Odyssey

This has been a huge year for me. I stopped drinking and I will never drink again. And I'm tapering off valium. Coming off valium is definitely one of the most grueling and hard things I've ever done. 

I've learnt a lot about the power of personal change and also the ability we have to influence our own minds in ways that are just as powerful as any medication. And it's better than medication, especially benzodiazepines/ anti-anxiety medications (like valium, Xanax, Lorazepam, etc) because medication is a quick fix...it chemically removes the problem, so it weakens your ability to deal with the problem. When you have to fight every day and be committed to doing what is going to help you even though you don't feel like it and you don't feel any positive difference, and you have to work on your own thinking and you have to keep facing your anxiety and depression and there's no escape, you begin to grow. 

For me, as I've written about a lot lately, the struggle is between my old self, characterized by rumination and withdrawal from life, and my new self, characterized by action and engagement with life. I began a new life when I stopped drinking. Rather than rely on alcohol and Valium to deal with life and retreat from life and have a life of not really doing that much, I started a new life. And through conversations I had and thinking about my life, the nature of the struggle became clear - that it was between rumination and action. 

My vision of this has only become clearer as the struggle has continued, and the struggle has intensified. It didn't get easier. It seems to get harder the further I go. But I know that's the nature of this struggle. It has to be painful. 

It became clear that my new life is defined by my list of daily goals. I've had the practice of having a list of daily goals for years, but in recent months, for the first time, I do my daily goals as if my life depends on it. 

The depression and anxiety I have experienced this year have been as bad as I have ever experienced, in some ways worse. And I get to a point where I am defeated, and I feel broken beyond repair. But then, at that point, sometimes something good comes in. Some thought comes to my mind, like an angel, and somehow....it really feels like some positive chemicals - healthy neurotransmitters - begin to flow in my mind. It starts off as just a slight relief in the pain and then leads very quickly to a window. People coming off benzos talk about windows and waves. 

For a lot of people, waves go on for months and years. That's the nature of withdrawal from benzos. It's acute suffering. But, in time, you do heal. You have windows. One of the really challenging things is that, you have a window, and it's amazing how good it is. You actually feel normal. It's amazing. You can do stuff. You can function. You can have conversations and enjoy things. You think you're recovering - almost recovered - but this thing is so up and down. Windows will be followed by waves. Of course, there are exceptions even to that but I'm just talking about my own experience. Actually, there are exceptions to all of this. It's different for everyone. 

More and more I seem to go through rapid fluctuations, which they tell me is a good sign. I have multiple windows and multiple waves some days, and I have some kind of window most days. The windows are still the exception. In many ways I've been going through one long wave since detox, when I stopped drinking. 

The other day, a thought that really lifted me up and breathed some life back into me was the idea that my new life is growing all the time. Every day, regardless of how I feel and how I struggle, it is growing. It really is like a living thing. It's a new life. And it's powerful. That's what is so deeply encouraging. I have a life. That's really something. Every step I take as I do my goals is permanent progress. It's only going to grow. 

Withdrawal has dredged up all my worry and rumination and fear and anxiety and depression, and it's really bad. Early on, the issues I experienced were directly related to withdrawal. So it was mainly anxiety. But then that lead in to the next phase, which was a deeper struggle with my lifelong problems with anxiety and depression. So, I'm now facing these things that are decades old and I've never really been able to defeat them. 

But there is hope. My new life is real. It is absolutely real. And my rumination....is it real? Not really. It's just like an error message that my operating system keeps throwing up, and because I've kept responding to it, it's achieved a kind of gravity. It seems very imposing, and it does have the capacity to hurt me. It's the main cause of my mental pain, actually. 

But a process has started. Every single day I practice my goals - I live my new life. That is my reality. My steps are faltering and tentative. This new life is strange and not what I'm used to. I'm out of my comfort zone. But I'm free! I've come out of the house of fear and pain that was the life's work of my old life. I still return to it, but then, as I push to do my daily goals, I step out again into my new life, and I build a new, better dwelling. 

the other side

It took me longer to learn to play guitar than it did the other kids. I just couldn't master changing chords without stopping. I would have to stop briefly, reposition my fingers, and then start playing again. Everyone else seemed to have mastered the way you have to change chords while you're strumming and plucking. 

Everyone assured me that I would eventually get it if I kept practicing. I wasn't making any progress though. However much I practiced I wasn't getting any closer to being able to change chords instantaneously. I wondered if I would ever get it. Then one day I had a breakthrough. I realized that what I need to do is move my fingers before the moment when the new chord starts. Once I realized that I was doing it.  

I think personal change is a bit like that. You have to keep doing things before you feel ready. The struggle seems like it will never end and you feel like you'll never change, never make progress. You get pushed beyond what you think you can handle, and then....this is where I'm learning a different and better way. 

