I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m kind of in hate with the world right now.

Uggg.  Just ugggggggggggg.

For most of this week I’ve been under-slept and over-stressed.  Not because the world really is falling apart, just because I FEEL like it is.  And today, last period while my class was in gym, it all finally felt like too much and I started having a panic attack.  By all that is holy I managed to calm myself down and didn’t completely lose my shite all over the place.  But it was still a scary moment.  Not scary because I was confused about what was happening; why my face was suddenly on fire and I couldn’t breathe and my skin seemed like it was shredding off of my bones.  No, that has all happened before, many many times.  It just hasn’t happened in a while.

I seem to be incapable at the moment of getting any distance between me and the world.  Everything coming in from the outside seems abrasive, defeating and specifically designed to cause me the most pain.  All of my reactions feel explosive, out of proportion and uncontrolled.  During the week I would get upset about something I knew wasn’t worth being upset about, but I couldn’t listen to myself that it wasn’t worth it.  I’ve found the most imaginative ways to see myself as the victim, but knowing I was going out of my way to find excuses to be hurt wasn’t enough to get me to stop myself.

I know that a huge reason I am completely raw is that I haven’t been to a meeting in a long long time.  Sobriety is a habit, it takes work, and I have been nothing but lazy about it for far too long now.  And that’s what I do.  I aspire to “good enough” and then coast downhill from there.  When things are dire I’m all focus and determination, but when things are fair to middling I’m dismissive and easily distracted.

I think the only thing that kept me from drinking on election night was the thought that “well, voters can keep doing the same thing over again thinking it will be different this time, but I know that just ends in misery.”  I think it goes without saying that I wasn’t pleased with the results, but I would be even less pleased if Obama’s victory had trashed my sobriety.

There is no solution to the way I am right now other than the completely obvious one.  I need to go to a meeting.  I need to remind myself that I am not alone in my condition, that I am not hopeless for my future well-being.  I need to listen, to share, to get out of my “me, me, me, it’s all about ME!” mentality.

(1 Year and 50 Days Sober)