Really confused.

So, I've been in recovery from alcohol for the past few years now. I had a life I'm sure no one wanted, or, wants to know about. I had been using alcohol to glaze over, stuff deep down, get to sleep at night and reduce serious amounts of social anxiety. I came to AA looking for a way out. I wanted a place where I was able to be myself, no scratch that.. I didn't even know who I was. I guess I was searching for a solution to my problems, a way to feel comfortable in my own skin. I wanted to be okay with waking up in the morning. I found that and so much more in the rooms of AA. I found a sponsor who cared for me, friends who truly cared about how I was doing each day, and a community of people that cared about my sobriety. I'm not sure what happened, but I feel like now I've become jaded. Like maybe these people were faking it all along. That maybe I am not an alcoholic and I just needed a place to dry out for a bit. I feel like the friends I had made in AA were only putting on a facade. That maybe we were all just pretending to get along because we thought we had to. In short I feel like I've been kicked out of the club. Some series of events had occurred and now I feel like I don't belong with the same people I used to look to for guidance, friendship and advice. I asked my sponsor if I had done anything wrong, and she said no, not anything specific that she knew of. It all feels a bit like high school all over again.
I've never been very good at making friends. I'm much more the type to stay at home, hang out with the dogs and cats, maybe do some gardening... read.... I even started my own business where the majority of that time is spent alone, and the idea of getting out.. of networking is still terrifying to me.
Now, I'm not sure if this separation was actually brought on by other people or if it is all happening in my head. I'm okay with being alone, I'm okay with not having a lot of friends, I'm even okay with making friends and then knowing that over time we drift apart. What I am not okay with is how I tell myself that this is wrong. I'm not okay with the fact that I point the finger at myself and tell me I'm supposed to be more social, make more friends, make BETTER friends, make longer lasting friendships, because that is what normal people do.
I am just not that way. I think it has been so far engrained in me (by myself or societal standards) that we need to have these kinds of relationships, and that they need to look a certain way, and now I'm thinking I'm not so sure that this is the truth. I think I am the happiest when I can be nice with people, and they can be nice with me and when I can reserve my energy for the deep and dark moving conversations that I love so much with the people I love so much, whoever that may be.
Am I crazy? Does anyone else feel this way? Does anyone have trouble with this? The confidence, the lack of enthusiasm for being social? Does anyone else beat themselves up for not being as popular as the next woman, or not even wanting to be as popular as the next woman, and then get mad at themselves, for getting mad at themselves. I know it sounds pointless, and I agree it very much is, but like a lot of things having to do with depression, there is very little logic. Ideas, thoughts, actions, emotions can spiral out of control with no seeming sense of logic, but here we are. I am not, nor do I want to be everything to everyone. I am not nor do I want to be very popular. What I do want is to stop making myself feel bad for even thinking about these things.
Anyone?
Annie

Yep

I remember a few years ago, I was sitting on the couch at the house my sister and I lived in. We had made plans to go on a hike the next day after a few months of pretty horrible stuff. It was my way of wanting to connect with my sister, and maybe hers too. She came out from her bedroom and sat next to me on the couch and said, "I'm SO excited!", and started crying. She had explained to me that she hadn't felt that way in a really long time, if ever. I thought I knew what she meant when she had said this, and part of me replied "yeah, yeah, I'm excited too... it'll be great", knowing full well that for whatever reason this meant a lot to her.

It's been about 5 years since that night, and I finally get what she meant. After having weened off of my depression medications I am able to feel everything better; I feel pain better, I feel sadness better, I feel love more deeply, and yes even excitement. It's a visceral feeling, something that I wouldn't be able to explain even if I tried. It's a feeling that originates in my heart, or my bones, or somewhere indescribable, that permeates every cell of my being. It's the kind of feeling that reminds me how truly beautiful life is, how full of surprises our lives can ALWAYS be, and as cliche as it sounds, fucking beautiful.

I told my sister that day that I finally understood what she meant. What it meant to feel things deeply, and no longer be clouded by a buffer of chemicals. I felt relieved, and free, and scared the darkest parts of my depression would return, but oddly at peace with this. There is no good without bad, no dark without light, and certainly no hope, excitement, and faith without utter despair.

My sister replied, "It's a wonderful feeling, isn't it!?"

Yep.

This is going to be hard.

The last few weeks have been rough. I've decided to ween off of my depression medication and give myself the opportunity to see if I have what it takes to live without them. For years I've lived a life I thought was full, and it hasn't been until recently that I've discovered there is so much more.

I was taking 75mg of Desvenlefaxine, I started taking one day off every 3 days, then 1 pill every other day, then cut them in half and started taking them every other day and so on until now, I've been off of the medication for 2 weeks. I have been supplementing with Vitamins A, D, C, St John's Wort, Passion Flower, and Fish Oil.  I've noticed substantial changes in my mood.

