I've been struggling for awhile, as anyone who's been reading me probably already knows. Because of that, I've been feeling pretty goddamn pessimistic about this whole "recovery" bit. Something happened yesterday, though, that's got me feeling a little better about it.
I should probably say that this week has been odd. Normally, I spend weeks in solitude, but after ChaosKitty left last week, I've had two different visitors. My friend L. (female) was here Monday, and my friend L. (male) was here yesterday. It felt nice, masquerading as a normal person who actually has friends.
Anyway, this little anecdote is from my visit with L. (male). He is probably my oldest friend; we went to high school together. He's literally the only person in my graduating class that I still keep in touch with. We hadn't seen each other in about 3 years, not because of anything in particular but because time, I guess, just slips away without us realizing it.
Another thing I should point out about L. before I launch into this is the fact that we were friends with benefits for years as well. It was never a planned sort of thing, but both of us liked to drink (a lot), and we'd often end up having sex before we passed out. We've also talked a lot about sex and sexual things. He claims I'm the only person in the world he can be completely honest with about shit. I believe it, too, because bitches are crazy and freak out about shit for no reason, and most men don't think they can talk about sex with other men. So yeah.
L. is pretty much an alcoholic. Functional, but an alcoholic nonetheless. But, as a veteran of the Marines who was in Iraq not once, not twice, but three times, he has demons of his own in the form of PTSD, and I'm certainly in no position to judge how other people deal with their personal demons.
So it pretty much goes without saying that there was the expectation of drinking and sex last night, two things that I have done my best to stay away from.
The drinking I've mostly got a handle on. I was never the kind of person who drank "to have more fun" or whatever bullshit reason that manic people give for binge drinking. My drinking habit was only for two reasons: to numb the soul-crushing despair of depression or mixed states, or to shut my dysphorically manic brain the hell up for a little while. Admittedly, I was never an alcoholic, but I did have a problem with bingeing when things got bad in my head, and that *wasn't* a healthy way of dealing with the problem. That's why I've tried to stop doing it.
I haven't set foot in a bar in nearly two years. It's been over a year since the last time I was drunk. Wellbutrin is metabolized by the liver. Because I have to eat the damn things every day and have no desire to die from liver failure, I hardly ever drink anymore. Lamictal put the final nail in the drinking coffin by completely changing the way alcohol affects me. Sometimes, I still crave the way clear liquor feels, seeping slowly through my veins and softening everything around me, but I have a good bit of it still in my house that I never touch. My taste for it has gone.
The sex thing, though...that's different. I've only been trying to conquer that for the last year or so. And, yes, it's true that I've managed to abstain. I haven't had actual sex since late 2010, and I haven't had even so much as a kiss for nearly a year at this point. But that's not a testament of my strong willpower so much as it is of my ability to keep myself isolated from the world. I knew that, even though I was trying to break the old habit, if I were in a situation where someone pushed me, I would just give in. So in the way that alcoholics and drug addicts have to stay away from users while trying to get clean, I had to stay the hell away from men who wanted to fuck me.
One thing I could never make anyone understand about the sex thing is that it was rarely about sex at all for me. It was more about the desire to feel human, at least for a little while. That was probably one of the reasons I kept delving deeper and deeper and deeper into masochistic sex, too--the more of the same thing I got, the more intense it had to be in order to produce the same effect. So regardless of how shitty I felt about myself *after* doing it, the act of fucking felt more real to me in my altered state of mind than nearly anything else.
When it was with random people, it was more about the need to feel alive than the need to have some dude put his dick in me. With people I loved, it was more about the need to feel intimacy, to have an excuse to wrap myself around someone and be as physically close to them as possible for a brief period of time. Sexual arousal and the compulsion--and, yes, it was a compulsion--to fuck were symptoms, not the problem.
