I have this idea that if a man gives me any sort of attention, I need to be ever so grateful and appease his every request. This idea originated years ago…before I was able to reason with my mind.
I didn’t have a traumatic childhood during which time I was abused, neglected, abandoned. But in my adult life I often find myself acting like a girl with daddy issues. I love my father. He has been the outstanding father figure that every girl dreams of having. My dad has also spent my entire childhood working. He has been physically missing but emotionally available if and when I have ever needed him. What I’m trying to explain is that I have no justifiable reason to feel like I need a man (an older man) to complete me.
Yet, I am drawn to older men. Often a decade older than me. I am drawn to their maturity, their intellect, their air of wisdom that I think I lack. It is something about how older men compliment women that appeals to me. They tell me I am beautiful not hot. They say I’ve got an attractive physique not a sexy body. They seduce me with their words not their aggression. And to that I am drawn. I love subtlety, I love attention, I love being desired.
The problem occurs when I am shown attention, I am desired – I become uncomfortable. I withdraw as if it is something I wasn’t asking for. I resist and act coy. This disconnect needs to be resolved. Because I have lost many a good dates to this “tease-like” behavior. Men are simple creatures yet I can’t grasp how to control them the way I see fit.
Perhaps my need to control is the true problem? Let go and let God. So says my sponsor. But more of that in another post. Until next time…Keep it real, my loves.
xoxo
elyvas
8.13.2015
8.12.2015
Surrender
I surrendered months before I got sober. I surrendered to the idea that I cannot keep going the way I have been for the last 10 years. It has been a self-will run riot. I thought I knew but I've got not a clue. Life has been painful at best and intolerably unlivable at worst. The sick twist of addiction is the fantasy that drugs will make it better somehow...because one time, many years ago, they did.
I discovered drugs at a low point - they felt like a savior, a knight in shining armor, a band-aid for my bruised ego.... I felt so small inside and they gave me the strength I needed to compete with the rest of the world. At the time, I didn't realize that pain and struggle indicated growth. If I only allowed myself to experience the sadness, the discomfort, the "growing pains" - I would've survived through them and become a better person for it.
Alas, I was simply petrified of feeling any sort of pain and drugs allowed me to avoid/delay/surpass the pain temporarily. Deep down I knew it was a temporary fix for a problem greater than I could fathom. I got what I wanted in that moment - I never looked back. So years later when the effects of addiction began to turn on me - I was dumbfounded. I was knee deep in a vicious cycle of dependence and denial. The clarity I had been praised for in youth had become foggy & distorted, my mind drowning in delusion. As my problems grew, as the consequences mounted - I could never point at the drugs as the source of my suffering.
It was the desk job I had that made me unhappy. It was my family who misunderstood me. It was the lack of friends I had that left me isolated. It was the relationship I had with a married man that left me broken. It was my dying grandmother who I was grieving. It was my crippling anxiety that I needed to self-medicate.
It was all these circumstances that were fucking with me. I was the common denominator but I couldn't possibly be the problem...because if I were the problem - then I would have to change. And change was not an option... Because change involved self-reflection, change meant I had to address the elephant in every room I walked into.... I was a raging drug addict who had not yet surrendered. I didn't know there was a way out other than to end my life.
In the earlier years of my active addiction I still experienced fleeting moments of a high - a rush from the drugs. Because of these moments I felt like I could keep using and I would figure out how to stop .... Later, tomorrow, next week, once I started my next job, once I got into a new relationship.... Anytime but now. However as my addiction progressed the good moments became fewer and farther between. I gradually became more miserable and less willing to change. I didn't want to live and I didn't know how to die. It was the intolerable in between. My existence was torturous. Yet I didn't know how to make it any other way. I thought I had signed a contract to exist until I died. Eventually I got to the point in which i couldn't wait to die from external causes. Death felt like the only relief I had - I wanted to die and I spent the better part of everyday envisioning how I could end this existence without hurting my family. I was constantly brainstorming ways to die conveniently...as usual, without pain. Because pain was scary. Little did I realize I was inflicting pain and suffering on myself… every single day. But that pain was familiar and manageable. Anything new or unfamiliar was not an option.
I found myself wavering between begging for help and clamming up in denial of my problem. In the last few weeks of my active addiction I was in and out of ERs and crisis centers - voluntarily going in during moments of God given courage. Then, walking out as I took my will back ... I wasn't ready to give that up just yet. I thought I had a better way ... I was scared to forfeit.... I thought surrendering meant admitting defeat, exposing my weakness and vulnerability.
