I know that these entries have been long and I don't expect anyone to read them all, but I'm finding them therapeutic to write out so they're serving a purpose regardless of if anyone actually sees them or not. I just wanted to record for posterity how I've been feeling these last few days. When I'm about to relapse, I partially justify it to myself by dismissing my concerns over the after-effects by reassuring my ego that after an unpleasant day or two I'll be back more or less where I was before relapsing. I fail to comprehend how entirely relapsing fucks me up mentally & emotionally and how different I feel in the time after a relapse compared to before. I only realize too late, after using, that the "depression" I had that drove me to relapse is nothing on what comes afterwards. Compared to how I've felt these last few days, even the worst of how I felt the month or so before using is trivially minor. Before using, I can tell myself "I'm depressed now anyway, so what fucking difference will it make if I take heroin or not?? I may get depressed afterwards, but I'm miserable anyway!" Without the fresh memory of a relapse and it's consequences in my mind, I can even believe that (I'm pretty good at lying to myself, I'm sure you other addicts can relate). However, comparing the "depression" I have pre-relapse when I have some clean time to what comes after using is like grouping together a paper-cut with a broken spine as both being "injuries" and thus comparable. The difference in degree is vast and scarcely comprehensible to me when I'm sober.
Though I feel a little better today, I am NOWHERE near where I was last Sunday or even last Monday morning. The memory of the last few days is still clear, so before it fades I want to record it here so that I can't lie to myself again, telling myself I'll bounce back in a day or two with everything intact. The process of recovering from these lapses is a long, arduous process of reconstruction from the ground up. Regardless of the reality of it, it certainly feels as if I'm starting again from a blank slate. I feel entirely disconnected from the person I was before lapsing. I am starting again in everything, and just the thought of jumping straight back into the routine I'd built up before lapsing repels me and fills me with dread. I can hardly even relate to the confident, (mostly) positive, functioning and busy guy that I was just last week.
Describing the feeling I have after a relapse as "depression" can mischaracterize it as sadness, but it's more like an immense void. Like a heavy leaden blanket draped over my mind, suffocating my emotions, snuffing out my positivity and literally weighing me down. The most striking part of it is that it creates a gulf between my current mindset and that in which I got used to in sobriety. The distance between me feeling shitty and me feeling optimistic seems so large as to be entirely insurmountable, and no matter how many times I repeat to myself that given a little time I'll feel happy again, every cell in my body tells me it's an empty promise. I am not just pessimistic - I become unable to even remember what it's like to feel naturally positive. Literally the only thing that causes even a tiny spark of positivity is the thought of taking drugs. Everything else - from getting out of bed to talking to my friends to eating a meal - seems at best like a giant chore and at worst like an enormous exhausting effort, a trial that I'm dreading. My first thought upon waking every morning is a deep sinking feeling at the thought of facing the world, and I want more than anything to go back to sleep. Not because I'm at all tired, but just because when I'm asleep I don't have to be conscious & alive. Until this morning, every day I'd lay in bed for up to an hour when I'd already slept as much as I possibly could, just because I couldn't even muster the minimum effort required to drag myself out of bed.
Describing this state as being "lazy" would not only be an understatement but in my mind would also be a little inaccurate. I've been lazy before when well. I've had things I know I should do, but procrastinated on them in favor of browsing Twitter or watching another episode of Breaking Bad or whatever. This is different. There is an immense inertia hanging over me that makes it difficult to do literally anything. Getting up from the sofa is a monumental effort. Brushing my teeth seems like a huge hassle. Cooking and consuming food is only done when I'm having actual stomach pain from hunger since the many steps involved in producing something edible seems like it requires an enormous amount of my dwindling energy, and then after I've made it I'll only eat a little bit of it before I become overwhelmed with how disgusting it seems. I can force myself to do something, but the effort it took to hoover my flat the day before yesterday honestly seemed to take more out of me than lifting weights for 90 minutes had the week before. The total lack of energy is crazy.
