Roll on February....

Blog 25th of Jan to the 1st of Feb 2015 Goodbye January, hello February. A lot of people I know are glad to see the back of January; my work colleague calls it suicide season and always takes a week off. I did ask her if we were ever going to see her again as she signed out. Fortunately she came back. The months are just passages of time they all bring something with them, a special date, a birthday, an anniversary, familiar predictable weather patterns or sometimes something unexpected, devastating and life changing. Sometimes we put too much power in to them “I always get ill in November” and often we put a huge amount of power into certain dates “My father died a year today” so therefor I must be miserable and hideous to everyone I meet on that day every year. I have nursed many patients who seemed to have an anniversary of some tragic event every day of the year. They were constantly looking backwards re-living all the sadness and keeping themselves in a web of misery and despair, similar to being in active addiction. In recovery living one day at a time we need not do that. Taking each day as it comes, not regretting the past nor choosing to shut the door on it. I can’t close the door on the past, I need to keep it a little open so now and again I can glimpse back in. I need to remember how horrible it was, the nastiest most disgusting parts of my addictions, my shame, my guilt, my excess, and most importantly who I hurt and who I damaged. For me it’s an insurance policy, it’s where I don’t want to go back to. It can also be a positive reminder of how far I’ve come. And sometimes I need to hear it from those I love and harmed however cringey, uncomfortable and toe-curling it may feel. When Owen, children and friends recap on one of my “episodes” I have to listen take one for the team and let them spill it all out. For that is the reality of what I did and how it impacted on them. Neither can I live in the future, hankering and yearning for events that may never happen. ‘If wishes were horses beggars would ride’ goes the old saying. I can make goals for the future and plan to a certain extent, but even the best laid plans can go asunder and I have to accept this. I cannot control the future same as I have no control over the past. So it looks like the only solution for me today is to live in today, one day at a time. This week has ticked along. This week I have mainly found myself being irritated by other people. Self-righteous indignation perhaps a touch! I found myself having dinner with Owen last night having a good old bitch-fest and a moan about the behaviour of other people (that laughably I have no control over) totally powerless. Other people do what they do, I can’t change them, I can only change the way I react to them. The words of the serenity prayer are very apt in this case. I could choose to point out what I think are their shortcomings, but who the hell am I to do that? I’m only just starting to see my own and that’s taken long enough. 46 years! With my friends I have decided to just accept them as they are at the moment, if I am irritated and simmering inside that is my problem not theirs, it is my reaction, as Wyn says even if I feel bad I don’t have to behave badly towards them; just take a deep breath out and let it go. With work it’s slightly more difficult, I have to address problematic behaviour as it affects the team and the unit and I have a few difficult situations coming up this week where I need to address individual behaviour. I find it difficult when people come up with one hundred and fifty different excuses why they can’t or haven’t done something or when people’s egos are so out of control that they remind you of the good works they have done for you in the past conveniently forgetting that the past is not the issue. I would rather good old fashioned honesty “I’m sorry boss, I made a mess of things” rather than “My Auntie so and so is ill and my cat got run over and anyway I blame Mickey Mouse he was running the shift and after everything I’ve ever done for the good of these patients.” Excuses and blame. A familiar duo, it would do me good to remember that. It is what it is, and however I approach it (even if I’m simmering slowly inside) I need to approach it with honesty, openness, compassion and love and do it the way I would like it done to me. My eating’s been fairly stable this week; I have over-eaten on one maybe two occasions but not by a huge amount. One was an all-you-can-eat buffet (not the best of ideas for a person with an eating disorder) I am starting to enjoy the freedom that a plan gives you. I know that certain foods are no good for me so the obsession is beginning to wane. I was surprised on Friday night when I went for a meal, another friend an overeater like me had asked me if I had looked at the desert menu. It hadn’t even entered my mind. I looked at her daft “Why? Why would I want to? That would be like taunting myself”. I have decided that I do not eat deserts and with the help of my higher power there is no need to look at the desert menu. I wandered if she had an ulterior motive for asking? If I had said “Oh bugger! Let’s do it” would that have given her licence to do the same? Would my weakness have given way to hers? I did ask her why she asked and she said that she thinks there must be a little bit of self-sabotage inside her as she often has items in the house that belong to her family that are not on her eating plan. I know that I cannot do that at the moment. I could not have my trigger foods in the house as I know I would be fixating on them. The house was where the bulk (excuse the pun) of my binging occurred. That suits me just fine at the moment why put yourself through the torment when you don’t have to? So roll on February and another positive month working and living my recovery programme.