oops it's been awhile

School and life in general has been the usual crazy up and down and up and down and sort of medium right now-ness. First I got better as I said in my last post, then I gradually got worse and worse thanks to not keeping my spiritual life a priority. I stopped going to MA, I stopped going to church, I stopped praying and figured that I could get by just going to Bible study once in a while. I was so wrong. I had a week and a half where I couldn't get any work done or go to any classes and then when I was visiting my old dealer and his wife, I had a slip. I went to his room alone and found lines of blow just sitting there. I couldn't stop myself. I took some and got really high. Almost 3 years of sobriety gone. Gone in one moment. It felt horrible, then amazing and then horrible again since I became overcome with guilt. I told a church friend what happened and she told me to pray. It was the last thing I wanted to do but I forced myself and it was the best thing I could have done. I realized that guilt is from the devil, not God. It is used to keep us enslaved to our sinful addictions. That's why Jesus sacrificed Himself and took on our guilt. We don't have to carry it any more. We are free to choose life over sin. I am free to choose not to do more drugs and to move on with life. And that is what I have done. As part of Easter service I gave this testimony and many people came to me saying it was inspirational and how brave I was. It was actually recorded and is on the internet. Eep! Oh well, why should I be ashamed to be a drug addict? We all have our addictions.
Anyway, I now am in final exam season and it is really stressful. I have been praying everyday, going to MA and church. I now know just how badly I need Him. I've been too behind but I prayed and thanks to God one of my profs is letting me do their exam a bit later. I still don't know if I'll get through this end of semester in one piece. I have urges for drugs pretty often now and every night I dream of them but I know God is with me no matter what.

'Genie, you're free' - Rachel Evan Wood

Wow, a lot of people have been writing about mental illness now because of Robin Williams. And I feel I must join the party. Firstly, I'm happy to see so much awareness happening and articles talking about the fact that suicide is not cowardly etc... but I'm also sad that it takes a high profile death from mental illness for there to be more awareness about something so common and powerful. I personally know 4 people who died from mental illness and they are just as worthy to be aware of.
Secondly, I am simply just sad that he killed himself. I've written here before about being in the same mindset yet here I am after 7 suicide attempts, still alive and actually doing pretty well now. I know very well the suffering involved to hurt or try to kill yourself so what is the difference between me and him? What is that factor that kept me alive and let him die? I am certainly not more worthy than anyone else. I am sad that he will no longer light up people's faces except in recordings. I am sad for his family and friends.
Thirdly, I am scared. After being completely sober for 20 years, he went on a bender with alcohol and cocaine, went to rehab recently and then killed himself. As a recovering addict, this scares me A LOT. I have only 2 years of partial sobriety (I still drink on occasion but don't do any street drugs), I am in the middle of step 5 out of 12 from AA, I am nowhere near 20 years of sobriety. Many people, including recovering addicts, wish to think that after a certain amount of clean time you are 'cured'. You don't have to worry any more about relapsing. But clearly this is very false. This man had 20 years of sobriety and yet still relapsed. That reminds me that I have to be constantly vigilant and constantly work on staying mentally healthy and spiritually strong. The consequence of letting my guard down can take my life. What a harsh reality but true of any chronic illness. His death scares me by making me wonder if I will ever feel too comfortable in the future, let my guard down, relapse and then die of overdose or suicide...

Merry Christmas everyone!

And happy holidays! We barely got our outdoor lights and Christmas tree up in time as usual. The holidays have been mostly good to me. We threw a surprise birthday party for the close family friend who I like to consider a second mom. She was sooo happy and said it felt like she was in a dream. Success! It feels so good to make other people happy. It was also a friend's birthday party at a bar and she loved the present from me. Success again! But, me and my bf overdrank and had to wait hours at my car to sober up to drive. Got home at 5am yikes. I really have to be careful about this drinking thing. It seems the more people are around me, the more I feel like drinking. A friend says maybe it's social anxiety but I was surrounded by good friends that I'm not anxious around. I think it's whether there's a party atmosphere or not. It's like a trigger to have more and get drunk as a result. I'm going to my bf's family Christmas party and there will be 50 people there so I'm gonna do my best to be careful. I'm definitely gonna be anxious being around that many people I barely know. Another thing that added to my holiday cheer is that I got an A+ in biology!
And of course, the most important thing that has given me inner joy is God incarnated on earth to save me from myself. This Christmas I'm more thankful than ever before and I get tears of joy thinking about how Jesus used everything I went through to set me free from addiction. Free from the worst slavery I thought was possible for me. I really feel like a prisoner finally set free. I could fall into the same trap again but I really hope not. I've been in hospitals now enough to last a lifetime.

