Craving Numbness.

Today.  Today I’m scrubbing my house like a crazy person.  It gives an outlet for the anxiety.  It keeps me busy.  Pacing.  Scrubbing.  Trying to control my surroundings since I feel I really can’t control anything else.

I wish I could simply flip a switch.  Change my mind set.  Not feel how I feel.  Yet, I can’t.  I crave more.  How do I teach myself to be happy alone?  How do I convince my brain I don’t need physical contact, I don’t need reassurance, I don’t need anything except my own love?  I always find myself craving more.  Craving love, affection, understanding, being wanted, needed.  All of it.  I know I need to be happy with myself before I can ever find that.  I know, deep in my heart, I won’t get that in this relationship.  Ever.

Instead of accepting this though I feel sick.  Horribly sick.  My stomach turns.  My chest aches.  My heart feels like it’s literally broken inside of there.  My mind won’t stop.  It’s horrible.  I want to be numb.  Complete and utterly numb.  That.  That’s what scares me the most.

I was laying in bed this morning – Questioning how I’ve done this before.  How did I break free?  How did I find comfort within myself?

Then it clicked – I didn’t.  I never found comfort inside myself.  After Dustin I turned to methamphetamine.  I was high for days, weeks, months.  If I truly wanted to torture myself I’d flip back to those journal entries in here and read the horror I subjected myself too.  I was “happy” alone simply because I was higher than imaginable.  The first divorce – How did I do that?  Oh, yeah – Alcohol.  I couldn’t get high.  I wouldn’t allow myself to.  Instead I switched to the socially acceptable alcohol and yet again – Spent months drinking.  Frequently.  Simply switching to Tyler and booze.  Those were my new drugs of choice.

Tyler – He took advantage of the situation, my vulnerabilities, my heart ache.  He came in at the moment.  Portraying himself as my friend.  As someone who truly valued me.  Wanted me.  Loved me.  He held me while I cried.  He comforted me while I accepted the fact my ex-husband was a cheating asshole.  He drank with me.  He turned himself into exactly what I needed – He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Now, I know.  I understand narcissism.  I understand that’s the first step.  Learning all my weaknesses, heartaches, issues.  Just to eventually use them against me.  Just to lure me in until I was so broken I wouldn’t care. I wish I knew then what I know now.  I wish I knew to run during the first “silent treatment”.  I wish I knew to disappear.  I wish I knew not to accept gaslighting.  Instead, I didn’t.  Instead I fought.  Instead, I truly believed it was my fault.  Instead, I let the person I could have been disappear.

Here I am – 12 years later.  Almost to the day.  Just as sad and heartbroken as I was those days.  Maybe more as this time I don’t have anyone picking me up – even if it was just a facade.  I don’t have meth.  I don’t have alcohol.  I’m attempting to make a conscience effort to not repeat this.  Do you know how f’ing happy I could be today if I wouldn’t of made those mistakes then?  If I’d of worked through it in healthy ways?  I could have been clean, sober, met an amazing man who truly loved me and treated me right.  Had the dream life once I fixed myself.  Instead, I’m in the same place.  No – Probably worse place as I’ve lived in this way for 12 long freaking years. Worse because I’ve let him break me.  I’ve let him tell me how horrible I am.  I’ve let him convince me it was my fault.  Always mine.  Not his.

How?  How do I fix this?  How do I fix me?  I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t want to get high.  After all these years.  After all those struggles – I’d nearly sell my soul today to sit locked in a room, all alone, with just a large quantity of meth for days.  No, make that months.  Until I couldn’t possibly feel higher.  Until I was as numb today as I was all those years ago.  That’s honesty.  I know it won’t fix anything.  Yet, I’m not sure I want to be fixed.  Today.  Today I want to be numb.