Moving, new job and other anxieties

It's been a while since I wrote anything here.

Well, after two months of unemployment, I found a new job, and decided to take it. It's still in newspaper journalism, but I had to leave Dallas for Odessa, Texas. And, unlike three years ago, when I last lost my job, it (with the hindsight of that case) seems unlikely that I will get back to Dallas. (Yes, part of me has wanted to move on anyway, but I'd like somewhere further west yet, I think, if I'm going to sacrifice all the things I like[d] about Big D.)

I am also adjusting to night hours as a copy editor at an AM daily newspaper. That's been more difficult than straight job adjustment. I think I am fighting a low grade dysthymia as well as anxiety.

The first week here, I had no problems with acting out. I was too emotionally and physically tired. Since then, I am at about the level I was before I moved, though no worse.

On the plus side, though at times it may have added to short-term anxiety or dysthymia, I have increased my journaling, especially my structured journaling from Nathaniel Branden. And, I've learned more about just how much buried anger I have, and where some of it hides.

Death, death of relationship hopes mean lots of acting out the past week

My mom died two weeks ago yesterday. Emotions over her seem to have punctured me deeply enough to force a more emotional, conscious awareness that a female friend of mine is, not now nor in the foreseeable future, going to be anything more than “just friends.” I like her enough, and she’s attractive enough, that I really want her, and I’m definitely kind of depressed it isn’t going to happen.

So, between the two, I’ve got a shitload of emotions I’ve been trying to stuff… and online porn surfing has been the method of stuffing.

Not quite "cutting," but ...

Skin pulling, excessive fingernail biting, etc., ain't much better. Especially not after a long weekend of too much wrongly used time online, plus an apartment A/C that isn't working very well right now ... in SE Texas.

Loneliness vs. aloneness, “black holes” and “beasts” of drinking life, etc.

I never really felt any of this a lot when I was in my drinking life. Oh, sure, a couple of times in college, for example, walking through the small town it was in, I’d look at people’s lit front windows at night, and wonder just what they were feeling inside their boxes. But, I never attributed that to loneliness, let alone any “black hole” of the existential self.

At the same time, and not meaning to boast, quitting drinking seemed relatively easy. I found a new job after having been fired the month before I quit (for other reasons). My office manager who had shamelessly flirted with me was now my former office manager.

In short, I had what AA calls a pink cloud. I didn’t have a “beast,” either.

But, especially with the PTSD-type shock of being downsized out of a job, moving from metro Dallas to highly conservative BFE, and more, plus deliberately journaling to delve deeper into feelings of the past, I have felt all of this in spades.

The “black hole” already goes back to the age of 8, if not earlier, for a variety of childhood abuses, followed by my first drunk.

The loneliness? Well, when you get drunk at 10… or when you try to kill yourself at 10, your mom helps stop it, and nothing is done after that, is pretty effing obvious and incredibly deep. It wasn’t until the PTSD eggshell-shattering that I have REALLY felt it. Before, it was always just “aloneness.”

The “beast”? Well, AA, counselors, and wise people in secular recovery are right that sometimes other “issues” of behavior or whatever can arise after we quit drinking. (In fact, when I hear some people in sobriety recovery say, “We got drunk because we drank,” I first of all feel like they’re attacking or putting down my experiences. I then start to wonder [and yes, this sounds AA-ish] if they’re not in denial about something.)

So, that’s why I’ve become more active in sobriety chats again. I am not the happiest camper in the world.

And, I hope that I can show more empathy to others because of this. That’s part of the growth I want.

Not the best day

Spent time, mucho time, surfing the Net, and not for news stories. This was AFTER talking in a recovery chat room about this being a problem.

Talk about a dichotomous life.

It frustrates the hell out of me.

An acting out feedback loop

Sexually acting out “gratifies” several old behaviors and old tapes, especially when done alone, with pornography.

I get to ramp up anxiety to “feel something”;
I can confuse anxiety with anticipation, and set myself up for problems becoming sexual in a real relationship, thus causing further feedback about my competency;
I can use this as an excuse for not meeting real women;
I can use this to actually feel sexual pleasure without becoming fixated on performance or gratifying a woman’s needs and pleasures in a real relationship;
I can use this to try to bury anxiety, boredom and other emotions, like alcohol used to do;
I can justify what is still left of my dad’s old tapes about sexuality in my head;
I can beat myself up emotionally.

