why you should never tell people you've quit

Addiction is a funny thing. It's only when I'm high that I become very clear about the fact that the only way I will ever quit is if I just...quit. Like, altogether.

The rest of the time, I'm sure that there's another way. I can "cut down." I can wean myself off. I can set a schedule. I can have more self-control. I can be more disciplined. I can this, I can that. I can...bullshit myself.

Today I realized something I've thought of many times before and yet conveniently seem to try to forget most of the time...I'm afraid to be alone with my sober thoughts. As strange as it may sound to most people, I feel so much more clear when I am high. Everything makes sense, or if it doesn't I am more able to let it go. I guess, I'm self medicating, because honestly, I feel sane when I'm high. And that's why it's been so easy to be addicted to it...because I am functioning. I go to work every day and work a very difficult, stressful job ten hours a day and I pay my taxes and my bills on time and I attend family events and stay on top of my various responsibilities.

In fact, if it weren't that I really do feel addicted to smoking weed, I probably wouldn't even care to stop. But I hate that I do feel...so dependent on something outside of myself for my emotional and physical (because of the appetite problem) well-being. It's pathetic and it sucks.

I'll be watching you.

I have this love-hate relationship with the internet. You see, I am a naturally obsessive person. I obsess about anything and everything. This is why I have insomnia most of the time. I obsess about stupid crap that I shouldn't even be thinking about like this girl that the Hubs used to be friends who gives me this cold up and down stare everytime we've met. It creeps me out and she bugs me. She is one of those girls that embodies everything that kind of annoys me about girls. I know I shouldn't feel this way and I shouldn't even think about her, which I didn't really, until the Hubs and I were doing the guestlist for the wedding and he mentioned her name. Which was upsetting since, well, who wants some mean chick glaring at you on your wedding day? That's not cool.

Anyway, in the end he decided not to make it an issue so we're not inviting her (she just broke up with one of his good friends anyway so now he has an excuse if any of her friends say anything to him). But before that I looked her up on myspace where she has a zillion pictures of herself and for some reason I can't stop looking at them. And reading those stupid messages. I'm sick, I know. Kind of like the whole checking my ex's xanga thing. And this is why the love-hate relationship with the internet. And the hate-hate relationship with myspace. I don't have a myspace account precisely so that I won't end up wasting my time doing this stupid crap.

Damn Friendster, Xanga and MySpace, they make stalking people way too easy. This can't be good for my OCD. I'm banning myself from going anywhere near myspace ever again.

Another blink of an eye, suddenly you're wise.

This is something I don't feel comfortable writing about out in the open, but it's something that must be written. Maybe I'll end up posting it to the more public site once I get my friend to take my last name off the freaking link he has on his website. I asked him before, but whatever. I hate the idea of someone finding me through google, especially some future prospective employer or something.

Anyway, I have to write about my lupus tonight. I don't know why, but it's something that I've been wanting to talk about lately and I find that I can't. I want to really talk about it. With someone who understands. My friends are great and all, so are my parents, but I just want someone who knows what I'm going through and there doesn't seem to be anyone fitting that description around. It can be such an isolating disease. Especially because it's so hard for people to get it, I mean really get it. (Okay, I know I'm getting a little too happy with the italicize, but I'm making a point here, yo).

I was going to say I don't know why, but actually I do know why I've been thinking back to the early days of my disease/diagnosis a lot lately. Lately I've just been feeling so damn foggy, like I can never quite wake up, even though trying to sleep lately has also been a challenge. Is this a part of the disease? I have no clue. I read the forums and a lot of people talk about insomnia and the brain fog so it could be, or I could just be tired and lazy for no reason. Who knows? It reminds me of the days when random joints would start to ache and I wasn't sure if I was really sick or hurt myself carrying groceries. That's probably the most frustrating thing about this disease, it makes you question yourself constantly. Is it this? Or is it the lupus? Or is it that? Or am I just freaking losing my mind here?

What also frustrates me is that I don't think my friends or family really know what I've gone through. Not that I want pity, far from it, I just want them to get it. I know my parents definitely get that this disease is a big deal, that it affects every part of my life, every decision, every single freaking day where I wake up and walk around and breath air for God's sake! I recently read this thing called The Spoon Theory and it made me feel so relieved...like maybe I can send it to my friends and they'll get it now. But I don't know. It's hard for them to know because they weren't there when I was really sick. They weren't there for the days where "simple" things like brushing my teeth, getting dressed, putting my hair in a ponytail, even wiping my own ass (pardon my French) were monumental challenges and made me want to give up and cry. How do I explain that to them without sounding like I'm looking for "poor pitiful you," which is totally not what I want. I don't even know why it is I want them to know or understand, I guess it's just human nature to want to feel like other people see where you're coming from.

