I think we're all familiar with these feelings. I've been feeling them strongly throughout my recovery from alcohol, and they sure show no sign of letting up.
Fear is a feeling of what is happening right now, or more often the case, what WILL happen. I spent most of my life running away from fear and trying to avoid putting myself in the face of fear. Later I spent more and more hours just drinking my mind into nothing, simply trying to avoid my own self.
Regret, for me, is closely related to fear. By that I mean, I find that fear has a way of keeping me from doing things that I think might cause regret if something doesn't go right. I fear experiencing regret. I never want to look at something I did and go "This fucking sucks. I wish I hadn't even tried to do this. That's the last time I try that again" because regret is miserable.
Ego is an odd one, for me. I've never had a lot of ego, never felt good about myself, never appreciated the good parts of myself. I've never loved who I am. Over the course of my recovery, I've been learning about ego and experiencing what it is. We're all familiar with the idea of an over-inflated ego, an ego-maniac, of people that think they're the shit and make sure you know that they are indeed the shit. So the word "ego" has always had negative connotations for me. Ego, I think, is simply being aware of the qualities you have that you've decided are good and want to keep building. Compliments feed my ego. When I do something that works out, it feeds my ego. People appreciating something I do feeds my ego. Parts of my ego are based on me, but most of it is based & built on from other people. I think it's a balancing act to recognize the value you contribute to others, and to also know for your own self the value you have as a person.
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I want to write about some areas where these feelings have impacted my life. For startes, there's a lot of my past experiences that play into my fears. I can think about & want to do something, and based on my past experiences, I either want to hop in and do it, or I have a misery and head-shaking feeling based on my past experiences when I've tried that before.
We are all in this (for us in the US, but also globally), and there's a lot of fear about where our country might be headed. Fear of the future, which I have to remind myself is largely unknown. But still, there is a lot of fear. Luckily, I'm just a very small cog in this huge machine called life, and I've done my part, and now I just sit and wait for what happens. This election is mostly about fear. Regret and ego don't play a part. I have no regrets about what I've written or said about politics (I stay out of it) and I did vote, so I've done my part. I've done everything in my power to make my opinion count, and I can sit peacefully with that. And there's really no ego at play here since about the only thing this election has to do with me personally is my part in voting in it, which I've done. And I am very comfortable and at peace with my ethical/political/personality views about who I want to win the presidency. So in short, this election is not a major disruption in my life, from a personal standpoint.
I've never had any job other than bottom-end low-paying jobs. I haven't even had a lot of jobs. In the past and while drinking, I was living at home and my parents largely supported me financially. So it was never imperative that I earn enough to get by. Any job I had and any money I earned was just used for trinkets for me, and later, to buy bottom-shelf vodka to ignore myself and life. Then comes sobriety, living on my own, and needing to support myself with bills and food and medical stuff. Talk about a drastic change in lifestyle! I'm fortunate that aside from medical needs, I don't have a lot of expenses, and my dishwashing jobs have been enough to pay rent, bills, and along with insurance (through work) and my parents, my medical needs have been met (I've met my deductible and am 66% through my out-of-pocket max, so insurance is a must for me — $3,400 paid out of my bank account in 7 months.) I'm lucky there. I have to remember and appreciate that simple fact. So with work, there's fear that my job and income can't continue if I ever want something like a car, a home, or a future with other things like a family or security of a healthy savings account. There's also some regret that I haven't been more pro-active in trying to get myself into a better place. I don't have a career, I have a job. What do I do? I make dishes clean. I regret that I don't do something more socially accepted as "a good job." That regret is sometimes hard to live with, but it's how it is, right now. And my ego often takes a hit, simply because as a dishwasher, I am sometimes treated like the bottom-end grunt-worker and expected to just shut up and get shit done. I often feel like I am not valued or treated well, which is odd, since if I take a moment and look at my work life, I am very often appreciated and valued. I think a lot of my egoic feelings stem from my own personal view of my life as a dishwasher and value as a person, which isn't directly tied to how my work life actually is. So my work life isn't great, but it's working well enough for me, at least right now.
