Let's Get Real!

From "The Velveteen Rabbit," Margery Williams, 1922

I have survived, despite a half-century of self-neglect and self-abuse. Much of the self-destructiveness I practiced centered around my fear of living life and my fear of me. There is a spark of life within me that even I don't have the power to snuff out. When I accepted that reality, I knew that I must begin to learn to face the biggest obstacle to me living a decent life - me.

Most people understand shortly after they begin their recovery journey that they are going to have to face some things - that part (or maybe all) of our addiction comes from the desire to cover up what we don't like or fear about ourselves. We basically have to face our darkest secrets in recovery. That can be scary. No matter what the darkness is - resentment, fear, shame from being abused or from being the abuser - whatever - it is poison, because it remains deeply hidden within us, away from any kind of light. Our secrets and our shame becomes a cancer, and, if left untreated, eventually destroys us.

Now, almost none of us walks into a recovery meeting the first time, or into treatment, and blurts out, "Hi, my name is so-and-so and I hate my mother." Rarely happens.  Much of the time, our 'stuff' that we carry into recovery is a tangled mess - so much so, we are often unaware of all of it, and we need assistance with untangling it all.

When we were young, many of us learned we had a 'permanent record', and that it was a very bad thing to have anything on this permanent record. Say you stepped on a crack in the third grade. You were worried for the rest of the day, knowing that your mom was lying on the kitchen floor, unable to move, because you were careless and broke her back. So, you get home as fast as you can to rescue mom, and discover that she's just fine - no broken back. On the one hand, that's awesome! We didn't permanently injure mom! On the other hand, that stepping on a crack was still a bad thing to do, even though it seems like it had no effect - this time. In the 3rd grade we did not possess the critical thinking skills to determine the difference between the truth and bs. And then, one of (at least) two things happen - we learn that, perhaps, in certain circumstances, maybe we can get away with doing something 'bad', or, we thank God, or our lucky stars or whatever, that we didn't break mom's back through our carelessness, and vow to never, ever, ever step on a crack again.

But what about that permanent record? If we get a C in geometry, it might prevent us from getting into the finest post-secondary education, and we'll end up with crappy jobs for the rest of our lives, marry beneath our station, have ugly, delinquent children, and be miserable, unhealthy wrecks until the day we die.  And, because we got that C in geometry, we might end up hanging around with the wrong bunch, and get into smoking cigarettes, drinking, and maybe even sex. All of that goes on our permanent record, which, if it isn't perfect, guarantees us to have a shitty life.

Yes, the two examples - hurting someone through doing something innocent like stepping on a crack, or ruining our lives because we're average in math - are outrageous examples as we read them with an adult brain. But the concept isn't outrageous. As children, we learned that our parents and elders were always right (or we learned to not trust). So, if someone tells us we're going to go to hell because we swore or told a lie or stole something, or, if in a moment of anger, we said, "Dad, I hate you!", that can stick with us even as adults who understand that that Hell probably isn't going to happen. (Imagine how confused a person must get if they're told they're bad by an abuser. That's a mess to untangle!).

So everybody has a dark side. Everybody learns to cover it up. If one is a human being without an addiction or a mental health condition, one could probably go their whole lives without shame affecting them much. However, in addiction and mental illness, any shame we have is magnified and multiplied, because it is food for the addiction and or mental health condition. But every human being presents a 'socialized' self to the outer world, and the self we present is rarely if ever a perfect reflection of who we really feel we are on the inside.

My experience has been that if I want to recover, I have to get as close a match between my outside representation of myself and how I am on the inside. It's scary and challenging. I can say, however, that it is not only possible, but one of the best things I could ever do for myself. Here are some of the benefits of getting real that I've experienced:

• I no longer walk around with a nagging worry that someone will 'discover' me and reject me;
• I experience more peace and happiness with who I am;
• I have a better group of friends than I've ever had, and I haven't had to bribe or coerce them to be my friends - they're real, too;
• I have more mental energy to focus on the things I love, because I'm using less to keep up an image;
• I have less depression, and I self-sabotage a lot less;
• I get to stay sober;
• I no longer feel like a fraud every.single.day;
• I trust others more;
• I trust myself more;
• I believe my opening up, being real, and showing that it's not only possible but desirable allows others to be real;
• My relationships are real (and, conversely, fake folks drop away);
• I grow to love myself and humanity more.

These are just some of the benefits of allowing myself to be the person that the Universe created. It's all about freedom - that which we cry for so much, yet push away by our actions. And I understand today that my flaws and imperfections are there as ways to connect with my Higher Power and others; because, trust me, if I were perfect, I wouldn't have nothin' to do with nobody. This I know.

It is a scary process, but one which is quite doable if done prudently with safe people. A person probably doesn't want to walk into the biker bar they've been going to for the past twenty years one night and announce that they're gay. However, there are other ways to come to healthy grips with who we are. If you're interested in doing this, start by finding someone who has done it themselves.

Shakespeare wrote, "To thine own self be true." He knew. He knew.

Namaste,

Ken