5:14 am and already 6 comments. I share before I read other's comments. This piece made my heart pound for you. It's so hard when a former safe/not safe response gets triggered. I call it the Universe testing me. You can't deny what you feel, what seems out of kilter. You can't swallow your words and deny yourself nourishment. You can't control what arises in your setting. But yea for you writing your truth that you caught yourself in the midst of temptation. This level of awareness is what will "save" you from lesser responses. I hope those around you give you the grace to respond as you see fit. Blessings on this rocky road!!!
Thank you for this beautiful response. I am so grateful to have found such wonderful people in my life that make it possible for me to share. Writing and sharing seems to be the thing that has been most helpful in my recovery and I'm learning to take care of myself with compassion instead of contempt.
You caught yourself, dear one. The voice has a never ending supply of whispers. And it will use them whenever it can. You aren’t alone in this. You are brave to reach out with your feelings and let us wrap you up with our love. And how, by following you and reading your writing and watching your vulnerability grow, and never having met you, can I say that I love you? I don’t know how, but I know that I do. Your courage is palpable.
I don't even know what to say to you. This is nothing short of a gift to me this morning. This piece, I imagine you can imagine, was exceedingly hard to publish. I hate being vulnerable, and yet, somehow I have loosened my grip enough to discover that vulnerability, with the right people, is magical. Thank you for being the right person. Thank you for telling me you are there, holding my words with such care. I am grateful to be in this community with you.
I know it was hard. I know it is hard, every f*ing time we just say or write what we’re feeling instead of crafting. That’s what makes you real. That’s what is magical. That’s what heals. That’s what gathers the love around you.
Our son is getting married on Saturday and there are lots of family from out of town and so many things to do. Performance being my drug of choice I can feel myself slipping into the efficient performance roll and focusing on doing and not being and I really really want to just slow down and enjoy each moment with family.
I think those patterns are so well tread and familiar they are so easy to slip into, like putting on a comfy old sweatshirt. Fighting against it doesn't seem to help but acknowledging it and bringing it into the light seems to. It takes so much courage to do that. Thanks for the reminder to acknowledge that and stay present.
Thank you for sharing this and I hope sharing helps you stay present, it has been the only antidote that seems to work for me. Thank you for receiving my words with such kindness, it helps more than you know (although you seem to know)❤️
I am struck by the depth of recognition you have for these patterns. What came across was also a sense of steady softness that you are able to extend to this part of yourself. Thank you for sharing - I am grateful I can see this approach modeled in (almost) real time.
I really appreciate your honesty and I can relate well to what you feel about slipping into a dark pattern. I had a pattern of drinking in the past. I would not call myself an alcoholic but one with a substance abuse issue. It’s not that I drank myself into oblivion but it was the reason i was drinking. To quiet the fear and anxiety I felt. It seemed there were other reasons too. If something good happened, a beer would be to celebrate. If i had a hard day, I could drink a beer to help me feel better. I began to see my beer as a fair-weather friend. When i was a teen I had a few of those kind of friends. They would call and describe the fun we’d have together if i came over. Then I would get there and they would be brushing their hair or engaged in some other activity that did not include me. But every time they called, I believed it would be different. Only to be let down again. The same got to be with my drinking. The voice would say, “oh come on, have a drink, it will make you feel better. “ After years of this I stopped this voice and said, “you are not telling me the truth.” Then there was an incident a few months after my mother died where I drank too much. I was traveling at the time and I was with a group of people. Everyone was drinking shots of vodka (yuck). It turned out I don’t remember how i got to my hotel room or got into my pajamas, etc. I woke up from a dream and I shattered the lamp on the night table next to me. When i woke up, there was shards of glass and broken lamp pieces all over the floor. I was absolutely horrified ! I went and told the desk downstairs I had a bad dream, etc. The cleaning crew cleaned it up and i never heard a word about it. But that was the day I never drank again like that. That was 10 years ago. At that point, I stopped buying beer to drink at home and I found I was able to have a beer here and there with friends out to dinner. But it was not part of my life. So.. recently.. the pull has come back a bit and I have found myself over at the neighborhood pub more times than I’d like to be. Again, only 2 drinks but i don’t want to be there at all! I recently moved and the man who owns my apartment is a drinker. I have never seen him drunk but when i came to bring things to my apartment, (which he built), I would see freshly chilled half bottles of wine around the place. (This was during the day). I think seeing this made me think, “if he can do it, so can i. “ but no.. I do not want this. I hear the pull at times coming and I have given in more times than I’d like to but lately I have been staying the course. I tell myself I can have ice cream instead if i want a treat. It’s not always easy to feel the pull of old patterns coming back. I also like to see it like going back to the old neighborhood. when i was a child I grew up inner city Chicago. It got to be a very dangerous and bad neighborhood and my family moved to the suburbs. But i used to go back to the old neighborhood to feel those old feelings. Eventually, I stopped going. So now when i have gone out for a beer, i call it visiting the old ‘hood. I don’t like it there and want to not go very often!