recovering

I am so thankful first to God and then to myself. I'm so thankful that I can now wake up every morning and feel ok, that the day will be ok and that God will give me the energy to get through it. People take this for granted and go on autopilot. But after so many years of feeling like shit every morning, feeling as if every day might be my last because I can't take life anymore, I am so thankful that things are far more normal and even enjoyable now. I'm almost done my first semester in school since my crazy crisis, and I've been getting good marks and finding my classes very interesting. There were certainly some bumps in the road but I think the desert part of my journey is ending and I'm so thankful for that. I'm even thankful for the desert times, because they have made me what I am today. I know myself so much better now, and have become so much wiser about human nature and as a result I am closer to God than I ever have been before. It's the start of what I always wanted. To be fully dependent on God and His unconditional love for me which is the foundation of being an agent of miracles in a down-trodden world. And boy do I know what it's like to be down-trodden. Everyday is a miracle when I don't use drugs and I don't hurt myself, which is every day recently. With the right meds, techniques learned from therapy and God's providence, I am ok. Which is amazing considering how I was just a few months ago. Getting clean was the hardest thing I ever had to do but wow what a difference it makes. My BPD is much less severe and I am mostly functional again. I am now doing my best to take care of myself everyday and with God keeping me safe too, I can do what I have to do: go to class, do homework, keep up hygiene etc... and I'll never take that for granted. Any time I get a craving all I have to do is remember ending up in the hospital all the time, getting strapped down like in the movies, being on suicide watch, getting occasionally mistreated by professionals and suffering through the days. I never want to go back there again. The only bad thing I do now is smoke the occasional cigarette and I'll eventually cut that out too when I'm ready. I'm a walking miracle and I hope to help others eventually get on the right path too. I'm not sure I can write about what happened the most recent time I spent in the psychiatric ward and rehab yet but this is where I'm at today and I couldn't be more thankful.

Legalizing pot

Here's another letter I sent to my local newpaper since I know they probably won't publish it. It's important info for anyone weighing the pros and cons of pot.

Colorado and Washington state voted to legalize pot. Clearly it helps for some conditions causing nausea and reduced appetite and more but there is a dark side as well. It has been proven to cause anxiety, depression and psychosis in those predisposed. Also, there are no long-term effects on memory or learning in adult users but there definitely are negative effects on all these things for those who smoke heavily in their teens. I would also like to point out that marijuana today is very different from what it used to be for baby-boomers; growers have increased the psychoactive effects of marijuana to the point that it is much more potent than it used to be. It is not simply a harmless herb anymore. On principle I think if alcohol is legal, then marijuana should be too. It is still less dangerous than alcohol overall. But as a marijuana addict who had to go through hospitals and rehab to stop smoking up constantly and ruining my life, I'm worried about the negative consequences. Marijuana will become as ubiquitous as alcohol and that will definitely help create more addicts. Even now in Montreal where pot is already quite ubiquitous, I meet more and more people who have a problem with pot and it is interfering with their lives. Even my psychiatrist says she is seeing the same thing in her patients more and more. If any place makes it legal, they should ban it from anyone under 18 and increase spending on addiction treatment services with the tax money. Just the existence of Marijuana Anonymous groups proves that pot can take over your life just as badly as any other drug if you're predisposed to addiction. 

if only I lived in Europe/Halloween

Even if only to see Antestor and several metalfests! Arg! Instead I'm across the ocean. So apparently Antestor are gonna play in the Netherlands Nov.3rd and then Germany in Blast of Eternity Nov.10th. I need to find out more about this Blast of Eternity thing. Looks like a Christian metal fest?? I dunno, I'll find out and post more later. Could be good for finding new bands to listen to.

