Cole Carrington (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
burninginside) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
muserevival2014-02-08 12:56 am
burninginside) wrote in muserevival2014-02-08 12:56 am
055.2. Private diary
"I found the reason for me to change who I used to be." - The Reason, Hoobastank
I don't feel like a father. I'm not sure I ever really have. I know I certainly haven't fought to figure it out. Today was one of those worse days they warn you might come. Sort of like the other even-keel days are the calm before the storm. The cravings have been unbearable and I was feeling physically sick during the night right into today. I didn't even want to bother getting out of bed. I did, though. It felt like a mean feat to achieve, but I did. Can't say I looked any level of presentable, however. But there are no airs and graces in this place.
It wasn't a group therapy day today. Private sessions only. One with a drug and alcohol counsellor, one with a psychotherapist, and another with a psychologist. May as well attack it from all angles if I'm paying the big bucks to be here. The first session was mostly filled with rehashing ways to combat the cravings, talking out the consequences that would come if I didn't. I don't mind rehashing. It's a good way to cockblock the brain from falling back into those old broken record thoughts that were so easy to get stuck in. It was the session with the psychotherapist that opened up wounds I knew I would never really be ready to face.
My son was inevitably brought up. I knew it was coming because it is such a prominent part of me that became a casualty of the PTSD and led me the drugs. I know losing Brendan was the trigger to all of this, and witnessing his death. But the biggest casualty was the loss of a relationship with my son. I really did not want to talk about it, but I've given up a lot of the unnecessary fight so I just rolled with it.
He's six years old now. Six years is a long time to be absent from a kid's life. I don't even know what he looks like anymore. I could encounter my own child in the street and likely wouldn't even recognise him. For so long now, I've convinced myself he is better of without me. And he was. He was better off without the mess I let myself become. I'm still bitter he was kept from me, but at the same time, his mother was ignorant and naive. She thought PTSD meant I was psychotic and crazy, when really, you aren't. It just makes you feel like you are.
I want to be a better person for him more than I even do for myself. I like to let my mind wander to some small fantastical part of my mind where maybe I can get through this and be a better man; one that he might want to have a relationship with when he gets old enough to make his own choices. It is just hard trying to figure out what that is. I have no parenting skills. For a long time, I didn't even have basic human functioning skills. I'm going to make a point of learning more about parenting when I get out of here. Even if it's just to have an awareness of what I lost so I don't fuck up in the same way again.
The hardest part of today was remembering that there is a little person out there who I helped create, and he's not in my life. Would life have been easier and less of a mess if he had been? Or would it have just been one huge mindfuck for him and the poor kid ended up in therapy before he hit middle school? I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if it was the latter.
Sober isn't a place I like being yet. It's painful, it's lonely, and it's confusing. You always know somewhere hidden away inside that you don't like yourself. But sober, you're away of it every moment of every day. There's nothing to drown it out with anymore. The fuck ups seem more amplified, and the losses seem to leave an even bigger hole inside you. It's not all entire misery and flogging the dead horse that is your issues that led to drugs and booze. Sober also means you can start to see all the things that are of value to you that you let the drugs take precedent over. Which is exactly why I got out of bed today, and why I will get out tomorrow too.
I wish I had never lost my son, and I hope he is a hundred times more of a man than I have ever managed to be.
Cole Carrington
( original character )
I don't feel like a father. I'm not sure I ever really have. I know I certainly haven't fought to figure it out. Today was one of those worse days they warn you might come. Sort of like the other even-keel days are the calm before the storm. The cravings have been unbearable and I was feeling physically sick during the night right into today. I didn't even want to bother getting out of bed. I did, though. It felt like a mean feat to achieve, but I did. Can't say I looked any level of presentable, however. But there are no airs and graces in this place.
It wasn't a group therapy day today. Private sessions only. One with a drug and alcohol counsellor, one with a psychotherapist, and another with a psychologist. May as well attack it from all angles if I'm paying the big bucks to be here. The first session was mostly filled with rehashing ways to combat the cravings, talking out the consequences that would come if I didn't. I don't mind rehashing. It's a good way to cockblock the brain from falling back into those old broken record thoughts that were so easy to get stuck in. It was the session with the psychotherapist that opened up wounds I knew I would never really be ready to face.
My son was inevitably brought up. I knew it was coming because it is such a prominent part of me that became a casualty of the PTSD and led me the drugs. I know losing Brendan was the trigger to all of this, and witnessing his death. But the biggest casualty was the loss of a relationship with my son. I really did not want to talk about it, but I've given up a lot of the unnecessary fight so I just rolled with it.
He's six years old now. Six years is a long time to be absent from a kid's life. I don't even know what he looks like anymore. I could encounter my own child in the street and likely wouldn't even recognise him. For so long now, I've convinced myself he is better of without me. And he was. He was better off without the mess I let myself become. I'm still bitter he was kept from me, but at the same time, his mother was ignorant and naive. She thought PTSD meant I was psychotic and crazy, when really, you aren't. It just makes you feel like you are.
I want to be a better person for him more than I even do for myself. I like to let my mind wander to some small fantastical part of my mind where maybe I can get through this and be a better man; one that he might want to have a relationship with when he gets old enough to make his own choices. It is just hard trying to figure out what that is. I have no parenting skills. For a long time, I didn't even have basic human functioning skills. I'm going to make a point of learning more about parenting when I get out of here. Even if it's just to have an awareness of what I lost so I don't fuck up in the same way again.
The hardest part of today was remembering that there is a little person out there who I helped create, and he's not in my life. Would life have been easier and less of a mess if he had been? Or would it have just been one huge mindfuck for him and the poor kid ended up in therapy before he hit middle school? I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if it was the latter.
Sober isn't a place I like being yet. It's painful, it's lonely, and it's confusing. You always know somewhere hidden away inside that you don't like yourself. But sober, you're away of it every moment of every day. There's nothing to drown it out with anymore. The fuck ups seem more amplified, and the losses seem to leave an even bigger hole inside you. It's not all entire misery and flogging the dead horse that is your issues that led to drugs and booze. Sober also means you can start to see all the things that are of value to you that you let the drugs take precedent over. Which is exactly why I got out of bed today, and why I will get out tomorrow too.
I wish I had never lost my son, and I hope he is a hundred times more of a man than I have ever managed to be.
( original character )