Tag: addiction

Battling the Demons

Time to write again.  Why?  Well, the shame cycle tried to rear its ugly head.  The intrusive thoughts that you can never be good enough and that your mistakes and inadequacies will never be forgotten.  That all the good you do can be undone in a thought or a whisper.

I’ve said this before, but yet it still has not changed.  Had I had any other medical problem that needed to be treated, I would have been sent flowers and well wishes and the hopes for a speedy recovery.  Instead, any mental health problem, including addiction, gets treated as if it were a bad choice.  Years later, a lifetime almost, and the questions are still asked.  This is one of the reasons that people don’t seek out help.  We even tell ourselves that it is our fault.

Truth be told, I am still an addict.  My current addictions won’t get me pulled over and arrested or cause me to lose my license, but the need to fill the empty hole still exists.  The hole that screams my fears and anxiety into the void.  The hole that can never be filled with the things that I buy or the entertainments I participate in.  The hole that says I can never be good enough or worthy of love just for existing.  The hole that says ‘if I win, it will all be okay.’

It doesn’t help that society no longer values my profession enough to properly compensate me.  At his point, retirement is a pipe dream.  Minimum wage has quadruples since I started practice, and yet my expected salary is the same or less than it was 30 years ago.  I am certainly able to make a living, but seem to struggle more than I expected at this time in my life.  Where do I go from here?  How do I silence that little voice that wants to scream into the void.

Most days, these voices are no longer loud enough to hurt.  Most days, my stomach doesn’t ache with fear and my heart doesn’t beat out of my chest with anxiety.  Most days, the doctor is in and I am worthy and powerful and ready to take on the world.  But some days, the shame monster comes out to play.  I am no longer afraid that he will win, but I am disheartened that I need to do battle again. 60 years old, 11 years sober.  When will I be able to feel safe again?

#addiction, #anxiety

An Open Letter to Those That Think They Know Me

How would you like to have your life plastered across the internet with all of your scars and blemishes? The things that you’re over and would prefer not to be brought up again? Having everything that you regret thrown up into you face when you are just trying to start over? Welcome to my life.

You googled me? Great. That’s not going to tell you who I really am. So let me tell you.

I’m a human being who is flawed as all humans are. Perfectionism was my first addiction. The one that led to all the others. An unattainable goal and a cause of stress and anxiety and fears of inadequacy. Never thinking I was good enough (pretty enough, smart enough, thin enough…you get the picture). Thinking all the time that if I worked harder, did more, I would be worthy of love. It took me a long time to love myself, and truth be told it is still a work in progress. I never felt the unconditional love that a parent should feel for a child – there were always conditions (you’d be so pretty if only you’d lose weight…). I know my mother did what she could with what she had, she was also always striving for love.

I’m a mom and now a grandma. Having a child is allowing your heart to walk around outside of your body. I love my children and grandchild more than anything else. I’d like to protect them from all of life’s trials. This is neither realistic or practical. Adversity allows us to become stronger as painful as it might be for them and for me.

I am a pediatrician. For a long time I defined myself as nothing other and it almost broke me when that identity was threatened. For those with mis-information, let me set the record straight. I never lost my license or my ability to practice. I was on probation due to having an ADA protected medical diagnosis of alcoholism. I completed everything that was asked and have not been on probation for years. My medical expertise and judgement was never in question. What I am not is a very good bookkeeper, biller, manager of money. I also struggled with self-esteem and trusting the wrong people which is a story for another day. I was an employer and owner of a practice, but that didn’t work out so well. Now I am an employee again.

I am a friend. Probably not always the best friend, but I try. I find we become so self-absorbed that we forget to check up on those that we don’t see regularly. For those reading this, I still think about you (but my self-esteem issues convince me that you are too busy for me). I need to be better with checking up with people.

I am an addict. I didn’t know this about myself until the one addiction almost cost me my career. You see, they don’t send you to rehab for a sugar addiction. They just say “you’re fat and need to eat less and exercise more.” Sugar was and is my physical addiction. I just wasn’t aware that the reason I couldn’t stop eating all the thin mints was that I was an addict. So now I have learned that I do everything in my life addictively. As my son said, “once mom gets interested in something we get all the t-shirts.” This includes work, shoes, Magic the Gathering, Lego sets. While still living in AZ I could not be allowed to go into the feed store during chick season without getting a dozen or two chicks to add to the brood (boy I miss those eggs).

I am probably many other things. I am complex and yet somehow simple. My current situation is a new adventure and living in a place I never thought I would. But it’s not terrible. I am just trying to survive the wolves at my door. All I do know it that my story isn’t over….