OnLine Addictions
Way back in 1999 when I got my first computer, and first logged on to the internet – I got addicted. I was staying up until 4 or 5 in the morning in a chat room. It was crazy. All the people I met in there were like my best friends. About 5 months later it all came crashing down. I thought I was lucky because I got out within a relatively short period of time. But it was an intense period of time for me and when it started to fizzle out I was really lost. I was hurt. It was very emotional. All those people meant a lot to me. They were real. I even thought I was in love at one point. Some of the people in the chat room met in real life, I never did which was probably a good thing because most of the stories I heard turned out less than expected. Peoples hopes were dashed and it ruined their online life. And in some cases even ruined their real lives.
Anyway, I unplugged just before Christmas 1999 and didn’t turn my computer on until 2005. But I’d only go on for email or to do searches once in a while. I tried online dating for a few months – but that didn’t work so I basically logged-of again.
Then in 2007 I started a blog. A fun blog, not this one – lol. It was quite popular but it got a bit overwhelming for a lot of different reasons, and ultimately I ended up feeling empty. Maybe I was still just looking for attention or something, or friendships – not sure. But it didn’t feel real anymore so I started this one which I don’t advertise anywhere and I don’t promote. It really is for me. I guess I could write all this in a book somewhere or on my computer and not post it … but I do post it and I do appreciate the feedback I get. But that’s not the main point of this blog. And I’m not addicted to this blog like I was with the other one, or like I was with the chat rooms.
But now I have facebook and it’s becoming a problem.
I first opened up a FB page under a fake name to get the hang of it. Then I opened one under my real name and have a few friends and family as “friends”, most of whom don’t live any where near me so it is a nice way to keep in touch. I do have a couple of friends I used to work with who live near by on there but to be honest, I’d prefer not to keep in touch with them. We keep saying we’re going for coffee but never do.
Since all the people on my real page don’t play the games or whatever, I created another fake page where I could play the games without any one knowing.
Why?
Well, I got addicted to all the games and didn’t want to have that on my real page where people could see. So like all good addicts I hid my addiction. I have 4 fake FB pages now. It’s getting a bit out of control to be honest. It’s kinda funny, but not really.
At first I told myself I was doing it to relax at the end of the night, and that’s true – that’s what I was doing. Then I found myself going to it during work and not getting stuff done. Next thing I was staying up until 4am playing games. I’m not interacting with anyone on there – just have lots of friends who are obviously also addicted to the games.
I don’t know what to do. I enjoy it and wish I could go back to using it like I did in the beginning. But now on a Monday night I realize that I wasted all weekend glued to the computer.
The last couple of weekends I went out, spent time with family and was busy. It felt nice. I didn’t want to go out at first because my apartment is a mess (of course) but I decided that I should stop punishing myself and go out and have fun. Which was a good decision. But then weeks went by and my apartment didn’t improve and now here I am in the middle of September stuck again. So rather than go out and have fun this weekend I stayed in behind closed curtains playing on FB. I didn’t even buy groceries. Just junk food. Now I’m broke because that stuff can be expensive. And I did that right after my last post where I said I spent money wisely, lol. I was doing really well with my grocery budget actually, but I’ve blown it now.
I don’t know what to do. I’m a bit unmotivated again. I know there will be a smoke detector inspection in the apartment sometime this month – that’s why I wanted to take last month to get things in order. I got started but never moved past the first few steps.
All of this wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t hate the way my life is right now. I want to have a bed, and a bedroom. I want to have a fridge with some food in it. I want to have a normal apartment!
I want, I want. But I never DO anything to get what I want.
Maybe if I post this and re-read it later it will motivate me – that’s worked for me in the past, so here’s hoping.
I really need to do something. It’s at a critical point now.
Hanging In There
I’m hanging in there.
I’m not visiting blogs like I used to, I just feel like I’m on emotional-overload.
My last post was tough for me and it’s had me spinning a bit. I do appreciate the feedback – you have no idea how much that helped.
Right now I’m just healing. Pulling back a bit to re-group.
I’ve been going out a bit more, I refuse to stay inside just because of how I’m feeling. I want to hide but I refuse to. It’s tough but I’m pushing myself to be me and to be out there.
I’m sure my emotions will crash soon and I’ll be having to post about it. But right now I’m just pushing myself while at the same time being kind to myself. I’m sick of beating myself up, to be honest with you. But I’m so damn good at it! Which is why I’m really trying hard not to do it. It’s not easy.
But …. I’m hanging in there.
Pretty Shocking
I just saw a full length photo of myself taken just a few days ago and I gotta say – it was shocking for me to see. I look horrid. I was in the new outfit I bought, the one I spoke of in an earlier post. I feel so good when I wear that t-shirt and jeans but I had no idea how awful I look. I’m so big. Obese. I just cried.