It was a full-time job to keep up with my drug use. The problem was I already had a full-time job - my day job which I despised. I also despised being a drug addict. I couldn't stand being an alcoholic. I just couldn't bear the thought of existing for another day at a time. I was sick and tired of being sick & tired. So on a fateful day in the spring - I drove myself to a rehab center. I was waiting at the front desk when I felt a familiar fear. I panicked and started walking out. Then this intake secretary asked me to follow her back to her office. I told her "No thanks I made a wrong turn... I won't be staying." As if it was a hotel. She urged me to come back to her office. I followed her. Out of courtesy. I didn't want to appear as if I was out of control or that I actually needed help. Midway through her intake I excused myself to use the bathroom. I swallowed a few tabs of xanax and a couple oxycontins. It was stressful getting interviewed. That's what my life had become. I needed a substance just to make it through a conversation. I returned and she asked me, "Okay when's the last time you drank?" I gladly, with pride, told her "a week ago!" Thinking "See, I don't have a problem - I haven't drank in a fucking week!.... I am in control." She then asked me, "When's the last time you used Xanax? Oxycontin?Adderall? Cocaine?"... "Umm, 5 minutes ago, 5 minutes ago, an hour ago, two hours ago..."
I spent two days at that rehab. Then I decided I needed a different rehab...I also really needed a drink. I politely thanked them for their care and requested my car keys. What I got in return was a lot of resistance. Briefly, in my deluded state - I considered leaving them a horrible review. Again, as if it was a hotel. I refused to think I was institutionalized. I was a psychiatric facilitator. I helped crazy people for a living. I myself was not crazy. I needed my keys back and I needed them now.
A condensed version of this event goes something like this - I demanded to use a telephone. I was given one phone call - since when was I in jail? I begged my therapist to come pick me up. She showed me tough love. I was devastated. I tried reasoning with the staff, to no avail. I spoke to the psychiatrist on call who threatened to out me for a bunch of shit. This spun me into rage. I swore at him, I reminded him that he was a dumb fuck and that I knew my rights and that he will most certainly go to jail once I find a way out of this shithole.
I was told I would be 302-d. That it was the only option at this time. I panicked. I ran around the facility searching for a phone. In a frenzied, fight or flight, live or die mode I found a phone - called my boyfriend who I had been too afraid to tell in person about my problem and had left him a voicemail a few days ago. I begged him to come get me. He told me not to worry he'd be right there. As I waited for him to arrive... I told every person at that rehab how fucked up and sick they were for trying to lock me up against my will. The ambulance pulled up to take me... And 30 seconds later my boyfriend pulled in. I bolted for the door, nearly flying out of the building. I was prepared to jump out of a window if I needed. He rescued me in my moment of greatest need. I was a damsel in distress and he was my prince charming. In that moment I felt an incredible deep unspeakable gratitude. I have to say it was the most powerful feeling I have ever felt. He saved me from my own self. I knew in that moment how little my own will had done for me. I was on my way to complete surrender.
Until next time...Keep it real, my loves.
xoxo
ElyVas
I discovered drugs at a low point - they felt like a savior, a knight in shining armor, a band-aid for my bruised ego.... I felt so small inside and they gave me the strength I needed to compete with the rest of the world. At the time, I didn't realize that pain and struggle indicated growth. If I only allowed myself to experience the sadness, the discomfort, the "growing pains" - I would've survived through them and become a better person for it.
Alas, I was simply petrified of feeling any sort of pain and drugs allowed me to avoid/delay/surpass the pain temporarily. Deep down I knew it was a temporary fix for a problem greater than I could fathom. I got what I wanted in that moment - I never looked back. So years later when the effects of addiction began to turn on me - I was dumbfounded. I was knee deep in a vicious cycle of dependence and denial. The clarity I had been praised for in youth had become foggy & distorted, my mind drowning in delusion. As my problems grew, as the consequences mounted - I could never point at the drugs as the source of my suffering.
It was the desk job I had that made me unhappy. It was my family who misunderstood me. It was the lack of friends I had that left me isolated. It was the relationship I had with a married man that left me broken. It was my dying grandmother who I was grieving. It was my crippling anxiety that I needed to self-medicate.
It was all these circumstances that were fucking with me. I was the common denominator but I couldn't possibly be the problem...because if I were the problem - then I would have to change. And change was not an option... Because change involved self-reflection, change meant I had to address the elephant in every room I walked into.... I was a raging drug addict who had not yet surrendered. I didn't know there was a way out other than to end my life.
In the earlier years of my active addiction I still experienced fleeting moments of a high - a rush from the drugs. Because of these moments I felt like I could keep using and I would figure out how to stop .... Later, tomorrow, next week, once I started my next job, once I got into a new relationship.... Anytime but now. However as my addiction progressed the good moments became fewer and farther between. I gradually became more miserable and less willing to change. I didn't want to live and I didn't know how to die. It was the intolerable in between. My existence was torturous. Yet I didn't know how to make it any other way. I thought I had signed a contract to exist until I died. Eventually I got to the point in which i couldn't wait to die from external causes. Death felt like the only relief I had - I wanted to die and I spent the better part of everyday envisioning how I could end this existence without hurting my family. I was constantly brainstorming ways to die conveniently...as usual, without pain. Because pain was scary. Little did I realize I was inflicting pain and suffering on myself… every single day. But that pain was familiar and manageable. Anything new or unfamiliar was not an option.
