One of the reasons I loved drinking was because it helped me stop being so hyper aware of my surroundings, feelings, and other people all the freaking time. Enough drinks and I didn’t care about much of anything, except where my next drink was coming from. At fourteen, this seemed like a magical adult solution to what for me was an exhausting problem: I rarely felt safe. But when I drank, all that disappeared. I disappeared.
My fourteen year old logic reasoned that this was how everyone coped with life. No wonder grown ups drank! How else would you deal with the intensive amount of information bombarding you at every moment? No wonder people loved to drink around each other- this was how you managed to be in relationships with other people and not explode from all the sensory input. By the time I figured out that everyone didn’t drink like me the pattern was too deeply established to listen to reason.
Overthinking has haunted me my whole life. It is a deeply ingrained response to growing up with emotionally immature parents. It grew stronger in response to the dangerous and irrational ways I behaved because of my drinking. I have been the most thoughtful out of a weird desire for safety that I then thwarted my own self. It’s like I made myself stand in the middle of the road during rush hour, watched intently enough to move out of the way but only just enough to not get hit. I would not leave the middle of the road. I would not let myself be actually safe, because for me, safety did not exist.
My guess is that my own overthinking was so normal for me I didn’t see it as the thing that was burning up my sense of safety. I thought it was the thing that was keeping me safe. It boggles the mind to think of how a coping mechanism can turn into a way of life.
I have been working to understand what safety is- to make my own definition of what a normal sense of safety feels like to me. A healthy amount of thinking. And then to practice being in that kind of safety, over and over and over.
Safety is pausing to remind myself I know what I’m doing. It’s amazing how blackout drinking for 27 years can still influence my sense of what has happened. When you wake up enough times with no memory of the night before it creates great insecurity, and even after 11 years of sobriety and recovery I think I carry check double checking myself. I want to lean into this a lot more, because I think it’s important that I know, deeply, that I am in charge of myself at all times.
A sense of safety in my relationships is something I want to remember. Without being purposeful about how I think about my relationships I can glide into old patterns of thinking- people don’t really like me, they are looking for reasons to leave me, I am not loveable, if I have needs people will reject me, me having boundaries means I am too much trouble to love. It helps to be deliberate about remembering that I belong to a powerfully loving community and that I am in healthy relationships across the board for the first time ever in my life.
Feeling safe is also learning to listen to the signals my body is giving me. It is not overriding the information being physically communicated to me. That’s everything from it’s time to pee now, I don’t want more coffee, and I’m hungry to I think I’ve had enough TV, I need to stand up, I feel sad. It is believing what I tell myself and then acting accordingly. This is actually a huge one, because so often I will know what I need and then override it. For example, I will know another cup of coffee is too much but I will make myself drink one anyway. Or I will know I need to pee, but I will wait instead of going. This is a big place of rebuilding trust between me and me.
Another thing I’m practicing to create a sense of safety is going with decisions and not doing the mental gymnastics of interior mental debate. This is so hard! And it shows up everywhere. From the beginning of the day when I wake up it begins. I am very successful at not debating on my runs. I really love how I have decided when I run and when I walk and so I get to have a clear mind. I have also been making myself foods that can mix and match so I always have something to eat and I don’t have to either eat 4 handfuls of cashews because I don’t have time to make lunch. I have loved the food ease so much. Today I made brown rice, roasted broccoli, sweet potatoes and red pepper, brussels sprouts and carrots, basil black pepper sausage, and red peas. I still have roasted cherry tomatoes, nori crunch, boiled eggs, and mushroom miso soup.
Quitting social media continues to give me a great sense of well being and social safety.
Last, feeling safe is knowing I am capable in discomfort and uncertainty. Safety is here even when things are hard, unpleasant, or unwieldy. It is knowing that being overthinking creates a false sense of security because I am distracted by micromanaging things that may not even be happening or true.
Learning to be appropriately attentive- whew. It is amazing how difficult such a simple sounding task is. Paying attention to my actual life and trusting myself seem to be the instructions I get over and over when it comes to finding a sense of well being. I am grateful for the continuing chances to practice.
What I’m reading/listening to this week:
"Micromanaging things that may not even be happening or true" - that's so relatable! Much of what we overthink or worry about never comes true!
The Creative Act is such a good book! :)