More on Being Good, Moron

In my last post I talked about what it means to be a good person, and I explored that a lot today in the echo chamber of my mind. I don't know if I really learned anything new, but sometimes it's just good to let something sink deeper into you - good or bad.

I spent some time watching episodes of Bojack Horseman. It's a show I fear, but also love at the same time. It's about an alcohol addicted man (well, a horseman) whose addiction touches everybody's life around him. As his alcoholism spirals out of control, so do his self-loathing, cynicism, hopelessness and self-destruction.  If you've seen the show you'd know that every character has their own flaws, and while I relate to all of them, I relate to Bojack the most.

In one of my favorite episodes, "Free Churro" (an emmy nominated episode), Bojack gives a 20 or so minute eulogy for his mother who had just passed away. There's so many parts of that episode that hits home for me - not so much Bojack's own resentment for his mother for the way she raised him (I had a very loving mother), but more about how he realizes that he was born broken, grew up broken, and how he will continue to be broken because he doesn't understand what it means to be human (or horseman, in his case). Or maybe he does understand what it means to be human, but he knows he's incapable.

"All I know about being good I learned from TV. And in TV, flawed characters are constantly showing people they care with these surprising grand gestures. And I think that part of me still believes that's what love is. But in real life, the big gestures isn't enough. You need to be consistent, you need to be dependably good.  You can't just screw everything up, and take a boat out into the ocean to save your best friend, or solve a mystery and fly to Kansas. You need to do it every day, which is so... hard."

I always think a time will come where I can finally show everybody that I am a good person, flawed as I am. I'm always waiting for that perfect opportunity where people will say, "Wow, JC is a great guy. Look what he just did."

But being good isn't a thing you do.  It isn't even many things that you do. It's just something you are. Because you care. Because you're there. Every day.  I missed the memo on that somewhere along the way. And I filled the "goodness" void in my life by gestures that held no emotional risk, like writing a cheque to charity or... well, who am I kidding - I can't even remember the last time I even made a good gesture on my own initiative. I guess I can't even be good incorrectly.

Have any of you ever written anything, like a journal or diary entry, and had a mid-writing epiphany  that you're a complete asshole?  Yeah.

Something is Wrong With Me

A few minutes ago, my wife and I finally had a conversation today after a few days of silence.

It didn't go well.

I have a problem. And in no uncertain terms she dropped a number of truth bombs that made me reevaluate my entire life, purpose and identity. She talked about all the pain I've made her go through, and how cruel I've been to her our entire relationship. Cruel is a word that was tough for me to swallow. I never intentionally tortured her. I never plotted or planned in causing her any pain. In fact, the opposite is probably true... I did everything I thought best to protect her from pain, including keeping secrets and hiding things from her. But most importantly I also never cared for her.  I mean, I loved her.. absolutely, in the way that I thought was love.  But it's true, I never cared for her in a way another human being should care for another. And with her being my wife, that's cruel.

My wife had a health scare and has been in and out of the doctor's getting evaluated. Not once after those evaluations  did I ever check with her on how they went. In fact, I should have been in those evaluations with her to support her.  I have no excuse, other than the severity or importance of the appointments never worked their way into my heart. Or maybe they did, but as I said before, my heart and mind don't communicate. And when the heart and mind don't communicate you lose compassion and caring.

And it's not just her. I seem to block any and every bit of pain other people experience. I don't check in with my aging dad or mom when they have health problems. My brother has been going through depression and stress causing him to take months off work, and now you know as much about it as I do. I have a friend who has recently also gone through a lot of pain and transition in her life, and I never followed up. Another friend has moved several times, and I never find out until months after their move.  I just can't seem to care.

I struggle lots with emotion, and I tie a lot of that to my addiction. But after the painful conversation with my wife, what if this is just the way I am? What if I have recovery from addiction and I find out I'm still uncaring? What if I'm a sociopath and am incapable of caring for someone... Ever?

That led me into a spiral of thoughts that just ruined me this evening.

Being a good person has always been important to me. It's a core part of my identity. It's a success factor in this short life and I consider it to be pretty much the minimum bar for the clichéd deathbed reflection... "Well, I might not have made millions of left a lasting legacy, etc... But at least I was a good person. (Dies)"

Every night I recite a prayer for my eldest son... Part of which is:
"We pray that you grow in kindness and bravery, treasuring truth, loving others and doing good, even when it's hard."
Doing good is something so important to me, I want to instill that philosophy into every fiber of his being.

I always thought of myself as a good person. What is a good person? Well, I obey the law always. I never jaywalk. I get disgusted when I see something block an emergency exit. I follow rules. I've never hit anybody in my life. I open doors for everybody. I am generous with money and, whenever possible, my time. I even believe you can be an addict and still be a good person. Obviously, I'm a horrible, stupid piece of shit to my wife and family because of all this, but I'm not beyond redemption and if I work towards change and recovery I can still become a good person, right?