There have been such high highs, and such devastating lows but with all of it there is a realization that I am now prepared to handle all of me.

I truly believe in divine thought. That, to me, means I don't have an original thought in my head. Anything that is of great use to me, that seems contradictory to my being, to me, comes from outside myself. Let me see if I can explain. I had a thought, a moment, while I was doubled over crying, "This is going to be hard.." it said. The thought was not that I couldn't handle any of this, or that I was going to give in and cling to my meds or some other mind altering substances. The thought was that this is the path I am on, and it was going to be difficult. Not just difficult, but really fucking hard. And there will be times when I want to give up, there will be times when I will doubt myself, and scream and cry and want to run, and it will be really really fucking hard, did I say that already?

The Battle

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing it's best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." - e.e. cummngs

Some days are harder than others. I've been reading quite a bit about introverts lately. Partially out of curiosity for what defines introverts, and partially out of my desire to dig deeper to the truest part of myself.

Like peeling back the layers of an onion, there is always more to be revealed. In the beginning I thought this would always be a good, or comfortable thing. No one ever tells you that this can be super uncomfortable, difficult, and sometimes excruciatingly painful.

I guess I should explain; I feel as though I've suffered my whole life with some form of depression and/or social anxiety. I was diagnosed in middle school after I started to cut my wrists with depression and put on medication. I've been on some form of medication ever since. Hmm.. let me rephrase that. If I was not medicated I was self medicating in an attempt to appear more normal to my friends. I remember having deeply sad thoughts most of the time, and then knowing that normal people don't have these thoughts. I can very distinctly remember wanted to cut the flesh of my skin so that I could physically take the pain from my heart and head out and put it directly into my flesh. Rarely does the depression get that bad anymore but I remember the sigh of relief that would come just after touching blade to skin. The depression cloud would lift through certain times in my life, for what would only feel like enough time to highlight some social anxiety or new fear or some other "personality disorder" I had acquired uncovered. Here's where I am at now. My life is amazing. I have a wonderful supporting family, I teach yoga and have fallen in love with this profession, I just recently got married to the man of my dreams and we are in the process of purchasing our first house. I've battled for years finding a combination of meds (some prescribed, but oftentimes not) to approach depression in a manageable way. I am now weening off of meds in an attempt to find the practices, eating and exercise habits that will help me abstain from meds for good.

Don't get me wrong, doctors know their shit. I'm sure they didn't spend hundreds of thousands of doctors to have each and every patient tell them "Thanks but I want to try this on my own", but with the desire I have to be chemical free I want to give my body the opportunity to adjust to the life it's been given, instead of trying to move the river to a more suitable climate. I would love to see this Island in all it's glory, for everything it is, for all it's imperfections, "disorders" and pathology.

In Susan Cain's book Quiet she explains that introversion was once seen as a pathology. Something that was abnormal. She also defines introversion in a number of ways, and one of them being that introverts may just need time alone to recharge their batteries, while extroverts get more energy from talking and being in social situations.

I remember taking the Myers - Briggs Test in elementary school and seeing the first letter as I. I think back to how I was feeling and what I was thinking that day and I remember thinking that no one wanted to be friends with and introvert, that in order to be liked, respected, popular, picked for the soccer teams, listened to, I had to be an extrovert. Even from that age I placed heavy emphasis on an extroverted personality and in a lot of ways became consumed by how to make this a reality in my life. Fast forward to high school and I feel (as I'm sure most young teenagers do) that they don't fit in or can't find their crowd, at this point I found alcohol and it became the social lubricant I needed to help me become the extroverted, funny, pretty girl I though you all wanted me to be. That is a completely different story but it serves the purpose of identifying how uncomfortable I felt in my own skin, how desperately I wanted to like myself but had no idea how.

Now that I'm a grown ass woman, I am finally now just growing in to my skin. I didn't feel like i belonged in my body until I turned 27, and even now at 29 still squirm to try to fit into my "Annie suit" some days. Oddly enough I've chosen two professions which require me to be social. I bartend/serve tables and am a yoga instructor. In both arenas, I feel comfortable in my craft. I can command attention when needed, explain in detail the pose or dish being served up for the day, and am even getting better at making small talk. But, when I come home I want to turn completely off. I want to sit quietly and not have to be alert, feel like I'm putting on a show, or at attention to answer anyone's questions.

Now that I read over this post it feels a bit selfish and whiny, like I'm banging my spoon on my high chair wanted you to notice that I don't want attention. But deep down I know that's not true. I love this format because it allows me to get out all the things I'm feeling deep down and share this with others who actually want to read it. It feels less like I'm droning on about tonight's specials, and more life I've written them on the special's board and anyone interested can come have a look.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
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