I don’t know what to do with all that I’m feeling other than to just push forward. Why didn’t someone try and say something to me earlier? Am I that unapproachable? I’ve really gone over the edge. I look gross. I really don’t look right. It’s not that I’m anti-fat … I’m not. It’s just that I’ve gone over some edge and I just don’t look right. I look ill. I really look ill. I guess my illness is seeping out. I can’t hide it looking like this.
I just want to hide. I don’t want to walk out of my apartment tomorrow. But I will. I’ll go on. Make no wonder some people look at me funny … I just look uncomfortable.
I want to snap my fingers and just look differently. I’ve lost about 35 lbs but big deal – I still look horrid. I need to stop beating myself up here – but at the same time I have to remember that photo and get my life back on track. I have to stop making excuses and continuing with my unhealthy eating habits. No more excuses – just that photo. I think I’ll keep it with me and everytime I want to binge just look at it. Not sure that will work because it just makes me feel bad and when I feel bad I eat – so I dunno.
I just know – I used to be pretty. Now I’m just pretty shocking.
I Need to Focus
I ate until I hurt. I’ve never said that out loud to anyone that I do that. Not even to a therapist. Never wrote it out before either. But that’s what I do – it’s what I just did.
It’s been a weird few days. I’m still feeling weird from the moving of all the furniture. It’s sill kind of chaotic here. I have to work every day next week, I usually only have to work 4, sometimes 3. Here it is Friday night and I’m feeling anxious about having to work Monday. Pretty unreasonable, I know.
Stressed because I can never really do what I want to do – mostly because I don’t know what I want to do.
Stressed because I can no longer just lie here on the couch all weekend and do nothing because since I restarted this blog a few weeks ago I’ve made a lot of progress and sitting and doing nothing on the weekend is not on for me anymore.
So I’m kind of feeling in limbo. Things have started to change – not enough that things are the way I want them and yet just enough that they’re no longer like they used to be. It’s an uncomfortable place to be.
Dreams, Fantasies, Nightmares, Life
It’s very warm here today and I’m debating whether or not to put the air conditioner in the window. I hate the sound of the AC and it takes up almost my entire window, which sucks. Plus it’s extremely heavy and I’m not even sure I can do it myself – and there’s no way I’m asking someone to come in and help. But I get it up there every year on my own so I’m guessing I can do it again on my own.
It’s funny that on this first warm day of the season I was looking at winter photos online. Trisha Romance’s artwork caught my eye. It’s so pretty. I think I like the nostalgia, eventhough I don’t ever remember a time like this.
I do find it interesting that most of the paintings I like of hers either have no people or only one child in them. I think that’s because I think of myself as a child, not an adult. As for the paintings with no one in them that may come from the fact that as a kid whenever I’d dream of my future there was usually no one in it. It was usually just me dreaming of me being alone. How prophetic.
That painting of the little girl at the door feels so comforting to me. I was pretty independent as a kid – well independent or ignored. Which brings me to the 2nd painting with the kid outside all alone. That’s very familiar. But I like the images. They’re sweet and a little sad.
I love this painting because it reminds me of some dream-like fantasy I had of what kind of house I’d love to live in. The odd thing is when I was a kid and would dream of such things quite often I was one of the kids of a large loving family, not necessarily the parent. If I did think of me as the adult I’d usually be alone, or maybe be married with kids … but that was a bit of a foggy dream, not really clear. Sometimes I’d think of me as an older woman with my life behind me, living with memories of a family who had once lived there. I think that’s kind of odd, actually. Rarely did I ever dream of, or have fantasies of, me interacting with people. I find that very telling of my real life.
The few times I was interacting with people quite often it would be with my parents, mostly I’d be showing them how much better of a parent I was then they were – telling them the right way to parent a child like me. Sometimes now as an adult I have similar dreams. It’s kind of like I’m going back and re-parenting a part of myself. I find those dreams kind of comforting. Perhaps my subconscious is helping me to feel better, I don’t know.
Anyway, a lot of this is on my mind lately because I’ve been having some reoccurring nightmares. They’re not gruesome or anything, but they do leave me with my heart pounding and with lots of fear, anger and ultimately just sadness. Sometimes they’re so emotionally overwhelming I’m just kinda numb. Then in order to avoid them I try to stay awake as long as possible which triggers my insomnia which obviously creates more chaos in my life.
The dreams are about me being an adult and still living with my parents. That may sound humourous but it’s not. And I think I pretty much understand what they’re telling me. They’re telling me to break free of all this crap I put on myself and to take control of my own life. To live my life on my own terms without torturing myself with what I think my parents would say.
My subconscious is basically telling me to grow up, I guess. I find I have these dreams when I’m really stressed or when I’m trying to make changes. I’m in the middle of lots of changes right now so it makes sense that they are happening now.
The dreams are quite scary. My parents are caricatures of all their negative personality traits. I’m acting like I can do whatever I want because I’m an adult and then I realize no – I can’t do that. There’s that startling moment where I realize I’m trapped and am unable of doing anything I want to do or unable of doing anything positive for myself. It’s that feeling of being “trapped” that is so fearful. My future is laid out before me and it’s unchanging and trapped and ugly and scary and it all makes me angry and hopeless.