Thank you for sharing this part of yourself. There is so much power and relief in learning of how we are all connected even when our stories they look very different from the surface . You name the pool so beautifully and make it so understandable with the stories from your early years. Thank you. This was a hard thing to share and your words feel like a gift in response.
Thank you. I appreciate being able to share this story because it helps me be more accountable to myself. I have to say that pull is lessening because i have not given into it recently. I find that the more we give in, the more it pulls. Was it you who said this or somewhere i read that if you have a choice between choosing what makes you feel good in the short run vs choosing what is best in the long run. Best to choose the long run.
That is definitely something I have said, and can be so hard to do. I am glad you are making that choice for yourself right now. I think that is the best we can do and you should be proud of how your are doing it.
This is so authentic, so true & so vulnerable. Thank you for showing up & telling your truth over & over again. Every morning I look forward to reading your writing ❤️
Thank you for this. This one was a difficult o e to publish, but somehow being honest has changed everything. Thank you for making it a little bit easier for me today❤️
It's weird how often we imagine healing as the disappearance of the old instinct.
As though one day the nervous system receives the memo, updates its software, and says, “Wonderful news. We have reviewed the childhood coping mechanisms and will no longer be using the ones that nearly destroyed us.”
Unfortunately, the nervous system appears to have been designed by a committee.
The strange thing about old patterns is that many of them began as protection. They worked once. Maybe badly, maybe at enormous cost, but they worked enough that some part of us remembers them as safety. So when life begins to feel uncertain again, the mind does not necessarily ask, “What is healthiest?” It asks, “What have we done before that made the noise stop?”
And sometimes the answer is something we already know we cannot afford.
That is why I think there is something important in the space between the pull and what happens next.
The pull can still arrive. The old machinery can start humming. The familiar voice can clear its throat and begin presenting its terrible PowerPoint presentation titled *Reasons We Should Absolutely Do This Again.*
But now there is another part of you in the room.
One that recognizes the presentation.
One that knows how the last meeting ended.
Maybe recovery is not becoming a person who never hears the old voice again. Maybe it is becoming a person who no longer automatically mistakes familiarity for truth.
And there is something about writing that seems connected to this too. We can become incredibly skilled at explaining our lives without actually inhabiting them. Feelings become analysis. Pain becomes theory. Experience becomes something we package neatly enough that nobody, including ourselves, has to touch it.
Then occasionally the writing stops behaving.
It becomes less polished, less strategic, less concerned with how it will land.
And suddenly the person who has been explaining everything is back inside the experience again.
That may not be a cure. It may simply be contact.
But contact matters.
Because perhaps slipping is frightening partly because we were taught to imagine recovery as a straight road, when human beings seem to have designed emotional life using roughly the same philosophy as Boston street planning.
You can know exactly where you are going, miss one turn, and somehow find yourself passing the same Dunkin’ three times.