I just have all this unreleased ranting inside me and it makes me feel so alone. I know that I'm one of the lucky ones, that it was caught in time, that I've responded so amazingly well to the medication, but some days it's hard to feel lucky living with this disease, knowing how different it makes me from all the happy-go-lucky folks my age. People are worrying about their careers, partying, fitting expensive purses into their budgets and I'm worrying about whether or not the medication I'm on is going to ruin my chances of having a baby. If I'm going to be "cleared" for having one at all. If I have enough money to pay my medical bills. If prospective employers will somehow find out about this disease and not hire me because of it.

I try to be optomistic and positive about it, but sometimes I can't help but feel...jealous. Jealous of my friends who see the doctor once a year when they have to go to the gyno for a refill of birth control. Jealous of my friends who don't know all the ins and outs of their insurance plan and who never even max out their deductible. I know it's pointless, but sometimes I just can't help it. And sometimes I want to cry because I feel so lonely. I look through the long list of "buddies" on my instant messenger and I know that there is not a single one who will get what I'm going through. And I guess I wouldn't want them to, because I wouldn't wish this on anyone, but I do just wish I had someone. The Hubs is great and he has seen the worst this disease has inflicted on me, but, well, I guess this is all coming out right now because he's away and I can't talk to him about all this.

The shots in the dark from empty guns are never heard by anyone.

I feel myself slipping today. The one person I can't face being alone with is myself. And I hate that. Because I love myself, I do, but at the same time I really can't stand myself. Some days, like today, I can't stand being in my own skin.

The worst part of it is, I can't run from myself. Everywhere I go, there I am. I don't want things to be this way but I don't know how to change. This is part of the reason why I was so afraid to quit - without marijuana I have to face myself and all of my insecurities, doubts, fears, self-hatred. And I want to love myself, I really do. I want to be able to look in the mirror and honestly say that I accept the person staring back at me.

But then again who knows, this could just be withdrawal. I guess this is why people with a predisposition towards depression should avoid self-medicating. I need to keep telling myself, and this too shall pass.

And this too shall pass...

I don't intend to turn this into an addiction recovery journal, but it may have to be, at least for however long it takes for this to pass.

It's not as bad as it could be and I know that I have the hypnotherapy to thank for that. I haven't even had any REAL cravings, just frustration at the lack of appetite, insomnia and the hot flashes.

But as far as wanting to be high? That feeling has yet to rear its ugly head and I hope it stays that way. There is an emptiness to be sure, something missing. It's a lot like breaking up with someone you KNOW is wrong for you but who you've been with for so long you can't remember who you were before. I come home and I'm not sure what to do with myself even though I have plenty to do.

Sigh.

Yeah, well I can't get myself to go away.

Well. I did it. I quit. For good. I hope.

I'm sad to say I feel as though I've lost a very dear friend. I've lost the thing that I turn to when I am lonely.

I didn't go into work today because of an eye doctor appointment this morning but when I got home I didn't know what to do with myself. The apartment felt very empty. The space on my desk where my smoking equipment sat called to me, but there was nothing there. Nothing to fill the emptiness and no one to talk to. Nothing to numb the pain of this hole inside me.

I'm starting to realize now that part of the reason I loved weed so much was because it made it so I never had to be alone with myself. There was always this smokescreen (as my hypnotherapist would say) between me and myself. But I have to face myself now. I have no excuses anymore and nothing to hide behind.

This is me. Laid bear for all the world to see. And I have to learn to really love myself.

God don't make no junk.

Alright I admit it. I feel defeated. And tired. And lost.

I almost started bawling in the middle of Pastor's sermon this past Sunday because it was so me. I KNOW the Lord has a purpose for me but I feel so very far away from whatever it is.

He spoke about why he used to do drugs and alcohol. How he was trying to numb himself from the pain of constantly wanting acceptance but feeling as though it was always just out of reach. I know how that feels, but I'm not sure if I do what I do to numb myself. Maybe. Maybe "making it more bearable" is the same thing. But I never really feel numb, I just feel...like I have some perspective. I know it never solves anything though. I just end up wasting time and feeling more behind and more hopeless than ever.

What is it that I am so afraid to face? I'm really not sure. I guess I could blame it on my parents, but that has always felt like a cop-out to me. Like that is just too easy and too convenient. I think I was just born this way.