I wake up and feel like there’s a heavy burden put upon me. I remember all the very negative experiences I had from childhood and the memories are intense and vivid. Then I’m burdened with the consequences of all those experiences – that being my current life. All of that leaves me feeling overwhelmed and often unable to do anything constructive.
Like today, I’ve been in a lot of physical pain. Not because of the dreams but because of PMS, etc., and I’ve pretty much spent the day drugged-up so I wouldn’t feel the pain. Which totally makes sense, but it highlights how I’ve spent most of my life – I’ve done things (still do things) to avoid my feelings. Things like hoarding, overeating and hiding in my apartment. I don’t use substances to numb myself, instead I’ve found other destructive ways to accomplish that numbness.
So when these ‘dreams of me being stuck as an adult living with my parents’ come along it highlights how I’ve been hurting myself. It forces me to look at how badly I treat myself on a daily basis. Most times I don’t look beyond that because I’m too afraid, but just writing about it, for the first time, is helping me to now move on. For the first time I’m reacting to these dreams in a different way – so I hope to get a different outcome.
I didn’t even start out writing this post thinking this is where I’d get to. I was just going to write about how I liked the paintings – and now look where I’ve ended up. Like most posts, this is kind of like a stream of consciousness for me. But it’s been good for me to get these thoughts out there. The more I put them ‘out there’ the less they’re able to stay rotting inside of me.
Getting Praise and Being in the Now
It’s weird the way I react when something good happens. I received praise and a small pay increase today and somehow I feel like I don’t deserve it. But clearly the people I work for do. I was appreciative when given the news, of course, especially considering our economy, etc. But in the back of my mind I was thinking that I didn’t really deserve it – but I wanted it. As if wanting it was a bad thing. Of course I want it – I live pay cheque to pay cheque every month. I’m probably going to be late with my rent for the 1st of next month because I’m short the funds. So yes – the increase will be welcomed.
I suppose I’m used to negative feedback. Or no feedback at all. The reality is my parents, who only did their best, rarely even talked to me. And I don’t ever remember my father giving me a compliment. Ever. But I’m sure his parents never did that for him either. His father was an alcoholic and his mother struggled with that and a lot of other horrible behaviour from him. So in comparison my parents were actually better than his. When I look at it that way, while I acknowledge his failures as a father, I can’t hold on to any real resentment.
My mother’s father also drank a lot, although no one ever called him an alcoholic. Well, no one ever called my father’s father that either. But that’s what they both were, I guess. My mom’s mother was widowed shortly after the birth of her 13th child. My god – hard to imagine. So I’m doubting my mother received much attention as a child with her being one of the oldest.
When I look at their childhoods, mine wasn’t so bad in many respects. But having said all that I can really only deal with my own life, my own experiences – which were quite bad as a kid. My parents were never abusive to me, that was reserved for other relatives, but they were rather detached and what little attention I did get wasn’t overly loving.
I guess some experts would describe all that as emotional abuse. I guess in some ways I would agree but since they didn’t do it maliciously or on purpose to hurt me – I’m a bit more generous with my definition. Given their own childhood experiences, most of which I haven’t disclosed here, I think they were emotionally at about 10 or 12 years old, which was interesting to watch as they became elderly.
Anyway, giving love and support was something they really didn’t know how to do and unfortunately, for them and me, they never learned how to. I think fear stopped them from having a fully emotional life. I think they feared being vulnerable. I think they had a lot of fear and anger about a lot of things – which means they missed out on a lot of positive things in their lives. I guess I don’t fall too far from that tree.
Despite all that we were all very close. We actually enjoyed each others company. We all shared the same sense of humour – which was a good thing. In my opinion laughter in the midst of dysfunction is necessary for survival.
Not sure why I’ve gone down this family tree road tonight – but I have been thinking about them a lot lately. Thinking about how if “this” had happened or “that” hadn’t, how my life could have been different now. I guess that’s a natural thing to do. I try not to dwell in those thoughts though because it’s just toxic and ultimately not very helpful. It just gets me stuck. I’m all about propelling forward right now.
Some context is important for me in order to make sense of all this stuff, but that’s it. I don’t want to hang around in those thoughts. I’ve done that long enough.
So back to what I said in the beginning, I got positive praise and a raise. I think that’s a great thing and I’m sure eventually I’ll believe that I deserve it. Until then I’ll keep blogging about it all … working it out.
I’m still trying to get used to my new living space, now that it’s all moved around and quite a bit tidier. It’s pretty amazing that these kinds of changes have effected me so – but they have. That’s the way I am … that’s me. This is how I react when stuff like this happens. Why I’m like this doesn’t really matter right now. Right now is all about right now. And right now I’m emotionally tired but hanging in there. I’m even looking forward to the weekend in order to do some more stuff.
Yes, I am looking forward to that – right now.