I never initiated sex. I never went to anyone and was like, "Hey, wanna fuck?" I didn't have to. They would initiate without any hinting from me, and I would go along with it because I felt like I had to. I wanted to please the person who wanted to fuck me, and I wanted to quiet the demon inside for a brief and shining moment. Even if I knew it was a shitty idea. Even if I knew I would feel horrible after it was done. Even if I initially resisted and eventually gave in because they kept pushing.
It was never done with the intention to hurt anyone. It was never a malicious act. It was an act of desperation, and one no one else will ever understand unless they've been driven there themselves by their own personal demons.
I'm not saying this for sympathy, mind you, or to make excuses for my own shitty decisions. I'm just trying to provide a little background to illustrate why what happened last night was a victory.
Anyway, L. and I hung out all night. He bought a case of beer for himself and brought some apple pie moonshine for me, since he mentioned that he had some the other day, and I'd said I'd never heard of it. I poured about a finger into a highball glass and sipped on it for maybe an hour. It was excellent, actually, and despite the fact that Lamictal has made me lose my taste for alcohol, I would've liked to have had more. I didn't, though, despite the fact that I was depressed as shit before he showed up. In the old days, that would've been more than enough reason to get absolutely shitfaced...but I didn't.
The night progressed. We watched Dexter; I'd never seen it before, but he brought it on DVD because it's, like, his favorite show, and he wanted to share it, apparently. It wasn't nearly as bad as what passes for TV nowadays, so I was entertained. He got drunk. I finished my 2 oz. of liquor and went back to drinking Powerade. (I pretty much have a Powerade in my hand anytime I'm awake because I have problems with electrolyte balance.) He got drunker, and we got hungry. So I drove his mud-riding truck to Taco Bell and back. We ate. He drank more. I didn't. He told me about a whole bunch of things we did a long time ago that I don't remember. I don't doubt his word; I just hate the fact that the crazy has taken so much of my memory.
Around 4 am, he came to sit down on the couch next to me. He was pretty freaking drunk and clearly wanting to fuck, hugging me and giving me back massages and so forth. I could've given in. In fact, the desire to do so was pretty big. It wasn't that I wanted to fuck him. I just wanted to take some of the depression away for a little while. You could've exchanged him for nearly any man in the world, and I'd have had the same reaction.
But you know what?
I didn't do it.
I didn't give in to the old compulsions.
Would I have done it if he had been less of the gentleman that he's always been and pushed the issue? Maybe. Probably. I don't know. I had to wrestle with myself as it was. The desire to just let my mind melt away underneath a man was strong--very strong.
But I don't know if the desire was weaker than it used to be or if I am just stronger than I was before because I went to bed alone, without so much as a kiss or a touch passing between us.
Don't think it was easy. Even after I went to bed, I thought seriously about going back out there and letting it happen. But I didn't.
It's not fair to use someone else to silence my own demons, even if that someone else is my oldest friend who understands completely and is totally willing to be used in such a way.
It's not healthy for me to use sex as a way to feel something that's not despair.
So I didn't. I had to fight with myself not to do it, but in the end, I fucking didn't do it, and I'm goddamn proud of that fact.
Two things that I have used as my biggest crutches in the past--sex and booze--stared me right in the face last night in the midst of a pretty bad depression, and I stared them down. I looked the demons right in the eye and said, "Fuck you." Then, I walked away.
It might not be much of a victory for other people, but it is for me. Why? Because, especially lately, I have been feeling like there's no point in fighting these demons, that they're stronger than I am, or, at least, that they have more stamina. But even in the throes of a pretty serious depression, I was able to resist the things I used to throw myself into headlong to make the depression ease for just a moment.
I used to labor under the delusion that, with the right meds, the compulsions would go away. But guess what. They don't. You still have to fight that shit tooth and nail. But, somehow, I feel a little more able to resist them.
And, right now, that's enough to give me hope and give me a reason to keep fighting.
The old me's dead and gone...but the new me'll be all right....
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