After enduring what seems impossible and unbearable, and then experiencing some relief - a window after the wave - I've learnt not to ease up. I was pushed beyond what I thought was possible so, now that things are a bit easier, I'm going to push myself beyond what I think I can bear. 

I need to do that. Because the change I want to bring about is huge. The me that achieves my daily goals does not exist and is beyond my comprehension. 

I can't do it just like I couldn't change chords. I keep practicing. I'm doing my daily goals, and the struggle is getting harder and I'm not progressing. And the answer is to keep practicing. It's both impossibly hard and incredibly easy at the same time. 

anxiety, control, and acceptance

Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation with prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God. And the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:6 - 7

I've been thinking about this verse a lot and listening to a Guided Meditation and Prayer about it. 

I like this part: 'when we petition and ask, we release control to God and we are free to embrace an acceptance to things as they are. As we present our requests to God, a peace beyond all understanding begins to soothe our anxious wounds. We begin to feel a little more human and a little closer to God.'

Something I've been learning is that you can't make having peace contingent on getting relief. When we're struggling with mental suffering from anxiety, depression, rumination, we want relief. We read the above verse as a promise of relief. So, we present our requests to God, that he would help us with this burden of anxiety, etc, and then we expect relief, and then, when we don't get it, we get frantic again, and think nothing helps...even praying doesn't help.

But notice the quote above: "we release control to God and we are free to embrace an acceptance to things as they are". Often that is what's needed - acceptance. And, even as a practical matter of fact, that really is a solution to anxiety. The more we resist anxiety, the worse it is.

Earlier in the video, the speaker talks about how the normal way of the world is to respond to anxiety by trying to exercise control. Control and anxiety are 2 sides of the same coin and neither of them can bring us the security and full life we desire. The verse encourages us, rather than trying to exercise control, "to offer our experience to God. As we do that, even if our circumstances don't change, we are offered the gift of peace that transcends all understanding." 

So that's how it works. The peace comes from us petitioning God and presenting our situation to him, and importantly, as the speaker in the video points out, that process is the opposite of exercising control. If we're still trying to 'get relief' we are trying to exercise control. 

It's challenging because we really want relief. We want to be able to do something that brings relief. I've spent a fair share of my time getting worked up about my mental health issues and desperately seeking relief. But I've been learning lately that that attitude of desperation is a big part of the problem. 

Of course, I believe God is loving and full of grace as well. He does want us to have relief. The verse is not some kind of sleight of hand that God uses to trick us so we can go through more pain because, in our ignorance, we keep trying to get relief. It's just that God knows better than us what really does bring relief. 

Sometimes it's better and it's God's will for our suffering to continue. When that's the case, even though it doesn't feel like it, it's a gift from God. And, in the midst of that suffering, we can make our requests to God and 'the peace that surpasses all understanding will guard [y]our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.' 

the battle

Sometimes I feel hopeless and I feel abandoned. I feel broken. I feel like all the stress has finally cracked me and I can't function any more. 

But I'm learning that, as much as I don't think so, I choose desperation and helplessness. I don't have to. I don't have to be victimized. 

I was watching a video today by Michael Priebe: Withdrawal & Healing: New Beginnings. He talks about a time when he was really feeling the pressure from coming off Paxil (an SSRI anti-depressant) and tapering off Xanax (a benzodiazepine/anti-anxiety medication). Coming off benzos is a grueling process to say the least. Anyway, in the video, he talks about how, one day when he was just really feeling hard-pressed and his wife was also going through some health issues, he said, lets just go for a walk in the park, to get out and do something. So that's what they did, and it became a kind of turning point in his life. Just a simple thing. It wasn't a run or a work out, but as Michael says, he had the suspicion that if he could take a few steps, then bigger steps would be possible later. 

I can relate to that with what I'm going through at the moment. There's a lot of fear and pressure and I feel broken sometimes. I get to the point where I feel desperate and my fear and rumination just spiral upward in a kind of panic attack. 

I've also experienced that sense in which taking a few steps can be a turning point. 

Sometimes it's fairly immediate. I'll be doing one of my daily goals and I'll just suddenly be freed from the cloud of rumination, and I'll really feel it. Other times it's more of a battle, where I'm struggling to do my daily goals while I'm stuck in rumination. That's when I can get to a point where I feel defeated. 

But, in any case, I keep fighting. I keep working on my daily goals and moving away from rumination. That is the way forward. 

dealing with rumination

In the blog post I wrote yesterday, I did something I can't ever remember doing before. I wrote something pretty negative and I didn't try to turn it around and turn it into some kind of lesson or positive message. I'm glad I did that. It reflects what I'm learning - that you don't defeat rumination by reasoning or arguing with it or trying to make something positive out of it. 

