Where’d DDG go? I’m right here, Elliott

11:44 am

And like Elliott, it’s been so long since I checked in on him, he grew up into a man!

Hi, guys. WOW, I don’t think I’ve chased around this much in my life since, well, I worked a full-time job back in my cold, big-city days. And even then, I managed to ALSO live a double life, drinking away four, five, six hours every night. HOW on EARTH did I work, eat, work out, AND drink five hours every night–and still maintain a handful of friendships, an often-bordering-on-broken romantic relationship, and make phone calls to the family every Sunday night?

In case you haven’t been reading my oh-so-interesting posts about my struggle with what I’m just calling “hot flushes” (as opposed to hot flashes), let me quickly say: I have been having this “thing” that happens to me pretty much constantly, wherein, my skin feels very hot all over, but I also shiver. And I don’t sweat. And this lasts for hours, days, weeks, sometimes months at a time. I chalked it up to perimenopausal weirdness that I can’t do much about. However, when I went to a gynecologist, she was like, that doesn’t sound like hot flashes; and then, when I went to an endocrinologist, she was like, the symptoms you’re describing, I’ve only seen in ONE other patient in my entire career, and, your blood tests say that you’re body is hypothyroid but your symptoms are hyperthyroid (figures). So, there might be more going on here than I originally thought.

Anyway, this is all just to say, the way I’ve been dealing with this is by taking a hot/cold shower at night, which means, over about 20 to 30 minutes in the shower, I change the temperature of the water from hot to cold, eventually ending with cold when my skin can tolerate it; somehow, it like, “resets” my body’s interpretation of its temperature. SO WEIRD, I know.

As I was methodically going through my nighttime routine last night, I was like, huh, what would my nights be like now, if I was still drinking until 2 or 3 or 4 am? I mean, would I still be drinking? I would definitely not be taking care of myself the way I have to each and every night these days, just to be able to get to sleep; like, maybe I would just pass out and avoid feeling the body heat, avoid having to meditate myself down from feeling stressed about it, avoid having to take a series of deep breaths (I have what seems to be related irregular heartbeats, too–doh!)…? Would I just pass out and avoid it altogether? Probably not, which means, I’d somehow have to juggle it all.

Which, well, I wouldn’t be juggling it, and my life would be falling down…

And it just made me see how important my sobriety actually is right now, and how grateful I am to be ABLE to care for myself at night (and that doesn’t include forgetting about it all by passing out).

This year, 2019, has just been blowing me over–I will bend, but I will not break, one of my high school teachers used to quip. And, I guess that could sum up the past three months for me, being bowled over by the seeming-hurricane winds of my neverending to-do list! It’s all good, though, and I’m glad I’m making it through the days–and the nights.

Since the last time I blogged, I’ve become entrenched in my new job. I started it about three months ago, and I feel like I haven’t looked up from the page since then. I have to preface this by saying, it IS a nonprofit, and I DID have some inkling about the workload (large), but, I am constantly reminded that I gave up a job that was pretty cut-and-dry for something that is anything but that. I will say this: there are things I like about it, and things I don’t, and that’s where I’ll leave it.

There is one thing that stands out, and that is having to–gasp–speak in public at a work retreat the other week. If there is anything that causes me anguish, aside from nighttime body heat and insomnia, it’s gearing up to speak in front of a group. I may have talked about this before on my blog, but when I was in graduate school, I started having panic attacks related to drinking; and then, during one of my seminars, for which we had to give a lot of individual presentations, I suddenly froze up, my heart start hammering in my chest, and I became so anxious that I could barely speak. One of my generous classmates stared me down, and as we locked eyes, she was able to move me out of that place. From that point forward–that happened over a decade ago–I have not been able to escape feeling the same intense physical reaction to speaking in front of a group. Someone recently told me that it sounds like PTSD.

Well, at this work thing, I had to do just that–I have been successful at avoiding it, but really, you can’t avoid it for the rest of your life; there will be times when you have to get up in front of a group of people and talk. And, of course, all the same things started to happen when my name was called: yammering heart, whirling mind, the literal inability to breathe such that, I come across as either winded or stuttering when I am actually talking. But, because I had no choice, I started talking and just went through it. I apologized a few times, stumbled over my words, was breathless at least twice and had to stop and inhale and apologize again; BUT, I went through it, made it to the end, and by the end of those five minutes, I was at least still talking. And breathing.

It was good for me to see that I could get through it. No one is going to die, I thought. With that new knowledge, I realized, well, if I can get through it by just going through it to the end, sticking it out to the end; then, I should be able to apply that practice to my night heat–I just have to go through my routine, wait to cool down, and wait to fall asleep. I don’t know why, exactly, but it was just really empowering to see that I COULD get through speaking in public–it was painful, and I will avoid it, but I CAN do it, if I have to–the same way that every night since I started my new routine, I eventually DO cool down, and eventually do fall asleep.

Of course, you can apply this to sobriety! You CAN get through those nights of horrible cravings, those days of zero-dopamine lack-of-motivation, those months of want and lack and sadness about losing your “everything.” You can and will get through it if you just keep going. Just keep not drinking, no matter what and how you feel. You will make it through to the end. No one is going to die. You got this. (notes to self, literally, in my journal every day, to this day)