Dear All,
Well I now have 1 month and 1 week sober. I can tell you, this isn't easy. The usual flood of RAD emotions and the horrors and nightmares I have buried for 20 years are now coming back to the surface. No one in my family can really understand what I am going through and it's very hard to find support right now, so I decided to write about something I saw last night which sent me into a depressive spin that almost put me into the pysch emergency unit for a check up. Read more, below!
What started out as a night with a TBONE steak and the movie "Shutter Island" quickly turned sour. The movie is about a patient that slowly begins to realize that he is truly mentally shattered. He committed a murder, and during this time he is slowly brought back to reality after he realizes his entire world is make believe. In many ways, this is much like me. Instead of turning to an imaginary world, I drank, abused others and emotionally tore myself apart to the point where I didn't even know who I was anymore. If I woke up in the morning, I asked a higher being "Why didn't you take my life while I was sleeping?" I always got the same response. Nothing. Just more pain.
At one point in the movie, the main character has to face the wife he murdered though hallications. Another inmate screams "You have to let her go!!". The main character with tears streaming down his face says "I can't". A beautiful violin peice starts and the wife dissapears. The secondary character says "She's gonna kill you, you have to let her go". (This could be many different things, my ex wife, my birthmother, my sister, anyone)
This was a very important scene for me. I didn't know it at the time, but it was a trigger event. It sent me into a depressive spin that lasted a few hours. After listening to the violin music at the end of the movie ( I have a violin, but haven't played it in months) I fell in love with the musical peice.
That trigger in my mind (Part of the reason I drank myself into oblivion) told me "Mike, you will never be that good to play a peice of music like that). It was an instant thing. I didn't have time to think, I didn't have time to even stop my mind from going into the negative. It was just a instant snap. You cannot do this. I think this has been a major stumbling block on my path to adulthood (Of which I am just now beginnning to enter, at 33) as my mind has always told me that I am not good enough for anything. I am not worth anything, either. It was just interesting to witness this from a sober, medicated perspective.
I was really determined to pick up that bottle and start drinking, but I knew if I did that, my mind would have won once again. I actually had to hold my chest, take a deep breath and take my regular medicine. After a phone call with someone in my family that resulted in more anger and seemingly more insulting to me, I decided to take out my violin and just look at it for a while. I slowly ran my fingers over the metal strings and l ran my hands over the warm wood of the frame. One day I will pick up the violin and play. The time isn't right now. I just have too much going on.
It was a hard night, and once the spin started to wind down, I ate ice cream (Which most alcoholics eat obsessively because of the lack of sugar) and went to sleep.
No nightmares. I woke up this morning to a rising beautiful sun. The horrible night past and here I am, with my violin, ready to play.
Michael
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|2010-07-17 20:33:11 JacqueMike, I've always known that you have more talent that you have ever given yourself credit for. I watched you make beautiful artwork so many times. I have an album of music that I listen to at times, it reminds me of you. There's a lot of Hans Zimmer on there. Sometimes I just lay there and lsiten, and think. I still can't watch Hostage without having vivid memories of times past, or Tear of the Sun, or The Butterfly Effect. There are so many things that you are so wonderful at doing. You have never given yourself credit for any of the wonderful things that you do. Remember to eat your fruits Mike, and a chocolate bar here and there. Keep your sugar up. :-)
Take care of yourself Mike.
