This is how it goes...

[chromophilia]

It's funny... the need to tell others. There is a great feeling of satisfaction in saying it out loud. Letting the crazy out. Somehow it validates the experience. Somehow, despite all the terrible things I've done in my life, compiling it nicely and stating it eloquently somehow makes it a story that I, for some reason, revel in telling. Why do I want to share my crazy? Is it a form of accepting the fact that I have a problem or is it just me rolling around in it, rubbing it all over myself and living proudly in my self-destructive behavior?

Is this just another form of my narcissistic unraveling or am I really truly trying to get better?

I have stepped up to the plate so many times... only to fail... to fall harder then I knew possible. I think I've set myself up to fall intentionally in the past. This feels different somehow... this moment and the steps I've taken recently. I'm hoping that it really truly is different. I really need this to be different.

It's a lonely world - this being so wrapped up in oneself.

I am 28 years old. I have struggled with most of the big maladaptive coping strategies us upper-middle class white girls have in our arsenal of self-hatred. There was the cutting and the burning back in the days of adolescence. Then there was the anorexia, then the bulimia... now the compulsive binge eating that dances lovingly with sub clinical stretches of anorexia. There's the indiscriminate sex with inappropriate people in places I would care not mention. There were the abusive alcoholic relationships. There was... and is the alcohol to deal with said alcoholic relationships. There are the broken promises and blackout nights. There are the erratic and volatile fights over nothing just to prove that there is strength somewhere inside my weakest, saddest moments. There is the crippling depression.

I worry. And I wonder. Somehow crazy is chic and yet there is nothing chic about it. It's crazy. I do not wear these things like a badge. Others do not know me by my crazy and I try like hell to hide it from the people I know well and respect deeply (of course it oozes out the sides and all over the bar floor on occasion... but mostly people just think I can "drink like the guys" and that I'm game until the game is all done). I'm always the last person standing. I may be staggering and slurring but I'll be standing and I'll of course do a shot with you when we get back to your place.

The show is amazing. Really.

Alone. Alone is when I fall apart.

When it all comes down to it. I am alone. Very much alone. That's what all of this creates.

My story is far from unique... but it is mine. I'm hoping I won't be re-writing the same old chapters for the rest of my life.

My last drunk was on Monday. I want that to be my last drunk. Period.

Thanks for reading. And thanks for being out there. I'm going to need you all.

[tawnyfrog]

This is how it goes...

Yup.

We'll be here.

[jessie]

This is how it goes...

Hi Chromophilia,
First of all - has anyone told you already that you can write? Everyone who had been to school can write(hopefully) but you can string your words and sentences together in a gripping way. You can become an author.
Secondly, you are so very young. Obviously something in your forming years went dreadfully young. I'm refering to the fact that you cut yourself, became bulemic, anorexic, irresponsible sexual behavior etc. Self destructive behavior at its best.Everything the symptoms of a young girl who is screaming for help.
Have you had treatment yet? Are you on medication? You are so young and obviously highly intelligent. Please use every single tool you can to break your self destructiveness.
Says a middle aged self destructer.

[jessie]

This is how it goes...

I've just checked the post - sorry - I meant dreadfully wrong...

[chromophilia]

This is how it goes...

Thanks for writing Tawnyfrog and Jessie.

Jessie -

I was in an inpatient treatment program for anorexia an oh-so-very long time ago. I was 14 and looking back on it now, my ED was very much a wee infant. How ugly and pervasive it has become in the 15 years it has grown and adapted to its host...

I have seen a couple of therapists over the years but I was unsuccessful at utilizing the therapy offered to me (i.e. I wasn't ready).

I generally feel pretty negatively toward any kind of pharm therapy. My teenage years are hazy memories of miserable lethargy and apathy. Since I've been in control of my person I have chosen to forgo the pills (Ha! Only to self-medicate with alcohol...).

I am one week into seeing a new therapist and I am, at this point, open to a pharmacological intervention. I just don't want to lose my head and that was very much the case during my previous experience with pill popping.

There is nothing that I would like more than to whisk myself off to a three month inpatient treatment program but my insurance wouldn't cover it, my professional life would suffer greatly, and I do not have the funds to laugh in the face of my previous two reasons and go anyway.

Here's to hoping that weekly therapy and a dedication to change will get me to health....

So... a question for you...

You say you are a fellow self-destructor... does this mean you are a current self-destructor or have you found some semblance of recovered?

Do you know of any effective tools/strategies to work through some of this stuff?

Thanks again for writing.

[Green bean]

This is how it goes...

Wow, like Jessie said, you really can write! I'm also new here and so far this program really helped me, and I promise I'll stick to it. I hope that both of us can stay in here for the long run. I'm 28 as well, made a lot of bad choices, and now dealing with them, hoping and praying I can break this "curse" for the sake of my two little ones.

Hang in there, and I would like to quote you, this is my story, that is neat because we tend to forget that sometimes and then we forget what we learned along with our story which in the end, was quite a lot.

May God bless us in this road to recovery, take care, and hey, welcome!