Recovery

For many years, most of my adult life, I knew that something was wrong. I just didn't know what. I knew that I grew up with a dad that had unrealistically high expectations, almost cruelly high, and as a result, I grew up as a perfectionist. You know, the "if I just work hard enough, and don't make mistakes, I'll get love" thingee. As I grew into an adult, I carried those perspectives with me into grown-up relationships. This left me with the internal attitude that I wasn't quite good enough.

The predictable outcome of years of that internal attitude was severe depression as an adult. Oh, I didn't recognize it. In my family, one never admitted to any sort of mental issues. After all, that would be admitting imperfection. It took a five-year span where my 12-year marriage fell apart, remarriage too soon, another baby, another divorce, surgery due to a cancer scare, major job change, and a catastrophic car accident all happened to finally get a depression diagnosis by a doctor. The added financial collapse for all that just compounded the depression.

What was my solution? Well, I couldn't afford the drugs, so I looked for a relationship. When that didn't work, I turned to alcohol and food. After all, you didn't have to pay for a doctor visit or have to have a prescription for alcohol or food. Is it any wonder that relationships didn't work????? The only thing that kept me sane (sort of) was my kids. You see, the drive for perfection never left, it was just in a stupor. So, I still needed to take care of my kids so that I was appearing to be successful at SOMETHING.

Today, in hindsight, I can see that the best thing that happened to me was the collapse of my last relationship. I don't deny that it was probably more painful than my 2 divorces. I had opened myself up and become more vunerable to my master than I had ever done with a husband. So, the pain was awful. However, in order to survive, I HAD to face my demons. I had to deal with the underlying depression.

After 2 & 1/2 years of intensive work, I can honestly say that the depression is gone. YEAAAAA ME!!!! And with the disappearance of the depression, the need for the alcohol and the need for a relationship for validation disappeared also. It doesn't mean that I don't get lonely. Now, however, I am not depressed and I don't turn to some sort of self-medication to deal with it. The things I'm still working on are the perfectionism (which can be channeled in a positive way) and the food. I don't use food as a crutch anymore, but the results of using it that way in the past (weight gain) are still with me.

The final analysis is that I am a happy, sane (usually :)) individual.

Recovery is WONDERFUL!!!!!

Melonie