The victory is not never getting lost.
It is recognizing the intersection sooner.
And choosing differently.
Also, regrettably, under the terms of my recently announced policy, I have determined that commenting on someone else’s writing technically constitutes a collaboration.
Therefore, this will sadly be my final comment on anyone’s Substack.
I simply cannot continue polluting otherwise respectable essays with my unsolicited thoughts.
Please consider yourself fortunate to have received one of the final emissions before the facility was shut down by regulators.
Holy hell Chris, I do not accept. I realize I'm not special, but i want to be on this one, your comments have meant the world to me. This one is no different. I feel seen, and understood, and more than that, your comments always illuminate what was underneath my words that i had somehow miss. So please, for you, for me, and for anyone that has read one of tour insightful comments, DO NOT STOP
I feel this deeply…I am really struggling with my eating lately. In my case, I have really bad digestion because of an immune disorder, I make no antibodies. As a result, I often control my intake because it hurts less. However, there is an emotional and stress side to my eating as well that I’ve found is waving to me to pay attention. It’s the first time I’ve really understood what disordered eating was I’ve not really experienced before. Paying attention now❤️
I’m sorry you have been forced to pay attention in this way and I am so sorry for the fact of your struggling. Thank you for sharing a piece of yourself here.
I felt the vulnerability and honesty in every word of this. There is something so deeply human in sharing not only what you’ve learned, but also the places where knowing doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. I’m especially holding onto, ‘slipping isn’t the same as falling.’ Thank you for trusting us with something this tender. 💜
Being aware of pattern recognition is a powerful thing and it takes time and repetition I find. When I feel as if I'm slipping into old behaviours and I notice I'm doing so, I thank that young part of myself for her protection and tell her she can stand down now as I'm taking care of her 💛
When you write for yourself it helps so many! Thank you for sharing your truth and complicated experience. I hope you can feel the wrap of support near and far to get you through this passage.
It's good for us to share vulnerability. I am learning to do this as well, some through writing. We all fall into old behavioral patterns. That we are aware of what is happening is the important part. And you are choosing new patterns, such as reaching out to the community you have created here. Releasing the shame. It takes time to build new patterns. And we will always have the same vulnerable spots. Our wounds. I have mine too. When a pattern starts, I can choose to react differently, even if I start to fall into it, I can back up and start again. Be kind to yourself, and I know you know this and tell your patients this too. You're correct "slipping is not falling." 🫂
Thank you for this. It is beautiful and helpful and I appreciate every word of it. This community is outstanding, thank you for being part of it and for your generous words today.
What a great spot on read. I knew I had been triggered by recent events but missed the direction I was slipping. I started over sharing which turns into well that was not mine to tell into embarrassment. This time was worse than usual and my apologies can’t fix it. I realize now I haven’t been journaling enough so that over sharing ends up in the wrong place instead of in the page. Lesson relearned but still damage done.
I hope you are able to be soft with yourself, we all slept in the best we can do is to recognize it, be compassionate with ourselves, and do our best to pick ourselves back up. You are doing the hard work, I can see it already in these words.
I never comment on anything but really feel the need to now. Your experience speaks to me so deeply. The way you describe the “pull”. Toward the quiet, that “false peace” of restriction. Just seeing it articulated so honestly is a gift. I realize I don’t have to go back down that trail when it beckons. Thank you so much for your writing and your honesty.
Thank you so much for sharing your response with me. Truly. I don't say this lately, this community has been beyond a gift to me. Thank you for being a part of that.
5:14 am and already 6 comments. I share before I read other's comments. This piece made my heart pound for you. It's so hard when a former safe/not safe response gets triggered. I call it the Universe testing me. You can't deny what you feel, what seems out of kilter. You can't swallow your words and deny yourself nourishment. You can't control what arises in your setting. But yea for you writing your truth that you caught yourself in the midst of temptation. This level of awareness is what will "save" you from lesser responses. I hope those around you give you the grace to respond as you see fit. Blessings on this rocky road!!!