But what if I am incapable of caring for anybody, including people I love? What if I overcome my addiction and still am utterly incapable of empathizing with people? What if it isn't possible be a good person if you don't care about people?

It's true. You can't be a good person if you don't care for others. It doesn't matter what else you do, if you don't care, you're just not a good person.

So I guess I'm not a good person, and it's hard to say whether or not I ever will be. And I'm not saying that in a self-pity kind of way where I'm looking for sympathy from anybody.  It's just a logical conclusion. I'm cruel. I'm uncaring. I'm very likely faulty from day one. I don't have much to say for my deathbed reflection.

I'm not the person I thought I was.

Emotion to Action

I mentioned in a previous post that my therapist and counsellor said that I live from the neck up, meaning that I suppress emotion, I think everything through and don't act on feeling.

I used to wear the fact that I live my life with as little emotion as possible as a badge of honor. Acting on emotion or feelings typically leads to regrettable mistakes when you get caught up in the moment. Stripping yourself of emotion and looking at everything objectively with no internal bias allows you to see the world for what it really is, and lets you make what we perceive as the right choices for the greater good.

But over the past few months I've come to realize that living without emotion is not really living at all. Being human is all about making those mistakes, having wants and needs, and expressing the emotions to others.  Memories that matter are created only from emotion, and are recalled with the same emotions. Genuine friendships and relationships spawn and are maintained with emotion and die off without them.

Also, I think for me, emotion is tied to action.  In my current frenzy of emotion, brokenness and desperation I find I've been a beacon of productivity. I'm no repair-man, but I managed to fix our broken down dishwasher. I did some maintenance on my car. I've started working out again. I took the kids on a day-long trip to the zoo. I repaired some light fixtures in our kitchen, cleaning them along the way. I have contacted and met with friends I have not seen in a long time. I attribute my action to the emotions I'm feeling, but also to the sobriety with intention that I have been working on.

Addiction is a funny thing.  It allows a person to easily suppress any negative emotions that come their way. I mean, the six basic emotions are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise.  Of the six, only one (arguably two) could be regarded as positive. Most of us would prefer not to deal with the rest.  Addictions allow us to escape from those emotions by immediately giving us what we want or crave. While I agree with that, it has always been difficult for me to attribute my lack of emotion to my addiction.  The reason for that is I only relapse once every few months... surely to live as robotically as I do now it would require daily maintenance, right?

Perhaps the difference this time is I refuse to fall back into relapse.  I don't have my addiction as a safety net for my emotions, and I put my heart on the line with everything I do now.  Of course, my wife pursuing a divorce also helps get the floodgate of emotions out, but that's the easy and unsustainable reason to live a life more emotional.

In the meantime, I feel like I need to clean up this basement I'll be living in these next few weeks.

Trusting Charles Blondin

There's an old story about a real person named Charles Blondin that gets retold so much that it has turned somewhat into a legend. Most of what is told on the internet about him is probably not true anymore, but even so, one particular story about him will serve as a daily reminder of how I am to carry out my life moving forward.

Charles Blondin with his balancing pole

In 1859 Charles Blondin is known as the first person to ever tightrope across the Niagara Falls Gorge. He crossed the falls on tightrope multiple times, and each time he did it in crazier ways than the last.  The variety of ways he crossed included: being blindfolded, while in a sack, on stilts, while cooking an omelet, and while trundling a wheelbarrow.

The wheelbarrow run of his gets a lot of attention, because there is a story that is told (usually by Christian groups) that goes like this:

After Charles Blondin had pushed the wheelbarrow across Niagara Falls Gorge while being blindfolded, he asked for some audience participation.  Charles had already crossed the gorge multiple times with ease, proved he could do it, and nobody in the audience had any doubt that he could perform any feat. 

Charles asked the audience, "Do you believe I can carry a person across the gorge in the wheelbarrow?"  Everybody shouted that yes, they believed!

Charles then asked, "Great! Then who's going to get in the wheelbarrow?"

Christians love to compare the story above to what faith really is like.  Believing in God or a higher power is easy, especially when you've seen or heard about what they can do.  But putting all your faith and trust in something is entirely different and much more difficult.

However, a man in my recovery group flipped it around for me - and it killed me inside when he told me his perspective as an addict.

He said that we were, in fact, Charles Blondin.  Some days we think we have sobriety. We are cured from the disease and have practiced sobriety and the 12 steps so much we think we could probably cruise through life without worry.  However, every single day we ask our wife, our kids, and all those we care about to trust us and to get into the wheelbarrow.  We tell them that we are safe, and that we would never hurt them.  We tell them, "Trust me, because I have the addiction under control, and I won't fall off."  In the meantime, they are nervous.  They believe in our intentions. They have seen the change in us. But to get in the wheelbarrow means risking their lives when failure is a simple mis-step away.

