I Am a Complicated Person
A valued friend on EP messaged me recently that he'd begun to read my stories and experiences other than my sexual ones and is coming to perceive me as "something more." I take that as a compliment and value that special friend's opinion and comment. Another person here recently reached out in a way to ask for help with something intensely private in his life, and I feel a sense of responsibility that he sought my "counsel." That responsibility is a heavy one, to be certain, and it forced me to ask myself how I've come from where I started to where I am now.
If I were to quantify the time I've spent in my lifetime in "therapy," "counseling" or "treatment" or in whatever other program we can concoct, I suspect they would total years. Or, at least, I've probably paid for a few shrinks' medical education. In hindsight, I think I expected "counseling" to serve up a "magic bullet" that would "cure" all my ills and, through the years, those ills were diagnosed as neuroses, clinical depression, alcoholism and post-traumatic stress syndrome. But it took being the intended victim of a crime of horrific violence little more than 10 years ago in which I shot one of two would-be assailants with his own gun that, no pun intended, I got that "magic bullet." It was the understanding - finally! - that therapy or treatment simply gives me the tools that might make my life a little better, a little more bearable, but that it is up to me to pick up and put those tools to work.
In what has been my last retreat into "therapy," - at least to date - the psychiatrist who today I credit with literally saving my life and for whom I genuinely thank God for "sending" my way, a simple answer to a question I asked made years of complications so very simple, so very clear. As the shrink dictated to his office assistant the prescriptions he issued for me, he asked me if I thought I needed Antabuse, a common drug given to alcoholics to make them sick if they drink on it - sick enough that you have to get better just to die. With my history as an alcoholic, I knew all about Antabuse, but, although I hand't had a drink long before that night of violence, I looked at the doctor puzzled and repeated, "Antabuse? Antabuse?" "Do you think you need a drink?" the doctor asked me. "Uh, no," I stammered and then added, honestly, "it (drinking) hadn't even crossed my mind." I quickly asked the doctor why he asked, and he responded, "Maybe you're strong enough not to need it anymore."
Even now I choke up remembering that statement, word for word, and, then, when I first heard it, tears rolled down my cheek. The years of "counseling" I had before had paid off - finally - in that one comment. I knew with the certainty of truth that, no matter what happened to me after that, even if I were to be charged with murder or end up in a locked psycho ward, that I would be alright because - and a very important concept - I had been "empowered" to be able to say "no" to a wrong choice and that someone, although a doctor, said I was "strong enough" to make the right choice.
And I was alright" - and have been since. Not only have I not had even a temptation or thought of again using alcohol as a "crutch" - because I don't need a crutch anymore - I realized that all the years of therapy had always given me the tools to make better whatever was wrong at the time, but that I hadn't picked up those tools. Today, those tools have simplified years of unneeded complications, and those tools come down to three basic concepts: choices, consequences, and personal responsibility. That is, whatever choices I make will generate consequences as all choices do and, in the end, I and I alone will be responsible to those consequences. And if I don't want to be responsible to consequences that might be too high for me, the choice is logical: make the right choice.
Today, I have no need for self-pity that "justified" my years as a drinking alcoholic and of self-destruction. I have been humbled by the reality that I have no qualification to judge anyone else for their mistakes, and I have more constructive use of my time than recovering from the fall-out of my mistakes. In short, I haven't got time or need for the pain anymore.
I will concede to someone thinking that I make "it" sound "too easy," maybe even "smug" or "self-righteous." Practical application to real life is work - a lot of work. But I have to accept that life, when it throws a curve ball, isn't going to change to accommodate me. I have to be the one to change to accommodate life without self-destructing or sacrificing someone else. Nor can I allow my regrets and shame of my past - and they are plentiful - confine me anymore; I understand now that to re-live and languish in yesterday takes me out of today, and what I might learn today will be missed and make my tomorrow maybe a little less productive.
I am not perfect but, today, I understand I don't have to be. But I do expect myself to make progress. And I also understand that the mistakes of my yesterdays have to be used now only to make my life a lot better than yesterday AND today.
If I were to quantify the time I've spent in my lifetime in "therapy," "counseling" or "treatment" or in whatever other program we can concoct, I suspect they would total years. Or, at least, I've probably paid for a few shrinks' medical education. In hindsight, I think I expected "counseling" to serve up a "magic bullet" that would "cure" all my ills and, through the years, those ills were diagnosed as neuroses, clinical depression, alcoholism and post-traumatic stress syndrome. But it took being the intended victim of a crime of horrific violence little more than 10 years ago in which I shot one of two would-be assailants with his own gun that, no pun intended, I got that "magic bullet." It was the understanding - finally! - that therapy or treatment simply gives me the tools that might make my life a little better, a little more bearable, but that it is up to me to pick up and put those tools to work.
In what has been my last retreat into "therapy," - at least to date - the psychiatrist who today I credit with literally saving my life and for whom I genuinely thank God for "sending" my way, a simple answer to a question I asked made years of complications so very simple, so very clear. As the shrink dictated to his office assistant the presc
Even now I choke up remembering that statement, word for word, and, then, when I first heard it, tears rolled down my cheek. The years of "counseling" I had before had paid off - finally - in that one comment. I knew with the certainty of truth that, no matter what happened to me after that, even if I were to be charged with murder or end up in a locked psycho ward, that I would be alright because - and a very important concept - I had been "empowered" to be able to say "no" to a wrong choice and that someone, although a doctor, said I was "strong enough" to make the right choice.
And I was alright" - and have been since. Not only have I not had even a temptation or thought of again using alcohol as a "crutch" - because I don't need a crutch anymore - I realized that all the years of therapy had always given me the tools to make better whatever was wrong at the time, but that I hadn't picked up those tools. Today, those tools have simplified years of unneeded complications, and those tools come down to three basic concepts: choices, consequences, and personal responsibility. That is, whatever choices I make will generate consequences as all choices do and, in the end, I and I alone will be responsible to those consequences. And if I don't want to be responsible to consequences that might be too high for me, the choice is logical: make the right choice.
Today, I have no need for self-pity that "justified" my years as a drinking alcoholic and of self-destruction. I have been humbled by the reality that I have no qualification to judge anyone else for their mistakes, and I have more constructive use of my time than recovering from the fall-out of my mistakes. In short, I haven't got time or need for the pain anymore.
I will concede to someone thinking that I make "it" sound "too easy," maybe even "smug" or "self-righteous." Practical application to real life is work - a lot of work. But I have to accept that life, when it throws a curve ball, isn't going to change to accommodate me. I have to be the one to change to accommodate life without self-destructing or sacrificing someone else. Nor can I allow my regrets and shame of my past - and they are plentiful - confine me anymore; I understand now that to re-live and languish in yesterday takes me out of today, and what I might learn today will be missed and make my tomorrow maybe a little less productive.
I am not perfect but, today, I understand I don't have to be. But I do expect myself to make progress. And I also understand that the mistakes of my yesterdays have to be used now only to make my life a lot better than yesterday AND today.
By:
cmmacneil
Age:
46-50
,
Male