Thank you for this beautiful response. I am so grateful to have found such wonderful people in my life that make it possible for me to share. Writing and sharing seems to be the thing that has been most helpful in my recovery and I'm learning to take care of myself with compassion instead of contempt.
Right back at you. 😘
You caught yourself, dear one. The voice has a never ending supply of whispers. And it will use them whenever it can. You aren’t alone in this. You are brave to reach out with your feelings and let us wrap you up with our love. And how, by following you and reading your writing and watching your vulnerability grow, and never having met you, can I say that I love you? I don’t know how, but I know that I do. Your courage is palpable.
I don't even know what to say to you. This is nothing short of a gift to me this morning. This piece, I imagine you can imagine, was exceedingly hard to publish. I hate being vulnerable, and yet, somehow I have loosened my grip enough to discover that vulnerability, with the right people, is magical. Thank you for being the right person. Thank you for telling me you are there, holding my words with such care. I am grateful to be in this community with you.
I know it was hard. I know it is hard, every f*ing time we just say or write what we’re feeling instead of crafting. That’s what makes you real. That’s what is magical. That’s what heals. That’s what gathers the love around you.
So much love right back to you. Thank you for all of this.
I hear you.
Our son is getting married on Saturday and there are lots of family from out of town and so many things to do. Performance being my drug of choice I can feel myself slipping into the efficient performance roll and focusing on doing and not being and I really really want to just slow down and enjoy each moment with family.
I think those patterns are so well tread and familiar they are so easy to slip into, like putting on a comfy old sweatshirt. Fighting against it doesn't seem to help but acknowledging it and bringing it into the light seems to. It takes so much courage to do that. Thanks for the reminder to acknowledge that and stay present.
Thank you for sharing this and I hope sharing helps you stay present, it has been the only antidote that seems to work for me. Thank you for receiving my words with such kindness, it helps more than you know (although you seem to know)❤️
I am struck by the depth of recognition you have for these patterns. What came across was also a sense of steady softness that you are able to extend to this part of yourself. Thank you for sharing - I am grateful I can see this approach modeled in (almost) real time.
Thank you, for showing up here with such tenderness. This was not an easy one to publish and you just made it a little more comfortable for me❤️
I really appreciate your honesty and I can relate well to what you feel about slipping into a dark pattern. I had a pattern of drinking in the past. I would not call myself an alcoholic but one with a substance abuse issue. It’s not that I drank myself into oblivion but it was the reason i was drinking. To quiet the fear and anxiety I felt. It seemed there were other reasons too. If something good happened, a beer would be to celebrate. If i had a hard day, I could drink a beer to help me feel better. I began to see my beer as a fair-weather friend. When i was a teen I had a few of those kind of friends. They would call and describe the fun we’d have together if i came over. Then I would get there and they would be brushing their hair or engaged in some other activity that did not include me. But every time they called, I believed it would be different. Only to be let down again. The same got to be with my drinking. The voice would say, “oh come on, have a drink, it will make you feel better. “ After years of this I stopped this voice and said, “you are not telling me the truth.” Then there was an incident a few months after my mother died where I drank too much. I was traveling at the time and I was with a group of people. Everyone was drinking shots of vodka (yuck). It turned out I don’t remember how i got to my hotel room or got into my pajamas, etc. I woke up from a dream and I shattered the lamp on the night table next to me. When i woke up, there was shards of glass and broken lamp pieces all over the floor. I was absolutely horrified ! I went and told the desk downstairs I had a bad dream, etc. The cleaning crew cleaned it up and i never heard a word about it. But that was the day I never drank again like that. That was 10 years ago. At that point, I stopped buying beer to drink at home and I found I was able to have a beer here and there with friends out to dinner. But it was not part of my life. So.. recently.. the pull has come back a bit and I have found myself over at the neighborhood pub more times than I’d like to be. Again, only 2 drinks but i don’t want to be there at all! I recently moved and the man who owns my apartment is a drinker. I have never seen him drunk but when i came to bring things to my apartment, (which he built), I would see freshly chilled half bottles of wine around the place. (This was during the day). I think seeing this made me think, “if he can do it, so can i. “ but no.. I do not want this. I hear the pull at times coming and I have given in more times than I’d like to but lately I have been staying the course. I tell myself I can have ice cream instead if i want a treat. It’s not always easy to feel the pull of old patterns coming back. I also like to see it like going back to the old neighborhood. when i was a child I grew up inner city Chicago. It got to be a very dangerous and bad neighborhood and my family moved to the suburbs. But i used to go back to the old neighborhood to feel those old feelings. Eventually, I stopped going. So now when i have gone out for a beer, i call it visiting the old ‘hood. I don’t like it there and want to not go very often!