There is a good way to argue with it or disarm it (probably the better term). What you don't want to do is struggle or resist. When you do that you empower the rumination because you're telling it that it scares you. Rumination was really defeating me yesterday and most of today as well. It seemed hopeless. I was trapped in a cycle of fear. 

My weapons in the fight - my daily goals - were all rendered useless because rumination has me immobilized and unable to do my goals.

What helped me was a realization I made. I was ruminating, as I've been doing lately. I had some victories today but they didn't really bring me hope. They were victories of keeping going when it's hard and it's not going to get any easier. Later on, you look back on those times and realize they are the real victories, because it seems hopeless and there is no relief or escape in sight, but you do what you need to do anyway. 

The realization was about one of my recent ruminations. This thing had really bothered me. I was catastrophizing and imagining the worst and it was just one more thing weighing on my mind. There's always a main worry and this was my main worry for a while. Today it got resolved and it wasn't even a problem. It was nothing. And I almost didn't appreciate it or feel any relief because, of course, there's some other worry on my mind now - some other main worry. 

I've been trying to find a way of doubting my rumination, but it seems to have beaten me. It seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's won and my goals are useless because I can't do any of them. I'm just stuck in these thoughts and fears and they're closing me down. But then it occurred to me....that thing I was worried about the other day, that seemed so devastating, wasn't even an issue. 

The lesson about my fears is that they are unfounded – that my rumination lies to me. 

It still plagues me. After the initial breakthrough and feeling better, the rumination threatens to wash away the hope like a wave washes away a sand castle. But I know not to engage it. As tempting as it is to think about it and want to reason with it, that's not the way. 

hopeless

It's hard to really believe in positive change. 

I have such a history of rumination that it's all I really know. I can't see any way out of it. I spend hours stuck in rumination and going over and over the past and my struggles and pain and going over and over the future and what I'm scared of, and it's a loop that I'm stuck in. 

And when I'm stuck like that, my goals seem pointless and hard. Normal things seem scary and difficult. 

Everything seems pointless and hopeless.

opening windows

The reality is that every time I do one of my daily goals I am building and growing. 

I still keep getting caught up in rumination, but I just have to keep moving away from the rumination and moving towards my goals - towards doing stuff and being occupied. 

It sometimes bothers me that I don't really know how to do this. I don't really know how to be happy or mentally healthy. It's not like there is some state of wellbeing that I can return to. 

It's a scary thought, thinking about all the stuff I need to work through - all the issues I have and how damaged I am. 

But I'm learning that it doesn't matter. 

Making progress is not a matter of 'working through' all my issues and trauma. All of that stuff has no bearing on the new me. It's just irrelevant. 

Grass doesn't need to know how to grow, it just happens naturally. 

Rumination still has such a grip on me. It still stops me and keeps me inactive and keeps me stuck. But at least I know what the struggle is now. 

When I'm in my old state - being the old me - it's like the new me doesn't exist, and I imagine the old me having to do all these things that seem really difficult for the old me. I look to the days ahead and I'm overwhelmed about things I have to do.

Part of me sees that this is a really good struggle. Like, even though it seems like such a bleak situation that it takes me a lot of strength and courage to do ordinary things, that's a good thing. It's good to have that opportunity to have strength and courage. 

But also, it's going somewhere. This is a process, and it's leading to a good place. And it's a very secure place. There's nothing tentative about it. 

There are so many good analogies that capture what is happening and that I've been writing about. 

There's the analogy of the house of fear and pain that I've built and that I live in. The house made by my rumination. It's my refuge. That's the way my mind works. As I do my daily goals, I'm stepping out of that house, and every time I step out of that house it becomes less real and my own wider world becomes more of a home to me. And it's a one way process. Every step in a positive direction is permanent progress. 

Then there's the analogy of the tree (or the seedling) and the storm. The seedling is my new life as defined by my daily goals. It's so vital - so real and substantial, but because it's new, it's unrealized. It's still hard to even believe in. The storm is very obvious and seems really dangerous. I'm still in the storm. 

The good thing is that I have some control over this. I can actually beat the storm, and I do beat the storm. As time goes by I have more and better windows and less severe waves. I'm surprised at times by how good things are getting and how rumination and fear and all that stuff is losing its grip on me. Then, sometimes I'm taken by surprise by how hard the struggle still is. 

It's definitely up and down. I've been to a kind of hell, and in that hell I've changed. I've learned not to take the easy escape, because that's the route to death. I don't collapse and become helpless and desperate. I don't look to be rescued. And when I am literally falling apart, I keep trying. I'm not perfect, but I'm better than I was.