I know I'm not really supposed to but I figure small amounts of Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir are ok to ring in the Halloween season which is my favorite holiday. Unfortunately I'm used to getting smashed and crazy high every Halloween at costume parties, so being sober now I was getting depressed about no more partying. I managed to speak up at my Marijuana Anonymous meeting about it and they said there's a sober Halloween party this weekend organized by Narcotics Anonymous. Wow that will be a different experience! So I'll be a pirate and my bf will be Jesus. He really looks like the stereotypical Jesus with his long hair down. Hopefully a friend or two of mine can come along too though I'm not sure who would willingly forgo intoxication if they're not addicts on Halloween weekend. Want to know what happened last year at Halloween? I went to a high school friend's party at his appartment, met some new people, including my future bf, drank and smoked up so much that I had to go to the bathroom to snort some lines of blow to counteract everything I took because the room was spinning so fast, but I took too much of everything and didn't have enough blow to counteract it all so when someone opened the door to the bathroom, I was leaning on it and fell to the floor because I couldn't stand on my own. I got dragged to a couch where I thought I was gonna die it felt so horrible to be too drunk and high at the same time. I kept calling for an ambulance but nobody could hear me over the music. Eventually I felt better then partied some more and chatted with my future bf again. Crazy, I never want to be that intoxicated ever again. Then, on actual Halloween day, I went trick-or-treating with a friend. Her costume covered her face and I look really young for my age so we got away with being way too old to trick-or-treat but before we went out, we smoked up, took magic mushrooms and I had a few lines of blow. The decorations of the houses looked really pretty then! But yikes, it was always overkill for me. I can't believe how many drugs I would mix on a daily basis.

Drop into hell

Today is just another day, or so it should be in my head but instead it is doomsday for my psyche. The official day my mom died. I'm so torn between intensely missing her because my identity depended on her to an unhealthy degree and being terrified of her because I can still hear her criticizing, imperious voice/ghost and being incredibly angry at what she did to me over the years. So all of these crazy intensely negative emotions fuel my addictions more so now I'm tripping out to music while high on weed and shrooms. Later I'll have some lines and a drink or two and certainly more weed. Yes I know they will all make me worse but it's so I avoid acting on the voice in my head, the part of me brainwashed by my mom's words when I was little that just wants to destroy me. I had a fantasy that became a serious plan, to take all the prescription pills I have and some Tylenol, have a few drinks and show up to my psychologist appointment and tell him what I did at the end of the session. So fucking stupid but part of me is trying to force the rest of me to do it and it's winning out except for the fact that my brother called my old pastor and a church friend so they are both coming for dinner tonight which is really nice of them so I'm trying harder to be in one piece by the end of the day so they don't come all the way out to my house for nothing. After that though, I don't know how I will keep fighting my stupid self. Meanwhile, all the drugs are making my reality so dark and painful because they make me super-sensitive to everything, every single experience is overwhelming. Even the affection from my bf is overwhelming now, I have to tell him to dial it down which is really something because I'm normally the passionate one. Simple tasks and errands/chores are also overwhelmingly stressful now. Also too paranoid about people I don't know or don't know very well so that adds more stress. Just walking in public is a huge deal because I just want to hide from everyone. Asking for help is hard too because if they do, it feels like my situation is worse than I want to believe so it's good my brother did that for me for today at least. Oh great, the poster of the solar system is coming to life like animated 3D right in front of my eyes and I have to go see my psychologist in an hour.

tried and failed

Yes of course my use has been increasing slowly so I figured I should try to at least cut down a bit on the smoking up. I cut down a third of a joint for a week no problem. Cut down another third and still ok. But by the next week I started drinking and snorting more, resulting in a 5 day binge that has left my brain completely drained of any feel-good chemicals. I feel like shit. And I know it's not going to stop because I still can't stop using. Every puff is digging deeper into the feel-like-shit hole and every drink and line are just even bigger and deeper scoops. I can't help but feel that I am fucked. There's only so much abuse the brain and mind can take and I'm just getting more and more unstable. I really don't know what to do anymore. Going through therapy, ending up in hospital and going to rehab were still not enough before. I feel like I need so much more help than the health system can give me and what my friends and family can give me. So I'm left all alone in my head, fighting for my life everyday. But that's not true, I'm not truly alone, God is with me always, I asked for it so I know He is there. He has to be there though I don't often feel it, otherwise I would have been dead a long time ago. I'm still going to get assessed by the centre that runs the rehab and see what happens. Needless to say, in this state I can't do much like tabbing or playing music or anything productive really... including blogging. Next post might be another week or month.