Thank you for sharing this part of yourself. There is so much power and relief in learning of how we are all connected even when our stories they look very different from the surface . You name the pool so beautifully and make it so understandable with the stories from your early years. Thank you. This was a hard thing to share and your words feel like a gift in response.
Old patterns are so damn comfortable and easy though. Too easy to settle back into. Keep on forming the patterns that you truly want and need. 🐢
Thank you. I appreciate being able to share this story because it helps me be more accountable to myself. I have to say that pull is lessening because i have not given into it recently. I find that the more we give in, the more it pulls. Was it you who said this or somewhere i read that if you have a choice between choosing what makes you feel good in the short run vs choosing what is best in the long run. Best to choose the long run.
That is definitely something I have said, and can be so hard to do. I am glad you are making that choice for yourself right now. I think that is the best we can do and you should be proud of how your are doing it.
Thank you!
This is so authentic, so true & so vulnerable. Thank you for showing up & telling your truth over & over again. Every morning I look forward to reading your writing ❤️
Thank you for this. This one was a difficult o e to publish, but somehow being honest has changed everything. Thank you for making it a little bit easier for me today❤️
It's weird how often we imagine healing as the disappearance of the old instinct.
As though one day the nervous system receives the memo, updates its software, and says, “Wonderful news. We have reviewed the childhood coping mechanisms and will no longer be using the ones that nearly destroyed us.”
Unfortunately, the nervous system appears to have been designed by a committee.
The strange thing about old patterns is that many of them began as protection. They worked once. Maybe badly, maybe at enormous cost, but they worked enough that some part of us remembers them as safety. So when life begins to feel uncertain again, the mind does not necessarily ask, “What is healthiest?” It asks, “What have we done before that made the noise stop?”
And sometimes the answer is something we already know we cannot afford.
That is why I think there is something important in the space between the pull and what happens next.
The pull can still arrive. The old machinery can start humming. The familiar voice can clear its throat and begin presenting its terrible PowerPoint presentation titled *Reasons We Should Absolutely Do This Again.*
But now there is another part of you in the room.
One that recognizes the presentation.
One that knows how the last meeting ended.
Maybe recovery is not becoming a person who never hears the old voice again. Maybe it is becoming a person who no longer automatically mistakes familiarity for truth.
And there is something about writing that seems connected to this too. We can become incredibly skilled at explaining our lives without actually inhabiting them. Feelings become analysis. Pain becomes theory. Experience becomes something we package neatly enough that nobody, including ourselves, has to touch it.
Then occasionally the writing stops behaving.
It becomes less polished, less strategic, less concerned with how it will land.
And suddenly the person who has been explaining everything is back inside the experience again.
That may not be a cure. It may simply be contact.
But contact matters.
Because perhaps slipping is frightening partly because we were taught to imagine recovery as a straight road, when human beings seem to have designed emotional life using roughly the same philosophy as Boston street planning.
You can know exactly where you are going, miss one turn, and somehow find yourself passing the same Dunkin’ three times.
