Day 12/13

Day 12

Today was a bad day. It didn’t start out that way, but there again, they never do. I’ve resorted to writing about it. Five pages in and I’m nowhere near resolved.

I had a thought I want to share for now –

What I crave before I crave wine is a partner. Like many of us, I spend all day looking after myself, and in some cases, others as well.

What I miss, what I crave, is intimacy. I spend all day having my own back. It’d be nice, at the end of the day, to feel like someone else has it. Just for a bit. Eight years single - you start to miss someone else being there at the end of your shitty day, pulling you in... holding you close... farting in your bed 🙄

A cuddle, basically. I’m craving a great big cuddle.

They provide so much stability. There really isn’t much that can’t be solved by a cuddle.

But alas I am alone, and I am lonely in that way. I’m used to satisfying my cravings with wine. Do I want a fast track to a euphoric rush? A chilled, dry and fruity numbness? Do I want to petrify the experience of today and bury it? Do I want to give myself another life for 12 hours?

Fucking hell yes.

But hell no. I’m 12 days sober, the longest I’ve been since I’d had that first taste of shitty red wine at 15.

And I’m fucking proud. I'm cuddling that tonight.

P.s. Yes, that is a photo of (ideal fairytale partner in my dreams) Richard Madden. He makes me feel happy.

Worse things used to make me feel happy. 🖕🏻

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Day 13

A Moment of Clarity

Yesterday’s crisis that leads to my anxiety going into overdrive was career related.

I’m proud to say I veered right out of the door and headed to the beach, not left towards the shop for… do I really need to say it?

I was drained, frustrated, angry. Sitting with those raw emotions instead of drinking them away was all at once raging and paralysing.

I wrote out the bad day in detail. You don’t need to know the ins and of my first “sober bad day” – if you’re in recovery, those three words tell you everything you need to know. Hopefully they’ll bring you some comfort, a laugh, or some relief that at least you’re not me.

Today, after discussing it with family over dinner, I had a rare, extraordinary moment of clarity…

Over the weekend, I stumbled upon a classic Myers Briggs personality quiz. All you need to know is I am full blown INFP-T, turbulent mediator and constant improver – strengths include supporting/helping people, and weaknesses include people pleasing.

In conversation, a family member insisted I was on the right track (retraining in Psychology to achieve career change as a therapist – ding! Ding! Ding! on playing to my strengths!). But I must not give up my current career, mainly because this career is my “talent.”

I disagreed. What I do in my current career is best described as one of the oldest trades, and there’s a compelling argument on artistry vs. craftmanship that’s worth rehearsing. Just for clarity, I am not a hooker - I don’t have the hand/eye coordination.

I work in the service industry. This is not the actual terms of my job, but it involves one-to-one meetings/assessing/ modifications/problem solving. It’s intense, laborious and has you believing in magic because fuck knows, I’ve performed some miracles for my clients.

I insisted I’m looking forward to leaving it behind once I take my first paid steps into psychotherapy. They didn’t understand, which is ok. I’ve held the same career ambition nearly my whole life.

I went away and thought about how I could help my family better understand my current career. And it hit me like a ton of bricks –

My strengths lie in helping and supporting people – I’m on the right track with the therapy route.

My weaknesses lie in people-pleasing – which is at the epicentre of my current career. I don’t help or support anyone in the job I do, if anything, it’s the opposite – I participate in a toxic environment in which comfortability and confidence are diminished by impossible beauty standards. And in a job where the client pays to make diva demands and have full bullshitting rights, everyone in the room suddenly becomes an expert in my field. Whilst I’m in the room. Standing next to them.

It’s fucking toxic, and at times, downright impossible. Instead of using my strengths to nurture a career I could love, I invested them in one that only took advantage of what I had to give then left me feeling outcast and of no value.

I have languished for ten years in a career that doesn’t fit with who I really am. And on reflection, it has brought me little if no pleasure, but heaps of anxiety, depression and shame (exhibit A: yesterday’s terrible awful). This career requires the highest degrees of patience, understanding and reasoning. And it can bring you brushes of fulfilment and happiness… depending on what you’ll settle for.

Yet I am saddled with sadness, anger, regret and a dangerous sense of worthlessness.

These are bottom of the bottle feelings. I’ve been teetering on the edge of a career clifftop that has plunged me into alcoholism.

It’s takes courage to recognise the real as opposed to the convenient. And I think I’ve just found it.