Feeling sad and looking back

A year ago today I wrote this: My State of Mind

A few days later I wrote Emotions vs. Thinking, which I consider to be a reflection of the beginning of my deepest level of understanding of myself to date.

It is interesting that I had forgotten what my therapist had said when I told her I felt insane. What I wrote in My State of Mind is almost identical to how I feel today. I have had such difficulty after returning to work. I have trouble concentrating, I can't focus and I wonder how in the world I'll ever hold down a full-time job. It is not that nothing has changed within me in a year, I can look back to where I was a year ago and realize that at many levels, I'm not nearly as "insane" as I was then -- stuck in the middle of an affair that was driving me crazy and moving to a new place, not knowing what it was I wanted or needed to do, trying to please too many people and having no clue how to please or take care of myself. I know there has been growth, and I know that for some reason that growth has had to be very, very slow.

I dropped my husband off at the airport last night for him to go on a three day business trip and drove back to lay in the arms of another man. I was exhausted from the drive through the snowy conditions, but I had already told this man, who travels to our area once a month, that I would see him. My codependency far outweighed my sexual addiction in this scenario, though I would say my love addiction was in full-swing. I couldn't seem to bring myself to have conversation with him, though he's a great conversationalist. Instead, I simply engaged him sexually -- honestly deep down wanting to be finished and to go home. It is not that I dislike this person nor is it that he gives me a high. I was just there ... going through the motions, not uncomfortably, but without feeling. I ultimately faked an orgasm so that he would stop his efforts to bring me there, and two silent tears fell from my eyes, as I pulled him to me and asked him to hold me. I felt comforted there in his arms, as he slowly drifted off to sleep and I got up, kissed him goodnight, and went home, feeling empty and uncovered.

Today, I have chosen not to beat myself up over the events of last night. They serve as a reminder that this addiction is no longer serving me. Yes, I am still drawn to it -- because it has become a way of life, but it has no return. Or I should say, the only return is emptiness and pain, a far cry from elation and euphoria. In AA,they say recovery messes up a good drink. That's for sure.

Happy to be on the journey.

The truth

I talk a lot about recovery and searching for wholeness and all that on this blog ... and that is honestly what I am reaching out for. But I need to say something honestly and get it out of me.

I think if I were not married I'd fuck every man I could and have one hell of a time doing it. I would hopefully be less inclined to married men than I have been in the past -- in my addiction I can believe that we are "just helping each other out." But without a husband and as many social "expectations" to live up to, I could see myself moving to a town where I knew no one, where I didn't care what others thought of me and just have one hell of a time. All of this because I constantly feel that I am fighting against my addict -- that part of me that just wants to go out and be wild and free. I feel conflicted in my acting out because I am married, because I could be found out, because I could hurt my husband who I love.

I know intellectually that I would feel just as empty using men and being used in that way as I do now, that the conflicts and the feeling used would be no less ... but every now and then this thought goes through my mind. The magical thinking lets me imagine that "At least there wouldn't be so much inner turmoil."

These thoughts make me worry, Do I stay married just to prevent myself from going hog-ass wild? In some ways, I think that's the reason I got married. I had started to do just what I had described above. I was becoming very promiscuous before I met the man who would become my husband. And then there he was he was so stable, so secure, so safe, so interested, so unaware.

Anyway ... I said it, my piece of truth. In some ways I want to take it back, erase it all and hide it. I fear judgment and anger over what I've said. But I'm only as sick as my secrets. Moving past this secret to a point where I love myself more than this, where I can find joy in some freedom other than this ... that is what I want. I do want the internal turmoil to stop. I hate fighting with myself 24/7. It's depressing, it's frustrating and it's tiresome. It's why I have to surrender one day at a time.