughts.

 

Here’s an example:

A boss gives notes on a project to two employees. The first assumes it is constructive and sees it as a chance to improve on his work. She sets her mind agreeably to the task of re-working the project and the boss is pleased when his comments are responded to. The second sees the notes as critiques, assuming her boss disliked her as an employee. The corrections she makes to the project are self-defensive in nature and the boss does not reply because his notes were not fully addressed.

The difference between the two people is not within what happened to them, but the way they perceived and then acted in response. Responding using a constructive mindset returned a constructive outcome; contrarily a nonconstructive assumption about the work returned a lacking response. In both situations, the thoughts the employees had about the work directly impacted the outcome and reaffirmed their beliefs.

 

In my life, I have been attracting the wrong crowd of beliefs for a while now. My self-deprecating thoughts have strung out into a saga of unhappiness and turned into a belief that my self worth is tied to my image. The outside affirmations fueling the inside beliefs, rather than the other way around. I was not doing the driving, and became very unhappy in the direction my life was driving me.

My thoughts are desperately craving some self-affirmation. Positive thinking towards myself would help me, would remind me that I do believe that I am worth it, that I do think I am smart and thoughtful and good towards others. My mind has been deprived of self-affirmation for so long I couldn’t help but seek it in everything and everyone else.

When I was a child, I had no thoughts about self-image. I was myself and that was great. I believed in the things I did and was not afraid to fail. I need to start returning to that state. Believing in something, especially yourself, is one of the most important journeys to take in our lives. We begin to believe in what we are told rather than what we know, and we are told that we are not good enough or smart enough or pretty enough to have any say. It is a farce. It is a business and a mass manipulation which feeds into the business. I am not an object, and my heart does not follow whatever dam is being built. It flies above it all, knowing and seeing all.

I want to reclaim what is mine. I want to feel like I believe in myself again. Because I do deep down, and that girl has been feathered into a corner slowly over these past 20 years. She’s always been there, though. I just have to open the door and set out to find her.

A list of how to reconnect with yourself:

1. Disconnect from things which are replacements for thoughts. Television, YouTube, etc.

2. Relax into your own thoughts. It takes effort to listen, and you will have a lot to say. Meditate on your thoughts as often as possible. They are special and should be esteemed because they are yours.

3. Become a steward of yourself. You are all that matters, and when you start respecting and loving yourself, you can then start to accept others into your life.

 

Those are my thoughts; I’d love to hear yours. Leave a like if you agree or comment below.

-River

Vulnerability

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Vulnerability is a word that makes me want to back into a corner and stay there forever. It means embarrassment, honesty, and leveling with another person. To be vulnerable is to give away your pride, or ego, or whatever it is protecting your mind from blurting out your highest insecurities all the time.

Doesn’t that just make you want to cringe, purely instinctively?

Why were we designed to need vulnerability? It’s a key part in any relationship, bringing a bit of trust and honesty for the other person. Why is it so hard to be vulnerable?

Maybe humans instinctively protect those people who they believe are vulnerable. I know looking back on all of my relationships and friendships, the best ones had that one ingredient.

A good dose of vulnerability can really strengthen a relationship, as backwards as it may feel in the moment. Admitting the truely embarrassing things we think or feel as people reminds ourselves and everyone around us at the time that we are in fact just humans. Living out our lives with little guidance or compass.

So if you can stand it, try being vulnerable for a change. It is very hard to do consistently, as it’s basically admitting to yourself that on your exponentially small space you occupy in the universe that there is little control over what is happening to you or what happens next. It’s a trust that time and fate or whatever you call it will conspire to bring you what you need to move forward as a flawed human being.

I know I’m not perfect now. I know I am not especially outwardly beautiful, and inwardly I think things that are not always sparkly clean. I am, in short, flawed. And I’m so glad I am realizing this now instead of holding all my insecurities to my chest like shields all my life.

I am afraid of what comes next. But at least I have this blog to lean on, and some pretty amazing people in my life to talk to about it.

-River

”There will be a new day / there will be a new day / there will be a new day. / Change is coming be strong / we won’t have to wait long / there will be a new day.”

What I know now

“Said you’d always be my white blood
Elevate my soul above
Giving me your white blood
I need you right here with me, here with me.”

-Oh Wonder “white blood”

 

So here we are. 6 years later from starting this blog. What has just been an anonymous blog has meant the world to me to get my real thoughts out somewhere that someone would see them. This blog is my taboo. It has been my place to go to unload the dark, the unsettling.

Today I could feel my emotions building up. An unexpected pizza lunch turned my planned day into a just-survive through the next hour one. I don’t know what it is about pizza, but my God if there was ever a food version of cocaine, that would be it. Sorry to get lost in the specifics.

Anyways I come home, eat my lunch for dinner and try to watch TV. But everything is a little out of focus, like I have been undertaking a huge amount of RAM for my small computer head. And I have, subconsciously reasoning for and against continuing my food cocaine cocktail.

How many times can I say this? I am addicted to sugar. It is better than drugs for me. I have been to and was currently (until a month ago) going to counseling for this addiction. I have been living with this and dealing with it differently for most of my life.

I was told junk food was bad from an early age. I didn’t know that the cafeteria chocolate chip cookie dunked in an opened milk carton wasn’t a highlight of other kids’ days. I just knew it was for mine. And I would have traded you a lot more than my carrots and dip for your cosmic brownie.

My mom always was the head regulator of junk food in the house. From a young age I would sneak that food from family’s homes, from friends’ houses and later from roommates. So life goes on.

Well around grade 7 my mom and I are walking through Walmart. All I’ve ever known is restriction. I hold up what I have been programmed to think of as crack cocaine (a.k.a. A box of Gushers) for the routine quick dismissal by my mom. Instead she shrugs her shoulders keeps pushing the cart. I slide that box in there so quietly it’s like it was about to detonate. The whole car ride home all I could think about was that box.

My mom and I brought the groceries in and I grabbed the box of Gushers while she wasn’t looking and snuck them to my room. Later I would devour the whole box on my bedroom floor and cry after I was done.

Would it have been different if she hadn’t let me have the box? No. It would have been exactly the same. I went through what I went through because of restriction and privateering of food. I used to think of there were only a way to lock the refrigerator and pantry doors from me that I would be better. Now I see how that would have only aggravated the issue.

 

I became broken because of restriction and manipulation.

I became better because of abundance and trust.

 

When you push towards the abundance of healthy options in your life, there is a huge attraction to that. And relief. Restriction causes negative obsession. Abundance causes positive associations.

I choose to see the wholesome, good things I can eat. I choose to let myself have an abundance of all food and to choose the ones that feel like they would fuel me best. Sometimes that’s a quinoa salad, sometimes that is McDonalds.

And now onto the second part: trust. I had lost my own trust when I abused my inner compass with food to restrict when I felt like eating. I am no longer interested in playing any games with myself. I choose to trust myself unequivocally and learn how to remember what it is like to put down the fork and smile, not cry.

 

Anyways I hope you are on your way to a better place too. By knowing our mistakes we can open up more oportunity for growth and success.

 

Love,

River

p.s. I really recommend checking out the band Oh Wonder. They are so soulful!