They've turned against me

They were my absolute best friends. It was amazingly comforting to know that I could call on them any time, from almost anywhere and they would be right there for me. When I found life too harsh and unforgiving, I always could count on them to make me forget and laugh again. When I found it too hard to ask anyone for help or simple company, I knew I could easily find myself in their enjoyable and entertaining presence. Actually, we were more than friends. They gave me so much pleasure in increasingly dark days that I slowly started to spend all my time with them. And just when I found them to be more important to my life than the air I breathed, they turned against me. It was the worst betrayal done completely behind my back and while they blinded me to reality they took all my problems and multiplied them into insurmountable mountains. They've darkened my world to the point where I can only despair in hopelessness. And yet, I'm still so dependent on their company. I've learned to let them manage my life and I don't know how to live without them. But the more time I spend with them, the more I suffer their abuse on my psyche and body. I have to somehow have the strength to say good-bye and permanently. I have to love life enough to choose a harder but better way of life. I have to have faith that things will get better with help and without them. I have to love myself to treat myself better and love others.

fellow judgers

Hmm, I think I have noticed a disturbing trend I call 'judging fellows'. It occurs in this sort of situation mostly: someone has a problem, someone else who had a similar problem feels they can give advice on how to solve it but they also can get impatient, harsh and judgmental of the first person. Isn't that weird? You'd think that the person who had similar experiences would be the most sympathetic and supportive of the person with the problem but I've noticed that they can often be the opposite. A good example is the girl at my church who said she used to be addicted to drugs and would help me by calling me and praying for me everyday for my addiction. But as the weeks went by and I still didn't quit, she stopped calling me and later told me that I wasn't doing enough for myself to warrant her help. She was frustrated with me for not trying 'hard enough' by completely quitting. Well in fact, I've been doing alot more than just smoking up all the time and I've been regularly going to therapy which is a strong sign of someone doing something to help themselves! But to her that wasn't enough. I'm sure it's because she was able to quit everything pretty quickly and without any professional help and so she expected that it would be as simple for me. But addiction is different for everyone and there are varying degrees of severity. The more psychological issues you have, the harder it is to quit and believe me, I have more than the average person. I was so shocked and hurt when she told me how she felt. I thought she would be understanding but she in fact judged me through her own experience and thus had little patience for me and my struggles.
Another example is a few comments on reddit r/leaves which I have just discovered is just for people quitting weed or thinking about it which is awesome. One post talked about someone struggling to quit because they self-medicate for depression. One comment said that his problems are self-inflicted and that you need to get out and enjoy life and everyone else suffers too but they get over it and you should stop self-pitying and do stuff. The poster wrote back basically saying that that's what people say when they don't know what depression is like and it's offensive to him. I agree. It's hurtful and harsh and impatient of him because of the tone. It's mostly truthful but doesn't need to be written so angrily. The commenter wrote even more harsh words back with pretty much the same message as before but said they suffered from depression all their life. I was shocked. And thought about this fellow judging phenomenon. They said it took them years but they figured out how to be well and now they suddenly have no patience for others in the same boat but further behind.
So I guess this is a word of warning for myself and whomever. Just because someone went through something similar to your issues, doesn't mean they will be kind and understanding of them. They can just as easily have no patience and judge you as one who never had big issues because it wasn't as hard for them as it might be for you. No one goes through the same mental illnesses with the same experiences. It's harder on some than others and being harsh on people already suffering and vulnerable is just a recipe for disaster either way. For some people, quitting pot is not that hard. You just stop, maybe have a hard time sleeping for a few days, feel kinda funny but you get over it. It's just not the same way for me. I get dreams about using drugs and craving them, I feel alot of anxiety, sometimes to the point of panic attack episodes where I see and hear things that aren't there, I become self-destructive and have to fight powerful urges to cut and hurt myself, my emotions become even more unbalanced than they usually are with my BPD so everything becomes a big deal and everything I experience hurts more so I overreact to everything. Basically, I go crazy without weed. But it will drive me crazy if I don't stop soon. I can't believe what a trap I'm in. And nobody can tell me my experience is otherwise! I am struggling and that's the simple truth and it's my right to express it and need extra help for it.