The victory is not never getting lost.
It is recognizing the intersection sooner.
And choosing differently.
Also, regrettably, under the terms of my recently announced policy, I have determined that commenting on someone else’s writing technically constitutes a collaboration.
Therefore, this will sadly be my final comment on anyone’s Substack.
I simply cannot continue polluting otherwise respectable essays with my unsolicited thoughts.
Please consider yourself fortunate to have received one of the final emissions before the facility was shut down by regulators.
Holy hell Chris, I do not accept. I realize I'm not special, but i want to be on this one, your comments have meant the world to me. This one is no different. I feel seen, and understood, and more than that, your comments always illuminate what was underneath my words that i had somehow miss. So please, for you, for me, and for anyone that has read one of tour insightful comments, DO NOT STOP
I feel this deeply…I am really struggling with my eating lately. In my case, I have really bad digestion because of an immune disorder, I make no antibodies. As a result, I often control my intake because it hurts less. However, there is an emotional and stress side to my eating as well that I’ve found is waving to me to pay attention. It’s the first time I’ve really understood what disordered eating was I’ve not really experienced before. Paying attention now❤️
I’m sorry you have been forced to pay attention in this way and I am so sorry for the fact of your struggling. Thank you for sharing a piece of yourself here.
I felt the vulnerability and honesty in every word of this. There is something so deeply human in sharing not only what you’ve learned, but also the places where knowing doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. I’m especially holding onto, ‘slipping isn’t the same as falling.’ Thank you for trusting us with something this tender. 💜
Thank you for showing with tenderness, the way you always do❤️
Hugs 💜
❤️
Being aware of pattern recognition is a powerful thing and it takes time and repetition I find. When I feel as if I'm slipping into old behaviours and I notice I'm doing so, I thank that young part of myself for her protection and tell her she can stand down now as I'm taking care of her 💛
Karen
Exactly! Learning to treat these younger parts of myself with compassion instead of criticism has changed just about everything.
When you write for yourself it helps so many! Thank you for sharing your truth and complicated experience. I hope you can feel the wrap of support near and far to get you through this passage.
And the support of this community is incredible, I never anticipated finding it here, but I'm always grateful for it.
Very powerful writing friend! Your words landed with me!
Thank you for letting me know. I so appreciate being here with you.
It's good for us to share vulnerability. I am learning to do this as well, some through writing. We all fall into old behavioral patterns. That we are aware of what is happening is the important part. And you are choosing new patterns, such as reaching out to the community you have created here. Releasing the shame. It takes time to build new patterns. And we will always have the same vulnerable spots. Our wounds. I have mine too. When a pattern starts, I can choose to react differently, even if I start to fall into it, I can back up and start again. Be kind to yourself, and I know you know this and tell your patients this too. You're correct "slipping is not falling." 🫂
Thank you for this. It is beautiful and helpful and I appreciate every word of it. This community is outstanding, thank you for being part of it and for your generous words today.
What a great spot on read. I knew I had been triggered by recent events but missed the direction I was slipping. I started over sharing which turns into well that was not mine to tell into embarrassment. This time was worse than usual and my apologies can’t fix it. I realize now I haven’t been journaling enough so that over sharing ends up in the wrong place instead of in the page. Lesson relearned but still damage done.
I hope you are able to be soft with yourself, we all slept in the best we can do is to recognize it, be compassionate with ourselves, and do our best to pick ourselves back up. You are doing the hard work, I can see it already in these words.
Thank you.
❤️
I never comment on anything but really feel the need to now. Your experience speaks to me so deeply. The way you describe the “pull”. Toward the quiet, that “false peace” of restriction. Just seeing it articulated so honestly is a gift. I realize I don’t have to go back down that trail when it beckons. Thank you so much for your writing and your honesty.
Thank you so much for sharing your response with me. Truly. I don't say this lately, this community has been beyond a gift to me. Thank you for being a part of that.