People all around me are suffering. They are doubled-up in pain because of their addictions to drugs, alcohol, debt, over-eating, sex, porn, and the like. I’m not immune to some of these things, but luckily my behavior and my finances are under control these days.
I can’t remember when I was last doubled-up in pain and feeling out of control. I think it might’ve been in September of 2008 when I was booted for my blogging from my Orthodox shul of the time (an expulsion since reversed). That’s when I re-entered therapy and started getting my head on straight. At the same time, I took my first Alexander Technique lessons and steadily reduced over the months my tendencies to react habitually to stimuli in ways that did not serve me.
I had some passionate and volatile dating experiences in 2009 and 2010, and however much they stung, they never interfered with my life. I never isolated because of them. I was never immobilized. The pain was clean and sweet. I never felt out of control. I just felt alive.
Feeling out of control frightens me. It’s happened to me a few times, particularly in the intimate realm where I let myself be led around by my hormones and by my desperation to connect to try to fill a hole in my soul.
I have most of the emotional tendencies of the addict but a combination of 12-step programs, psycho-therapy, Orthodox Judaism, friends, and Alexander Technique keeps me under control.
I have the same compulsions of the old days but they’re thinner. Attenuated. I feel a longer gap of inhibition between my impulses and my behavior.
I’m still troubled by depressive tendencies and by rampant anxiety. As I start to face up to more of myself and the devastating consequences of many of my isolating decisions (usually made in the name of the integrity of my blogging), the anxiety builds. Still, I know I’m on the right track. I’m rarely desperate.