back from kinda sober NB

Discounting the fact I drank a bit everyday, I survived a mostly clean 5 day family vacation. It was a huge fight in my head but I decided not to try to bring anything and really not smoke and see what it would be like and maybe I could continue it when I got back. Well, it went alright but some of it really felt like rehab and no, I couldn't continue it when I got back. Overall it was a relaxing and fun time with my relatives who have a similar sense of humour but the mornings were hard. First off, the nights would always bring using dreams where I'm trying to or am smoking or taking something. Then I would wake up craving whatever I was dreaming about and feel generally ill without it. I'd feel too much energy and anxiety and some nausea every morning. I also got body aches, some shakes and sluggishness. Psychologically I was anxious and depressed but as the day wore on it would get better since my mind would be distracted from myself. One thing it made me realize was how strongly my brain depends on the powder too now. Even when I got back and smoked, I still had using dreams about making lines until I really had some. Yikes. So now I'm trying to cut back on that and stick more to smoking only. Sigh, I can't believe how much this has become my thing or vice. Before, it used to be a bunch of things like cutting myself, shopping and buying stuff on ebay, always having boyfriends etc... but now it's all been conglomerated into just drugs. I don't cut anymore and I hardly went shopping for myself this year or last and I only just got a new boyfriend after being single for a while. I wonder if having a boyfriend whose condition means he can't smoke or use anything anymore will help me. Before, he was making things worse since he would smoke with me all the time but now he's on meds that don't mix well with any drugs so he only has cigarettes now and so far I am smoking a bit less than before.

magic dreaming

I've been doing this lately since I started buying it again but only in small quantities and not everyday. I suddenly heard Sleep to Dream Her by Dave Matthews Band in my head and instantly craved listening to it on the computer and then close my tired dry eyes and see the crazy dreams going on constantly in my head. It's like a weird music video to the song as I sometimes see the band members performing but it's also really random and life-like at the same time. There's random colours, stars, a lake, clouds, random people etc and everything moves. There's sometimes stories like short films that go on always with an air of mystery. And all throughout is a satisfying thrill that puts a permanent smile on your face. Everything feels so good, especially listening to music and eating. And seeing the dying sunlight and watch the moon and stars come up. And some visions are so engaging I get lost in them for a little bit. I drop into surreality where I have special creator powers but still anything can and does happen. Then I eventually float back down to earthly reality where I'm usually left tired and worn out.

I see the light!

And up I go again! But this time may be different. It started in the DBT group where they had talked about the idea that we all got used to having so much emotional pain (since we all experienced terrible trauma at young ages) that we would seek it out or prolong it by dwelling/indulging in it. Pain became a comfortable friend so we would replay terrible events in our lives in our mind or cause more pain to others around us or hurt ourselves physically. Also, it validates us in the sense of, I have all this pain so I'm allowed to be miserable, be the victim and behave inappropriately as I want since I have to live with the pain. Kinda like two people competing to prove whose gone through more trauma than the other. I found this hard to understand and apply to myself. So what, am I purposely being re-traumatized every time something or someone reminds me of my childhood? Is it my fault my memories haunt and pain me? They said no, it's unconscious. My mind keeps bringing up the past because I haven't dealt with it and keep avoiding it with drugs and alcohol. Somewhere deep inside I am angry and can't accept what happened to me so I can't let it go and move on. I thought about this and figured it must be true but also it must be very deeply hidden because I'm not aware of any actual thoughts like that about my past. All I'm aware of is the crippling emotional and physical pain and anxiety I get every time I think about it. They concluded that I've got to face and deal with the past with my individual therapist, something not easy to do but they encouraged me to get working on it. And then I felt like going to a pub or something anything to get rid of the anxiety I was getting just thinking about dealing with my traumatic past. But I didn't. I already had plans to see friends and it was the middle of the day so no one would want to go drinking with me anyway. But I definitely felt so stressed. Basically I was told I have to do the one thing I unconsciously have been dreading for years.
Then this morning I prayed about it and said "Dear Lord, in the name of the amazing name of Jesus Christ, heal the pain in my heart so that I may be completely free. I know You are the ultimate Healer and I believe You can and want to heal me and I trust in Your timing. I will be healed." And I don't know if it was from God directly or just me thinking about it but I could see myself really living free! I could actually picture myself stopping the drugs and excessive alcohol since I just wouldn't have a good reason anymore to take them. I could see myself being comfortable with myself and living with less anxiety so I could freely pursue my creative and career passions and generally being alot less scared and sensitive about everything. With no more deep emotional pain there's a massive weight lifted from my shoulders and I can more freely take on life's challenges. Free! This vision has blown me away with the hope it gives me. It's like I finally see the end of the nightmarish tunnel. It's taken 7 years just to understand that I have trauma in the past and I need to deal with it by surrendering it to God and letting Him heal me. So it might take years more to be actually healed, or maybe not but anyways I can see the light at the end. I pray I hold on to this, especially if I start feeling suicidal which I think will happen alot less if I have this hope anyways.

