Defying The Voice

I want to write.

“What’s the point?”

Hush. My words matter. My story matters. Doesn’t it?

You’re a narcissist. Self-absorbed. Other people don’t have to celebrate making it through life without getting drunk. Other people just deal with their problems quietly, they don’t have to bleed out all over the internet to validate themselves.

Do I write to validate myself?

Why do I think that what I have to say is all that different from anybody else’s? Am I just trying to be some kind of special snowflake?

This wrestling match in my head exhausts me, and sometimes the negativity wins for a while. It overwhelms me, and I get quiet. It’s hard to know whether I’m resting or isolating sometimes, so I take some time and try and see how I feel.

I itch to write, but when I sit down, it all goes blank. Everything feels pointless. Even writing this takes monumental effort, almost like something physical keeps my hands tied and my mind blank.

If I had to guess, or could somehow step outside of my own mind, I would guess that this is a type of depression. It comes and goes.

This is my small rebellion against that voice. There are others to post soon. I write entire posts, and then I sit back to edit it, and the dark cloud of “who cares” takes over. I save as draft, and close the browser. Over and over and over again.

But I am still sober, and that is no small rebellion. That is a huge middle finger to the dark cloud that tells me to give up, that nobody cares, that I can just have one and this was all a just an experiment, time to move on and get back to “normal life”.

It’s not a very loud voice, but it’s best to ignore it or call it a liar as quickly as possible. Otherwise, it gets louder and harder to ignore. I probably sound a bit unhinged here but that’s ok. I’m not on the edge of a relapse or anything. Just musing.

Recovery is really hard sometimes, but so is living a half-life of hangovers and not-so-happy hours. We pick the struggle that’s worth the reward. And sometimes the clouds part and you can take a deep breath and be so, so thankful that you’ve continued on.

Let’s continue on.

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Sometimes It’s All We Can Do