I never had big issues with the “addictive voice” or anything like that when I quit drinking. And, though I had occasionally tried illicit drugs above marijuana, and done more than try with various over-the-counter stuff my last years of drinking, I didn’t have problems there, either.

BUT, I got all that with acting out. And I can justify it won’t kill me like alcohol.

• The ultimate problem, being the acting out:
• Fear of sexuality;
• Perhaps some degree of disgust with sexuality I still haven’t tapped, whether from the overt sexual abuse by two male family members or the covert sexual abuse by the “woman of the house” getting ready for work in various states of undress in the bathroom, and more.
• Excuse making, to justify a “fuckit switch” or otherwise giving up;
• Not living in the moment;
• Not wanting to be patient;
• Not wanting to “face” me or “work on” me;
• Not being me.

Patrick Carnes says this all links to "trauma bonds."

It’s the weekend, it’s anxiety time

Ever since losing my last job, scrambling for a halfway acceptable new one, and having to move to a small town I classify at times as Bum Fuck, Egypt, PTSD-related anxiety levels have been a problem.

And, they become more a problem on weekends.

Why?

• I’m anxious about being bored even before facing the actual possibility of being bored.
• I’m anxious about wasting time from the weekend even before I start experiencing any of it.
• Because I’m anxious about being bored, I’m anxious about sexually acting out to avoid being bored, or more, to try to bury the feeling of being bored.
• I’m anxious about feeling any loneliness, not just aloneness, I may have.
• I’m anxious about what I could, or could not do, in the College Station area, or the Houston area, and whether I’m trying to “rationalize” things.

Post-alcohol, the struggles only began

Even after I quit drinking, my problems weren’t over.

Due to a variety of abuses from childhood, including family sexual abuse by older males at home, family covert sexual abuse by a female member of the family, early exposure to sexual magazines and more, while being a sensitive child and a late grower to boot, I have had a boatload of problems with sexuality.

They include sexual fears and anxieties, confusion of sex with intimacy, intimacy fears and acting out problems. Because of all the fears and anxieties, my acting out has tended to be “impersonal.” My various forms of acting out behavior have usually been Internet pornography or DVD based. (See the PTSD and me blog for someone with a very similar background, even after getting married.)\

I still struggle. Sometimes I don’t struggle, I say “fuck it” and give in. Occasionally, I am in the groove of not struggling. I usually inflame some addictive subself to get to the point of struggling, before I do eventually give in, in many cases.

It’s a way of beating myself up, while ratcheting up PTSD-based anxiety at the same time. Some fun, eh? Maybe, as many people do with alcohol, I’ll grow out of it. But, to the degree that happens that way, it’s still going to take active work on my part, as sexuality, even as much as I misplace it and fear it, does reflect a human longing and desire on my part.

Knowing vs believing vs doing

I don’t mean to imply these are opposed to one another. Rather, it’s a progression of recovery statuses and states.

When trying to quit drinking, or drugging if that’s your primary deal, or gambling, or sexual acting out, knowing why you do it — especially if it’s a psychological addiction like gambling, or even a psychophysiological one like sexually acting out — that has replaced a chemical addiction, knowledge can be important to helping us, or me, stay clean.

But, knowledge alone about why I do this won’t force me to believe I can do better. It can help, but ultimately I must take an emotional step and believe I can step beyond my addictive or compulsive behavior.

And, belief is not sufficient either, of course. Ultimately, I must act in a new way — I must do new behavior.

And that brings up one other point. I can’t just “not do old behavior.” I need to do something new instead.

Old behaviors have to be replaced by new ones, or else there’s a void.

That’s true of more normal people, but doubly true for myself, with an addictive history, and pains I have tried to cover, fears I have tried to hide, and an outside world I have tried to block out.

If I don’t replace old behaviors with new ones, I am in trouble. The addictive subself was probably “fed” long enough that it will never be 100 percent dead. Even after I quit drinking, I have fed it still with various forms of acting out behavior, usually Internet pornography or DVD based.