so up and down

One can argue it is the nature of having BPD and/or spiritually it is the devil trying to get me down after any positive success in my life but a friend from church noticed how I went from telling her everything was going very well to I'm so depressed and discouraged I couldn't do anything today in a span of a couple days. Spiritually I guess it is the devil attacking me and trying to stop any progress I make but earthly reality speaking it's really a combination of things. A few days ago I felt that I was struggling but not too much and therapy is going very well and it's been helpful. I've been trying a few techniques to distract and soothe myself when something distressing happens and it's not as good as drugs or alcohol but still helps a bit. I felt like I was on the road to getting better and dealing with my issues. Then I went out with friends and made the mistake of getting bottle service and got so tanked I couldn't walk or see. Then smoked up, and had a small mushroom before that. Which reminded me of how I used coke almost all last week. All together it's not looking so good. I sure do spend alot of time either drunk/high, thinking about when I'll do it, how to get it, how much to use etc... And I can't picture life without it all. Now I feel trapped and discouraged and depressed about it. And admitted it to my therapist today so I don't know, he might suggest stopping therapy but I hope not. But I also know my use is getting in the way. I can't remember distressing situations as much so I can't practice learning to deal with them differently. So ok I just need to cut down, but that's proving difficult too. Well, I do remember some distressing dreams that ruined the rest of the day. I dreamt that my mom was alive but treating me like she did when I was small so the whole dream I was just afraid of her and constantly worried about her opinion of whatever I was doing. It was so stressful. And when I woke up I just missed her and felt pain from being reminded of what it was like growing up. Another distressing situation happened today when my dad started talking about how nice it was to have small children around to form a family and how he didn't realize it until we had grown up. I remembered how indifferent he seemed to me when I was little and how unhappy my mom was to have to take care of me. I immediately felt physical pain from my memories that sapped my energy. I've got to find a way to deal with it and move on so it doesn't hurt so much anymore.

ok so I'm stuck

My individual therapist agreed. I'm stuck in an air-tight cycle he says. Although I'm definitely better than just a few months ago, I'm in this cycle where I try to do things but can't keep it up because of perfectionist beliefs that run me into the ground so I have more free time to drink and drug which in turn makes it hard to think, causes loss of interest in other things and gives me hangovers so I have less time to do things I tried doing in the first place and on it goes. So today I pushed myself with reassurances that whatever I do is fine and finally got to play some classical guitar, praise music and sing. But I guess that's not enough in general. He says I've got to break the cycle by making public commitments ie. school or work and reduce the drugs. So I'm gonna call two people he referred me to who are supposed to help me figure out and connect to what I want to do in life. The drugs? Well all I can do is keep trying to control the amounts which has been semi-successful but definitely hard. But what's harder is total abstinence and I'm still exhausted from my last failed attempt.

importance of QT

So, I'm still doing my best to spend some quiet time with God everyday in the morning and boy what a difference it makes. When I do it I can feel God's presence, love and peace from His benevolence. My days are relatively clear on what I need to do and life seems to have purpose. When I forget or somehow just don't spend time with Him (especially a few days in a row) I get more depressed, feel like I'm doing nothing with my life and going nowhere, hate myself as stupid and spoiled and end up drinking and drugging more. And of course the more I do them the more the cycle of suffering spins with hangovers and withdrawals. Truly if I am to get through life it is only by God's grace and spending time with Him through Jesus. My pastor also told me and my brother to read passages like Isaiah 49:9- together and decree them over me to believe and declare that God will heal and free me from my issues and lead me to help others too. She keeps saying I'm beautiful and will be specially powerful in the Holy Spirit which is jarring for me to hear from a relative stranger and considering all my mental health problems. But I do believe God can heal anything and anyone. Even as I spend more time with Him I notice that my borderline personality tendencies go down. I just can't freak out about things as much. And then it's shocking how unstable my normal state is when I don't spend time with Him. On Friday I felt like there was no point to my life and living when we left late to go have supper before service with everyone. Sounds ridiculous but that's how far it goes when I get stressed since I'm hypersensitive. But when I have the peace that transcends all understanding I don't get that stressed in the first place over small things.

