Addiction

When people live in an old house, they come to adjust to the idiosyncrasies and outright dangers skulking in  an old structure.  They put buckets under a wet ceiling, prop up groaning floors, learn to step over that rotting wood tread in the staircase.  The awkward becomes acceptable, and the unacceptable becomes merely inconvenient.  Live with it long enough, and the unthinkable becomes normal.  Exposed over the generations, we learn to believe that the incomprehensible is the way that life is supposed to be.

Isabel Wilkerson Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, p. 16

The quote above is part of Isabel Wilkerson’s discussion of the state of America, and response to rejection of accountability for the collective problems and crises facing us. When I read that, however, it reminded me of feelings I’ve had in the bowels of depression, when I was living in an irrational manner, when my apartment resembled a low level crack house. Late last year, it was so bad that apartment complex management told me that it was not being maintained in a “clean and sanitary way”, per terms of my lease. 

I don’t know how or why it had gotten so bad. The most I could discern in retrospect was that I was grieving, grieving my mother, grieving sale of the house she left to me, and grieving what I feared were wasted years of my youth. Every day I came in here, stepping over debris and detritus, unable to find anything, eating on disposable paper plates because the dishwasher was broken. Although maintenance was required to repair the dishwasher, again per terms of my lease, I was too afraid to call them because it was such a mess in here. Half full cups of molded coffee, clean and dirty clothes in piles covering all open spaces. Nobody came up here, and I was paranoid that something would break and require maintenance to enter. That’s what finally happened, and that’s when I was given the ultimatum to tidy up.

A friend of mine said that ultimatum was virtually an intervention. On many levels, I believe that was correct. When I am in the throes of some addictive or depression process, it’s as though I am being actively electrocuted, fused to a current from which I cannot be released, experiencing what amounts to a blackout of sensory and rational function. I am simply existing, but I’m not really present. I am going through the necessary motions, going to the filthy bathroom, splashing water on my hair and face every few days, taking the dog out and showing a socially acceptable face to the outside world. Not brushing my teeth, not washing clothes regularly. Still attending my 12-step meetings, talking the talk and not drinking but not truly walking the walk. The noise inside my head is intense, and I’m irregular with all of my medications. I’m living like a drunk, the way I lived before sobriety with lots of secrets, feeling like a fraud, and praying nobody would find out what a mess I was.

Once the apartment management got involved, I panicked. Even though I did not think I could afford it, my panic caused me to immediately rent a storage unit and begin hauling box after box of little used material possessions out of here. Boxes of books that I have not touched in years, old vinyl record albums, more books, old clothes that really need to go to Good Will, old technical training stuff that really needs to be trashed, an old telescope, a junk guitar that I got from the dumpster, and so on. The storage unit is 5′ x 7′, and I’ve basically filled it about 3′ high. Once I brought my mother’s table back, and the chairs, that’s about all I can fit in there. 

I kept going inside the apartment, and called a junk removal service to remove the old sofa that I was using as a glorified valet, and the old recliner that was beginning to recline inconsistently. That opened up a lot of space in the living room; I retained the love seat that I had and moved it into the position the sofa vacated. I bought a couple of area rugs to cover the traffic spots on the carpet, and it looks far more reasonable now. I bought a stand for the keyboard and moved it from the bedroom to the living room, and everything looks fine now. I flipped the mattress and got a new mattress cover and new sheets. I contracted a housekeeping service to come in and get the bathroom and kitchen in shape. Throughout the whole process, I threw out huge bags of junk – paperwork from years past, momentos from two cities ago, half-filled notebooks and pads of paper, empty aerosol cans. Out, damned spot!

Why did it take me so many years to rent a storage unit? Why did it take so long to buy area rugs to spruce up the living room space? Why did it take the embarrassment of having some obnoxious apartment complex manager to subtly threaten me with eviction before I did anything to make this a livable space? Why did I waste so much time, until now I probably have less than a quarter-century to enjoy living in a rational fashion (provided I don’t backslide into the old ways)? Intellectually, I knew what needed to be done, but it had gotten to the point of overwhelm. It was normal. I didn’t particularly like it, but it was normal. I didn’t feel as though I was particularly in control, but it was normal and I knew what to expect. Had it not been for being involuntarily shoved to action, nothing would have changed.

This “intervention” served the purpose of hitting someone being electrocuted with a wooden two-by-four plank. The wood doesn’t conduct electricity, so it breaks the circuit and you can let go, or it lets you go. The release leaves you drained and disoriented, but somehow present. Some of the expected sensory responses return slowly, but you feel more and more responsive with every breath you take. You’re not totally back in your body for a while, though, and you look back on the blackout as something abstract, surreal. The part that feels addictive is realizing that you’ve been there before, and can’t figure out how in the world you’ve wound up there again. Addiction and depression work together, at least for me.

The unthinkable had become normal, and once it became normal I was totally unmotivated to change it. I couldn’t think of a reason why change was necessary, couldn’t think of any reason change was really worth the effort. Alternately, I thought I would gather the strength, or as my mother would say the “gumption”, to clean up and make things presentable. That musing always ended with wondering why I would need to do that, what difference it made if things stayed exactly as they were. I figured when I couldn’t get into the place any longer, I would just move and leave it behind. That’s happened before – cut and run, don’t look back.

Right now, I’m living in a reasonable fashion, the apartment is presentable and maintenance has been in here a couple of times to change the light in the kitchen and replace the dishwasher (it was actually beyond repair). Housekeeping continues to visit once a month, so the bathroom and kitchen are still in good shape. I’m not eating all my meals at fast food places any longer, and have cleaned the air fryer, the griddle/grill, and the permanent plates that I had since the dishwasher is working. I’ve managed to throw a few things on the grill and put food on a plate to eat. I’ve also washed the griddle panels and the plates, along with some drink containers. Why that seems to be so easy right now, and why it took so much external force to get here, is beyond me.

I don’t know why I’m wired the way I am. I don’t know which came first, the depression or the addiction, and I suppose it doesn’t matter. There’s a part of me that is concerned the dysfunctional cycle will repeat itself, but recovery training says that I should not project into the future. For today, I’m doing what I need to do and it’s working. Maybe I’m not the only one, but it feels that way. It feels as though I’ve gone through this so many times as to be symptomatic of severe mental illness. I can’t blame any of this on family of origin trauma, or dysfunctional parenting, or anything else. Maybe it’s just errant brain chemistry, maybe it’s just lack of compunction. Whatever it is, it’s damned frustrating and doesn’t make me feel terribly competent.

The last piece of my life that I need to reclaim after this most recent unpleasantness is my dental malfunction. I’ve always had bad teeth and bad dental habits, and this last blackout signals the end of the journey with my teeth. I’ll need to get a fixed implant plate so that I can actually smile again without one hand over my mouth, and talk without intense self-consciousness. No matter what anyone says, people make judgements and take you less seriously when you have visible dental issues. I don’t need any other reasons for people to be judging me negatively and not taking me seriously. 

I recently had a memory of an old t-shirt/bumper sticker I used to see all the time. It said “Speak your truth, even if your voice shakes.” It’s really time for me to do that, and I sometimes feel as though I will explode if I tamp down what I need to say any further. I’m tired of coming up with excuses for why I don’t say what I need to say, that I’m disappointing people, that it’s already been said, that it doesn’t make any sense and sounds stupid. Tired of sabotaging myself with clutter and disorganization and missing teeth and fat belly. It’s time to stop hiding in the back seat of the car and trying to be invisible. It’s time to stop believing this is the way life is supposed to be.