I found myself wavering between begging for help and clamming up in denial of my problem. In the last few weeks of my active addiction I was in and out of ERs and crisis centers - voluntarily going in during moments of God given courage. Then, walking out as I took my will back ... I wasn't ready to give that up just yet. I thought I had a better way ... I was scared to forfeit.... I thought surrendering meant admitting defeat, exposing my weakness and vulnerability.
It was a full-time job to keep up with my drug use. The problem was I already had a full-time job - my day job which I despised. I also despised being a drug addict. I couldn't stand being an alcoholic. I just couldn't bear the thought of existing for another day at a time. I was sick and tired of being sick & tired. So on a fateful day in the spring - I drove myself to a rehab center. I was waiting at the front desk when I felt a familiar fear. I panicked and started walking out. Then this intake secretary asked me to follow her back to her office. I told her "No thanks I made a wrong turn... I won't be staying." As if it was a hotel. She urged me to come back to her office. I followed her. Out of courtesy. I didn't want to appear as if I was out of control or that I actually needed help. Midway through her intake I excused myself to use the bathroom. I swallowed a few tabs of xanax and a couple oxycontins. It was stressful getting interviewed. That's what my life had become. I needed a substance just to make it through a conversation. I returned and she asked me, "Okay when's the last time you drank?" I gladly, with pride, told her "a week ago!" Thinking "See, I don't have a problem - I haven't drank in a fucking week!.... I am in control." She then asked me, "When's the last time you used Xanax? Oxycontin?Adderall? Cocaine?"... "Umm, 5 minutes ago, 5 minutes ago, an hour ago, two hours ago..."
I spent two days at that rehab. Then I decided I needed a different rehab...I also really needed a drink. I politely thanked them for their care and requested my car keys. What I got in return was a lot of resistance. Briefly, in my deluded state - I considered leaving them a horrible review. Again, as if it was a hotel. I refused to think I was institutionalized. I was a psychiatric facilitator. I helped crazy people for a living. I myself was not crazy. I needed my keys back and I needed them now.
A condensed version of this event goes something like this - I demanded to use a telephone. I was given one phone call - since when was I in jail? I begged my therapist to come pick me up. She showed me tough love. I was devastated. I tried reasoning with the staff, to no avail. I spoke to the psychiatrist on call who threatened to out me for a bunch of shit. This spun me into rage. I swore at him, I reminded him that he was a dumb fuck and that I knew my rights and that he will most certainly go to jail once I find a way out of this shithole.
I was told I would be 302-d. That it was the only option at this time. I panicked. I ran around the facility searching for a phone. In a frenzied, fight or flight, live or die mode I found a phone - called my boyfriend who I had been too afraid to tell in person about my problem and had left him a voicemail a few days ago. I begged him to come get me. He told me not to worry he'd be right there. As I waited for him to arrive... I told every person at that rehab how fucked up and sick they were for trying to lock me up against my will. The ambulance pulled up to take me... And 30 seconds later my boyfriend pulled in. I bolted for the door, nearly flying out of the building. I was prepared to jump out of a window if I needed. He rescued me in my moment of greatest need. I was a damsel in distress and he was my prince charming. In that moment I felt an incredible deep unspeakable gratitude. I have to say it was the most powerful feeling I have ever felt. He saved me from my own self. I knew in that moment how little my own will had done for me. I was on my way to complete surrender.
Until next time...Keep it real, my loves.
xoxo
ElyVas
8.02.2015
Candle of Wax
I'm in love with what we had. Nothing makes my heart beat faster than a flashing memory of us. You melt me like a candle of wax. Who would imagine a feeling can permeate this deep?
Love songs still touch my soul with memories of you. No man has been able to make me feel the way you did. I breathe deep hoping I'll find what we had. I'm holding my breath but I can't sustain this love alone. It's burning and painful .... I surrender to the truth. I'm still in love with you.
I was alive with you. I felt strength more powerful than a drug. I must be insane to feel so much from what was so long ago. I know that I cannot settle for anything less than how I felt with you. A lesson learned from a heartbreak I barely endured.
Oh love is such a crockpot of bullshit....I've lost my marbles in fairytale bliss. I've been romanticizing about old love affairs all afternoon - conveniently ignoring the wreckage they caused me. My judgment about who to love and when to fall in love has been skewed my entire life. I mean why else would I think a bottle would serve as a great lover? Take my word for it, I've been kind of a hot mess. When I say "kind of" - I mean "very much so." And when I say hot mess, I mean batshit crazy/(but still really hot). Rigorous honesty is the name of my new game. So lemme just say... I am single and I am loving it.
Dance the night away, you fools.
xoxo
Yours Truly
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