This is the hardest thing to publicly write about. I feel a lot of shame about myself here. A lot of regret. A lot of anger. A lot of fear and dread about my future, which again, is largely unknown. I don't have a lot of experience in the dating world or with relationships. You have to love yourself and value yourself before you can open yourself up and share your life romantically with another person. For most of my life I never realized that or did anything about that or had much of that. I have a lot more of that, these days, and am always working on building those aspects of my life around that. I would love to meet someone and see where things go from there. I want that more than just about anything else, because a close relationship with someone lets you share in life's hardships and joys and you can help each other out and realize different great things together. I also can't ignore the fact that well, I'm human, and there are hormones and physical desires. There's no clean way to put it, but well, I get horny. We all do. And as great as my close friends are, they can't be there physically for me, lmao. Again, I don't really have a lot of positive experience here. So the fear of opening this part of my life is pretty big. I've met a lot of awesome people, and for a number of them, I've wanted to bring things romantically closer. The few times I've tried haven't gone so well. Nothing horrible, but nothing great, either. I'm just left feeling "Is this it? Am I doing this in a good way? It doesn't feel like I am. How do I keep doing this? Is this just how trying to date goes?" and because I haven't had the greatest times with it all, I'm left questioning myself as a person who is even capable of a romantic relationship. I know I am, but I'm still trying to get in the door. I know we have all gone through this before. I'm just putting it down in writing, since I don't see it much, and would like to see more humble or personal experiences from people. I haven't really been on a date in all of my adult life. It was hard in high school, but it was easier since I was physically around people. Getting out and being around people is hard for me, and this pandemic makes things harder. I've been on and off of various dating apps, but aside from one time where there was a short back-and-forth we wrote to each other, there hasn't been anything. Every time a dating app puts one of those notifications on my phone, it's always to lure me back on it, or telling me that my account is now inactive. Again, I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, but there has been no sign that I've even interested anyone, let alone had a chance to get to meet or know someone. Dating apps are miserable to use. They fuel my thinking that there's something wrong with me or that I don't do things right to push the levers in the right direction to even go on a date. Getting sober was hard to do, but I knew it was at least possible, if I put the time and energy into it. I've been trying to go on a date with someone for a number of years now, and haven't had that opportunity yet. I just don't understand. When I was drinking, I could at least live in a bit more peace with relationships (or lack thereof) since I knew I was living with my parents, didn't have a job, no car, no phone, no money, no future, or any plans to even get that started. I had accepted the fact that there was pretty much no chance in meeting someone. Then comes sobriety and I'm around people (for the first time in a decade) and have a place of my own and a way to support myself and so on, and things are pointing more in my favor. And despite my attempts, things are not moving much there. Which is hard for me to accept. "The Promises" are spoken of a lot in AA. It's just having those goals and achievements reached through the work we do in sobriety and life once we cut the addiction anchor loose and start doing life again. I've done a lot during my recovery, but there are still a few things I'd like to do. Just keep being me and have patience, is what I keep repeating to myself. I'm trying.
I think that wraps up some of the thoughts currently going around in my head, at least about fear, regret, and ego. This is a long post, and if you've read it all, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Reading long journals like this is going out of fashion, but well, I'm a word person and can best communicate through words. It's how I show people who I am and what my feelings are. And to be honest, I find it pretty therapeutic to just write and solidify my thoughts onto a computer screen. I'm also writing this because I want to express these thoughts out to other people. I'm sharing my "experience, strength, and hope" (to use a common AA phrase) because that is the best way to keep doing this thing called life. If you can relate with any of this, or you disagree with any of it, or if you simply liked hearing a bit more about me and my ideas, please leave a comment and I would love to keep communicating.
Thank you, everyone :)
