Relapse & Recovery

I relapsed again last night. I both want it to remain my dirty little secret and for it to be shouted from the rooftop. I guess a blog is that unhappy middle.

In a meeting the other day the topic was recovery vs. recovered, and how those words make us feel. When I spoke, I mentioned that I no longer felt I could be comfortable in my recovery from substances, until I have recovered from my childhood. I said it's all too hard.

Last night I pictured myself jumping from the balcony. I felt that real feeling of the fall. I scared myself. My fear of heights isn't just imagined, it is known. I allowed myself to consider it so deeply that I had to get out of the apartment. I had to get out of myself.

When living in Nevada everyone used the dump to throw out shit. It was an "activity" for some. Small towns are weird. When we had driven out that day, I remember being very cautious of the drop, but intrigued by it. When he came from behind and grabbed me, I felt pure terror. As he hung me upside down over that plummet, I just remember thinking: He could do it. He could drop me. My mom begged him to just bring me back over and put me down. Her fear caused me more fear. He loved it. He was laughing and that's when he decided to let go of my legs for just a split second. I dropped a few inches and screamed. My mom pleaded for me back. Then he got angry and said she was making him the bad guy and he was just joking. I clung into my mother the whole drive home.

I know the fall. I know that darkness that comes into my mind. I am very familiar with it. Keep your friends close but....

So when I heard all of those people talking about what a good person my dad was. Laughing about his little black book of women's names, written as conquests. Saying that he had decided my mother was perfect. As if his thoughts are what validated how much pain she must be in, sitting there beside me. I wanted to scream. I wanted to burn that place down with all of his enablers within it. Instead, I held my mom's hand and cried. I cried for my mother. I cried for my brothers. I cried for my sister. I cried for all that he had taken from us. That funeral was a final nail in the imaginary coffin of a Narcissistic Prick from Ohio.

Only now, I have his little black book. I know my father a little bit more than before. His darkness knows no bounds. I know with certainty; the world is a better place without this man. I had to put it away. I was obsessing over his codes and what the numbers meant. He crossed some off, circled dates, kept track of the masses of lives he'd walked in and out of. He hates women. We are something to own, and not someone. What can I do with this pain?

It's all too hard.