Heal

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night,

Take these broken wings and learn to fly,

All your life

You were only waiting for this moment to arise”

Lennon-McCartney, Blackbird.

I have my first session with a counselor this morning. My friend R recommended that I do this, and I’m going with guidance on this issue. I followed my own guidance on it for 33 years. All that ever did was spin me further down into the rabbit hole of this little hell I’ve lived with, that I am now hoping that I can somehow crawl back out of. All I know, for sure is, I can’t do it alone. I tried that — it didn’t work. I need help, if I am to heal.

Of course, this is not my first rodeo— I’ve been here before. First, when I surrendered drinking, and then when I surrendered pot and all other mind and mood altering substances. I never had another drink from the moment I admitted to another human being (my mother) that I had a drinking problem. I had one relapse after I admitted to my newfound friend, George, that I was an addict, and had a problem smoking dope. That came three weeks later, when I’d put myself into an impossible situation and did what came naturally in that situation — got high. It was the last time I ever did that.

Come to think of it, I also got over my bed-wetting at age 10. Maybe this is more like that. Hard to say.

Now that I’ve admitted this other addiction, that a part of me suspected I had for a long time, but had convinced myself that as long as nobody noticed it, I could manage it myself — now that I’ve admitted it, I fully believe that it, like my other addictions, will be lifted from me. It’s been named, acknowledged, exposed to the light of day, and seen for all of its ugly truth. I want it gone — I’ve let it know that it is no longer welcome in my psyche, just like I let my tumor know, at some point, that it was not welcome on my facial nerve.

So far, so good. I haven’t had any problems, temptations, or been driven to act out on the addiction. I have kept myself busy working at repairing the damage it caused. The damage is mainly in the area of trust — trust broken, really. I lived a lie, surrounding the addiction, for 33 years. How does one trust you, when everything they thought they knew about you, turns out to be tainted with the lies of omission that you’ve lived for all those years? How?

I have no idea. I have tried to understand why she is still here. I’m not sure I would be, were the roles reversed. This is not one of those cases where I expect an “attaboy” for my efforts. I can only hope to rebuild the trust that was there before, but was never fully warranted. I can only hope to be the man that she thought I was, all along. Actually, no. I can only be the man that I am — all I could ever be. Only, now, I can be that man, and be honest about who that man is. No more hiding.

That’s an interesting concept. Can I do it? I think I can. I know I have to. If I want this life to be real, if I want to continue to grow, and become who I am becoming. I can’t go back. I can only move forward. Each step, each day, is a step and a day away from the lie that I was living.

Just one at a time. That’s all I can do. This one is a little bit better than yesterday. The fleeting thoughts are coming fewer and farther between. They still come — but, I don’t dwell on them. I thank them for sharing, remind myself what I have to be grateful for — last night, it was that I was able to pay our bills, and there was enough money there to do that. It’s the little things — actually, that was a big one. I was concerned about that. I had dwelled on it quite a bit.

Staying away from self-condemnation is an effort. If I can get past that, the fleeting thoughts will subside, I know. They are the mind’s attempt at offering up a quick solution to everything — just blow your brains out, man. It’ll all go away, then. But, I know the truth. It won’t. It would only make it so much worse. Because I know, that doesn’t really end anything. In fact, it begins a whole new thing, that is infinitely worse than anything I think is bad, now.

Broken trust is a hell of a thing. All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again. You can’t unbreak what’s been broken. I am broken.

Like a bone, it takes time to heal. First, you have to get the bone reset, and put into a cast to give it the time it needs. You have to stay off of it while it’s beginning the process.

Today, I see the doctor, who knows how to do these things. I am going to let him do his thing. My job will be to do whatever he says to do, to help the healing take place. Just follow direction. I can do that.

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See Me

Feel Me

Touch Me

Heal Me.

Pete Townsend, from Tommy