As a fragile addict, I don't want to have anybody in that wheelbarrow. I don't want to hurt my family. I don't feel like I can be trusted.  However, the hope is that there will come a day when somebody has seen the change in me, sees me as somebody safe and as somebody that can be trusted.  More importantly, the hope is that there will be a day that I can trust myself to have somebody in the wheelbarrow and that we could one day do something amazing together.

But for now the wheelbarrow is, and remains, empty.

Back to Work

Today is my first day back at work since the holidays began. I work from home as an IT consultant, which provides many opportunities for me to slack off, get distracted or in some cases let my addictions take over me.  I get my work done for the most part, and I still can prove valuable to my company, which is based 2 time zones away.

I don't slip up as much as I did in the past. But I slip up enough that it is still a very real problem, and enough that the addiction keeps a grip on me.  A few weeks ago I might have given myself a few pats on the back on how well I've managed my addiction given my circumstances, but now in a time of clarity I can see that it is just as bad as ever.

I can't ever remember having panic or anxiety attacks like I had this morning. Work was a whirlwind of activity, with emails, phone calls and tasks that needed to be done just to catch up. On top of that, my soul wanted to multi-task to figure out how I can save my marriage. However, it wasn't the usual type of multi-tasking, where you switch from one mindset to another rapidly.  It was as if my heart was thinking about the wife, divorce and addiction, while my brain tried its best to disconnect from all that and work on the tasks at hand.  It felt heavy on my body. I couldn't juggle it.

My heart doesn't usually do any thinking for me. It usually just sits there beating away, moving blood from one part of my body to the other. At least that's what I think hearts are supposed to do. I never listen to it, and it never bothers me.  My counsellor and therapist says that I live my life from the neck up, as if I were one of the preserved celebrity heads from Futurama.  It's true - I do, and I suppose I'll talk more about that in another post.

But today my heart was loud. It talked and it shouted. It shouted good things and bad things, but mostly bad.  Everything it said was nonsense and made sense at the same time. I couldn't do work at all. It was overwhelming and by 9:30 in the morning I broke down. I tried to reach out to a friend, but they were unavailable.

So I searched on Google and found some anxiety exercises that helped. And they helped. They were dumb, but they helped.

The rest of the day I worked as best I could.  My mind frequently wandered to compel me to act out in my addiction.  Attempts at meditation would turn into mini fantasy sessions. The urge to act out and indulge my addiction hasn't been this strong in a long time. I realize I've been white knuckling resisting the whole thing for hours now, and I'm exhausted.  I tried exercising, reading one of my 12 step books, and reaching out to as many people as I could who would listen - and I still find myself stuck in this room where the walls are closing in compelling me to give everything up.  So I'm writing this journal now while I'm on the clock at work to see if that helps.

I don't know if I'll be able to maintain sobriety with all this going on. Funny, you'd think sobriety would be easier when in a panic and with my motivation at an all time high. But sometimes I think when you're motivated and focused on the goal, you have a clearer picture of what mountains you have to climb - and you start to realize how big those mountains really are. You see the snow and ice, the crevices, the rocks, the hazards, and all the risks... so even if you're motivated, the option to give up seems so much easier and you might even convince yourself that it's the more logical path.

I know this addiction will never leave me. I know that every day fighting the addiction will seem like I'm Sisyphus rolling a large boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again and I'll have to start over again.  And again. And again. I know that it won't even be worth it if my goal is to have my wife and family back, because it won't happen.  The scary thing is that I know these things, but I don't know what the goal is for me other than sobriety itself.  The future is completely shrouded for me and the only thing I want right now I can't have.

It Starts With an Ending

Last night, on December 28, 2019, my wife of 13 years said that we were getting a divorce.

Even though I half expected it, I'm still reeling. It's something I never thought would happen in my life and the words that were spoken I never thought would come out of somebody I still love so dearly.  We have two young children, ages 3 and 5, and their lives will be turned upside-down in the near future. It's the most gut-wrenching feeling knowing that their lives won't turn out the way either of us had planned, and at such an early age.

I bear all responsibility for the upcoming ending of our marriage.  I have an unspoken addiction that has consumed my life, my thoughts, my emotions, my mind and my soul.  My wife has known about the addiction for some time, and even though I have had periods of sobriety in the past, my failures have caused a complete and irreparable destruction of any trust that my wife has had, and could ever have with me.

I'm currently grieving. I've never known how. Waves of emotion hit me when I look at the faces of my children, or when I feel how cold my wife has become.  I can look at an old toy we had bought for the kids and remember when my wife and I had picked it out... and I cry. I haven't cried in a long time. 7 years give or take.

I thought I had time to fix things.  I thought I would have one more night I could sleep in the same bed as my wife.

I hate my addiction. It's a disease that has ruined my life, and I know no matter how long I'm sober it will always be a part of me.

My hope is that by chronicling how my life is falling apart that I could help others avoid the same mistakes I have made. It will also help me practice something that I now realize is a weakness of mine: Telling the truth.