Human Shaped Drugs...

Maybe this doesn’t happen for you.  Maybe you don’t become hooked on a feeling, a person, a thing, a pattern of behavior.  I do.  Again...still.

I think people might have been my first addiction. I know they were the first thing I used to get the hell away from me and all I thought about and felt.

Shameful to admit, I used people.  I used them to take me away from me, to give me all the things I felt like I lacked: sophistication, intellect, social graces, popularity, a fashion sense, an identity.

Looking back now, I had all those things to some degree, always.  And I do not believe there is anything wrong in seeking to come to know people more intimately because they are attractive to you for whatever reason.  But when you ONLY want to know them because of what they can give you, then that is a problem.

I was never the person that outright used someone else.  I didn’t become your friend to get an invitation to THAT party and then pretend to not know you the next week.  That was not me, and that would have required a self esteem that I did not have.  (Not that would have been a good use of it...).

But I did use people to make me feel better.  If I was upset, I called someone to help me process.  If I was feeling low, I called someone to perk me up.  If I was bored, I called someone to entertain me.  Not something I really like admitting, but it is true.  And I still do this sometimes, I still feel overwhelmed at times with myself and need another to pull me out of whatever spiral I am currently spiraling.

It has taken me a long time to supplant that seemingly innate desire for other contact, other relief, to sit with God or the universe or whatever.  I still have trouble sometimes.  I still, sometimes, pick up the human shaped drugs and go on a run.  I know it will shock no one that reads my drivel that I do this most often with men that are not good for me.

As much recovery as I have in so many other areas of my life, the men and dating department sorely lags and is honestly an embarrassment most of the time I am faced with admitting another bad choice, another fucked up relationship to add to the already burgeoning scrap heap of human intimacy.

Believe me when I tell you that every time I have to admit another failure in the man department, I pause.  I consider NOT admitting it.  But I always do own my part because I am sure that salvation will come if I remain honest and open about my true nature.  I would love to be seen as a woman of honor and dignity and I think I am but certainly not where men are concerned.  I am pretty sure in this department of my life, most of you just shake your heads and avert your eyes.

I share it anyway because it is the way I process myself and also because I know I am not the only one.  I know a great number of us struggle with intimate relationships and our wounds are stubborn in their selection of what is bad but familiar.  If something I have learned, gone through, changed can help someone else, then I am absolutely fine letting my ego take a hit.

So yes, I still engage with those human shaped drugs on occasion but I am working on it.  And honestly, I feel the best I have felt on this topic.  Off the dating sites that just make me sicker and an asshole.  Traveling solo and healing the internal parts of me that make me think another drunk fireman is the way to go.  It is a long process but I feel like I am gaining ground.

Also very happy to report that I am not imbibing any human shaped drugs currently.  All my relationships are balanced and fairly equal and non-addictive.  We shall just skip right over all the cats in my life.  Cat shaped drugs, fuck, I am still over served in that area.

I am going to keep moving forward and working on my shit.  My addictive tendencies.  My love for things that are not good for me: men and chocolate, really.  And the chocolate causes WAY less problems in my life so I am keeping it.  Men, well, the jury is still out on this one...it is hard trying to heal and date.  As I have evinced, not all that pretty either.

Today though, I can claim no addictions to any human shaped drugs.  And while I know it is early and that can change in an instant, in this moment, I am strong, recovering and mostly content.  (She types with cat in lap).