There are many ways to sabotage, lose oneself. Like allowing oneself to get sicker.
"You are where you focus."
"You must have a clearly defined goal and a burning desire to let nothing in your way until you achieve that goal."
"You just have to get your priorities in order."
"You must walk your talk"/"Do as I say, not as I do."
We've all heard some version of these, whether in unsolicited advice from parents or in any success-oriented self-help book.
Always, making choices--Would you rather have this, or would you rather have that?
On a 'small' level, this just has to do with knowing what you love, and cultivating that.
I love persimmons, and when I lived in CA I harvested them from October well into December, eating them freely, reveling in their ripe translucence against the slanted fall sunshine.
What have I been choosing instead of being a writer and being stabilized by lithium??
I love writing; I have a burning desire to be a writer. In order to walk that talk:
I should always choose to be writing, or reading for writing, ahead of any other thing. Which means putting it before my paid work, and charging
But also:
In order to walk the talk of being a writer, or any other activity for that matter: I should have been doing more than I have been doing--everything in my power--to avoid falling farther down the spiral of not-eating--losing appetite--not-being-able-to-eat--losing-more-weight.
Even if my burning desire had simply been to be able to hold a conversation, or to be able to remember what I did two minutes ago, or to take a hike without seizing up or getting dizzy, or to be able to travel, or to be left by myself, I should have been doing this.
I have wondered what sort of writing would result from not being able to remember what one did two minutes earlier. I guess you could look back and see what you had there, but that might just perpetuate the muddle. Pretty sure my blog post before last was virtually unintelligible.
Even for the sake of something small. So much more, then, for the sake of something big? Like one's life purpose, and being able to continue taking the medication that made so many things possible and sanified?
In my small defense, it's not as thought I was continually consciously choosing not to feed myself: rather, it was a stream of small-picture excuses and avoidances that built a majorly deficient big picture.
So. I'm in the hole. I'm not traveling over Thanksgiving and we're trying to work it out so that Phil doesn't have to cancel as well (which would leave me feeling terrible, but my ND doesn't want me to stay by myself).
I know what they'll make me do if I go back to treatment. I have to prove to everyone that I can do those things myself, here, at home. But who is going to have any confidence that I can do that, based on the past six weeks?
We're not even talking the "what if I don't do it," the "or else" at this point--they're talking about my survival, and I still can't internalize that as something seriously genuine (or genuinely serious).
With so many things in jeopardy now; with the aversive knowledge of what it would be like in treatment; with the injunction not to leave me alone (when I'm so craving some quiet time at home), I feel pretty motivated to show I can do it. I picture a huge chasm with a railroad bridge collapsed into it. The mess of ties and girders is mending back together in the shape of a spiral. I'm the train-wreck at the bottom, getting the wheels back on, limping over to the tracks, gradually following the spiral up toward a winter sunrise.
I'm writing about something this personal partly because it pertains to and impinges on the life of a writer, but also to hold myself accountable. I'm letting it be known that I want to climb out of the hole. I'm putting the three cups of coconut cream per day out there as something that can be mentioned.
