Its funny how going through something that knocks you to your knees brings clarity. Truth is that after that staring competition I mentioned in "The moment of my dreams and then I freeze" I went straight to the cigarette counter and bought a box of smokes. I smoked that box flat and I bought another. Yesterday I bought patches again so that I can try once more to kick the resurfacing habit.
Smoking has always been my crutch, I know there are many psychological reasons for it, more so than the physical addiction. When I go through something, either traumatic or resurfacing, I lose my appetite, I stop eating because it doesn't filter into my mind that I need to eat. I started smoking heavily while I was overcoming bulimia. Instead of throwing up I would smoke, instead of eating I would smoke. At the age of 21 I was smoking 60 a day and all for a reason. I was curbing one addiction for another, swapping them. Both kill but smoking is slower.
Smoking helped me maintain my weight and it also helped during the periods of "no food". Food repulses me during heavy times, the mere thought upsets my stomach, consuming it upsets it even more. Smoking replaces that and calms the "upset". So I smoke.
I've started smoking again. I've battled with force feeding myself for weeks now. My face is skeletal and my ironing board is flatter than ever (hmph). My stomach is getting back to its six pack nature and my wobbly ass wobbles less. For the last month I knew something was about to happen I just could not figure out what. I've had dreams, nightmares and odd happenings. Believe what you will but I have always been able to tell that something is "up" as if the Puppet Master plants little warning signs.
For me smoking is the easy way out, it is the easy coping mechanism much like religion is for so many people. It is easier to put the onus in that other than stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. Truth is religion and smokes are only short stops in the healing process. I have used both.
When I was a teenager I became a "New born". I was brainwashed into thinking that if I was good and if I followed his word nothing bad would become of me, I am saved, I can do no wrong. It wasn't a cult I joined, it was Christianity. During that time I was taught how to break curses and how to bless rooms, I was taught how to fight evil and other things in the name of Christ. I was so gung ho into it because it distracted me from dealing with my own demons, I sought love in religion, I sought acceptance and forgiveness.
The brutal truth came to me 2 years in. I would never find any of those things in religion, I had to find them within myself. I could not find forgiveness in "God" because in fact it was from me that it had to come. I started to examine what the churches do to get their recruits and it became apparent that this was one of their biggest cards. They take people in and tell them that they are saved, that they are forgiven for their sins and that all is ok as long as they are with the church, if they go regularly and pray often.
When you step back and look at it for what it is, it is much like someone only being with someone else because they make them feel better. You lose sight of the real person you are with because your need is too great. You can never fully love that person and be happy with them until you love yourself and forgive yourself. How can you ever serve God under the pretence that they give you? How can you ever serve and love God until you love yourself? Forgive yourself?
That was the cruncher for me, has been ever since. It is also one of my biggest irritations with religions and strangely enough it is normally the Christian by-line. Religion forgets the human aspect while focusing so much on their sins and need for forgiveness they forget the emotional and psychological aspects. It's all very well being saved by God but if you don't face your own demons, if you don't face your own damaged soul and try to heal it, overcome the pains, the rage and everything else how will you ever be able to serve God fully as he intended?
I've had a lot of healing to do, many scary demons to face head on and diminish, I've had to face the prospect of forgiving myself and loving myself. It will always be an on going process for me but it is one that I cherish because each step on that ladder I get closer to being who I am meant to be.
Smoking and what it symbolises is a demon I have realised and will conquer, the same with my eating habits. When something happens I crawl into a dark hole and I start abusing myself because it makes me feel better about myself, it helps me through rough times. No more. As I heal my heart and soul, as I heal my mind I become stronger and more resilient. I carry the lessons forward and only look back to remind myself of both them and what it felt like in order to understand.
I am like an orange, the thick peel has gone now I am just stripping off the white under skin, slowly but surely the individual segments will become clean and edible.
Soon I will just be, soon I will be who I am mean to be.
I never ask God to forgive me I ask him for strength so that I can forgive myself.
Original source: http://sanityfound.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/the-aftermath/
