May 02, 2018 / 1:18AM
Well, I have a problem anyway. With alcohol, that is. Actually I have many problems but one at a time, yeah? Rome was not built in one day.
It’s just that I realised how so many of the books I’ve read recently have troubled characters who use alcohol as a coping mechanism. All they do is drink and drink to excess, regardless of the time and venue. Which got me to thinking about myself… because I totally understand how they feel.
Everyone who drank the way she did had a reason, she supposed. — The Flight Attendant, Chris Bohjalian
Hell yes there is a reason. There always is. Since this is my blog, I shall at least have the self-respect to be honest here. I drink because deep down, I feel unhappy. Despite what I possess and have achieved, regardless of whatever, there is always a deep-rooted unhappiness within me. There always has been.
Sometimes I forget about it. Sometimes I feel more happy than depressed. But it’s always there. And I continue to make myself feel worse by partaking in unhealthy activities like drinking and getting involved with toxic people. Because I so desperately want these short-term solutions to fix everything and make me feel better. Except that they can’t. But a quick fix is better than no fix at all.
Some wounds go so deep they become woven into the fabric of our lives. Scar tissue will eventually start to form but the wounds never totally heal. We are never quite the same. We let the sharp edges of our past pains serve as warning signs for our future. We all wear our pain differently. Some deny the pain entirely as if it’s not there. Some mask the pain with other things, people, and places. Some try to numb the pain through personal vices. How you choose to deal with your pain will often determine how long you suffer.
— The Truth Is Time Doesn’t Always Heal All Wounds
I don’t want to be defined by a single experience but fact is pain changes people. I know I haven’t been the same since three years ago when what my friends call The Apocalypse and what I know as The Great Depression happened. It’s been ages but I still feel as fucked up. I moved on from the person but I cannot move on from the ordeal, from what I went through, from the pain and brokenness.
Now I keep gravitating towards the same kind of person and relationship. They are all the same: Toxic, illicit, forbidden, frowned upon, emotionally damaging, mind-fucking, ticking time bomb, will never go anywhere, guys who don’t give a shit about me beyond my body and looks, etc. Don’t you think I am aware? I am but yet I keep doing it. And one of these days I’m gonna get badly burned again.
I drink because I want to forget, I want to feel numb, I want to feel nothing, I want to stop thinking and feeling. Except that I can’t forget. I can’t forget what was done to me, and how I was treated like less than a person, like an object.
I got triggered a few days back. Someone told me that I was cringing and grimacing and looked scared, that I usually come across as so nonchalant and that was the first time he had seen me so scared. And I didn’t realise I had kinda frozen up and was biting my nail and lip until I snapped out of it.
That’s the physical and exterior reaction. Internally, my mind was distressed and trying to dissociate in an attempt to protect itself. Trying to force back down unpleasant, ugly memories. Mentally telling myself to calm the fuck down (and failing).
Actually it happens quite often but it’s the first time someone has pointed it out to me. And the realisation makes me feel even more messed up.
I yearned for that brief, sharp feeling I get when I drink it — a sad, burning feeling — and then blissfully, no feelings at all. — Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
True, except they left out the part about how everything comes crashing back to you tenfold after the alcohol wears off. Fuck alcohol for being a depressant. It’s nice to not feel anything even if it’s fleeting though. In that few moments, at least I can escape.
On the bright side, I am no longer the crying drunk I used to be, passing out and injuring myself half the time. Now I just pretend I am fine, binge-drink faster than I should, realise I am actually, really not fine, feel sad and start babbling about things that I claim not to care about, and then drift off.
Drift off into blackness. Not passed out. Just drifting and pretending not to be aware of what’s going on around me, pretending not to know that there are people who will jump on the opportunity to take advantage of my vulnerable state, pretend I am dead.
I know that I am putting myself at risk every time I drink till the state of numbness, but it’s hard to care about what else happens to you when you feel like the worst thing has already happened. Yes even back then, I knew that wasn’t true, it’s not the worst thing that can happen to a person. I just felt like it was. Maybe I still do.
Nobody knows the whole story, but the next time before you intentionally hurt or abuse someone, think again. Some wounds last forever. Some scars don’t fade.