moving on from treatment centre

I've officially stopped treatment for addiction. I'm going to focus on spiritually healing to get sober. I prayed about it and of course I have my insecurities about leaving but I'm being reassured by God, by my pastor and my psychologist that they can't do more for me there. I told my therapist that I'm thankful I'm off weed and it's made the biggest difference. I was such a slave to it, I couldn't stop and it was making me just completely messed up in the head that I did so many horrible things to myself in the depths of weed-induced despair. I'm free from it now and I forgive her of triggering my sensitivities to judgment and criticism. I guess we just wish each other the best. And she said that if I need to I can always come back so that's reassuring as well. I ended up crying about leaving the place to my psychologist today which was confusing and he says it's the whole abandonment and loss of mother figure-ish person thing. It is anxiety inducing to leave the place but overall I also feel relief that I don't have to fight or feel guilty about using anymore. I really don't have it in me to resist anymore which also makes me sad but I know God won't let me stay like this forever. No matter what I want or can do. I should look on the bright side anyways, I'm mostly sober these days compared to never at all on weed!

trying again spiritually

It's beyond me to stop the small amounts of drinking/blow but it's not beyond me to try again to spend a little quality time with the Lord everyday and so that's what I did this morning and it was wonderful. I could feel the comfort coming from His love and it felt like pure water falling on and around me, enveloping me and it was very soothing. Finally some inner peace! And I asked for clear direction on whether to continue treatment at the centre. I had to make sure to focus on God and not the voices in my head arguing whether to continue or not. I admired His miracle-working, all-powerful nature and felt Him examining the state of my heart and taking it into account for His plans for me. Which is amazingly considerate of Him. And He told me not to continue because He will show me His power even when I don't want to quit. (It's also because I don't really want to quit that I would just be wasting my time at the addictions centre). Then He warned me that this is not some easy way out, I must continue spending time with Him and eventually I mustn't use everyday. So, I will keep putting aside quiet time for the Lord, go to MA, to church services and start painting and tabbing and writing music again.
In the tiny off chance that I just heard what I wanted to hear and my using gets worse and not better, I can always go back to out-patient treatment or in the worst-case scenario rehab. But I'm quite sure I heard from God Himself and I trust Him more than anyone else since He is beyond any human wisdom. My problems are microscopic compared to His might.
I'm also aware that I will get more attacked spiritually by the devil since I'm trying to spend more time with his enemy so I pray for a legion of angels to protect me in Christ's name.

fell off the wagon

Well, I can at least be honest with myself and most of the people closest to me, I have slipped again. I reason that as long as I stay away from weed I can handle everything else. Was I ever really ever a real addict otherwise? Really? And so I rationalize using other things as ok. And I want to go out to pubs and bars again but my closest friends know my struggle now and don't want to drink with me so I drink alone. They are being good friends of course. I can't have things both ways. But I'm not getting the help I need anymore. The treatment centre says the group I was supposed to wait for is canceled so they could have put me in the regular phase 2 group but I already slipped and need 2 weeks sober time to enter so I'm stuck with just seeing my therapist whom I hate until I can get my act together but who knows if or when that will happen. And seeing that lady once a week is not going to help at all. I'm considering telling her that I will stop treatment completely. They won't give me a different therapist so screw it all, they can't help me anymore. We'll see what she says I guess.

Happy Father's Day from the devil

I'm definitely being attacked by demons. I've had 2 vivid using dreams just this week and then last night too and it was an awful nightmare. I dreamt that my dad got diagnosed with stomach cancer in a late stage which meant he was going to die soon. We had a funeral and memorial right away and tons of people came, mostly from the church where he is an elder. I just went through the motions of greeting people, making sure the events went smoothly but when it was over and people started leaving I started to get upset. Everybody's leaving me alone with my grief and not even saying bye so I got so distressed I screamed at the top of my lungs with all the air I could muster. It felt awful. And I said to myself, "that's it. I'm drinking." And proceeded to drink any beverage with alcohol I could find. Then I found myself playing a game of bowling except with bottles and the pins were bottles of different kinds of alcohol. I was afraid they would break but somehow they didn't. If you knock one over then it's yours to drink. When it was my turn there was only one bottle left, it was champagne, and I aimed well but it didn't reach it because of a clear plastic barrier. I got mad because there wasn't anything else left to drink and I thought to myself geez, I'm addicted.

At church they have told me that all the authority in heaven is granted to us by Jesus so, in the name of Jesus may I be protected from the enemy and get true rest in sleep! I've gotten so stressed I'm getting pimples all over my face.