I am usually pretty good at moderating my own thoughts to stop negative thought cycles before they start, so though in this mindset I will naturally want to indulge in cynical, self-defeating, critical & depressive thought, I usually automatically catch them before they can develop. However, even when doing this what remains is the general feeling of negativity. Everything seems dismally hopeless. I try and look forward to something - anything - that isn't drug-related, and find myself unable to conjure even the slightest bit of enthusiasm for it. My future life plans, which had so excited me and filled me with energy and optimism prior to lapsing, like university and the girl I'm into, now fail entirely to produce even a flicker of hope. They instead seem like more ultimately futile efforts to distract myself from the misery that is fundamental to my life.
I want to emphasize how difficult it is to overcome this cognitively. I can make myself think "These ideas excited me before. I was feeling happy & confident only a week ago. I always go through this after a lapse, and I always get through it in just a few days" and I believe it - it's undeniably true - but I cannot conceive of ever really feeling happy again. Emotionally, I can't connect with that concept at all, so it becomes easy to believe that any happiness I had before was just some kind of delusion, or that I was lying to myself, and the real bedrock of my existence is one where I'm enveloped by the void. That dark, suffocating void that boxes me in and is unescapable. That snuffs out any joy, happiness or positivity in it's all consuming embrace. Two solutions seem apparent when I'm lost in the void - drugs or suicide. I don't know how people with severe depression keep facing the world for months or even years - I am certain that if I was in this head space for longer than a month I would need to turn to something dramatic.
Being around others is extremely difficult when I'm in this headspace. Not just because I'm a downer - though I am - but because I feel literally cognitively impaired. It's as if I'm brain-damaged - I can't hold a conversation. That part of my mind that usually comes up with even basic responses to conversations, let alone jokes or ideas or questions or any of the usual conversational content that means I never have to endure awkward silences, is entirely shut down. I can basically respond to what people say to me - I can answer questions, laugh at jokes, give standard greetings - but I'm like a reactive automaton or an AI that is programmed just to give basic replies to people. At some point in the conversation I will be expected to produce something - a question, a joke, a comment, a topic - and I simply can't do it. Inside my mind is nothing. Just a blank, empty expanse. I realize that the longer I'm around someone, the sooner they will realize that there is nothing inside of me, and either they will want to get away from me - who wants to be around someone that can't contribute anything? - or the conversation will get awkward. Realizing this, I stay away from people as much as possible, and when I'm forced to interact with someone, I cut the conversation short as soon as possible and make my excuses before they realize that I'm just an empty vessel and that the part of my mind that has my personality has been rendered entirely inactive.
I'm not just awkward conversationally when I'm like this. I'm physically impaired as well - I'm dyspraxic, so I'm not the most co-ordinated guy at the best of times, but it's turned up to 11 when I'm depressed. I will bump into tables, doors & ceilings that I've been automatically avoiding for the years I've lived in my flat. I slipped the other day with a pizza cutter and put a gash into my finger. I dropped and smashed a cup because I simply failed to carry it 3 feet. As well as being clumsy, I feel literally weighed down. My movements are slower (along with my thoughts and responses), and it feels like I'm wading through treacle. The short 5 minute walk to my local shop feels like it's hours away. It's like I'm carrying a burden or have suddenly gained 5 stone that I'm lugging around.
In a word, it's awful. Despite having gone through this many times I still somehow manage to convince myself once I have X days in sobriety that I've come so far that I won't be propelled right back down here after a lapse, but I am, every time. Of course, it's also accompanied by the guilt of lapsing, the despair of another failed attempt and the pessimism for my future sobriety.
The only silver lining is that it is mercifully brief. I have felt myself improving a little bit every day, and I know that that will continue as long as I keep sober. And why shouldn't I suffer a little? I'm glad that this happens afterwards, else it would be too easy to just continue using. This period of misery is a necessary evil, for it is like a penance or contrition for the sin I have committed against my better self, and I can be redeemed by waiting through it. It never lasts longer than a week, and though a week sober won't leave me back where I was when I had 50 days clean, I can at least feel OK rather than like I'm drowning. Existence becomes extremely difficult when you have completely demolished your supply of dopamine & endorphins and your brain is down-regulating your receptors. It's crazy that such an intense shift in mood, perspective and outlook can ultimately be boiled down to a simple deficiency of a few key chemicals in your brain, but there it is.
I am finally starting to feel better. It's been a long 5 days, but I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel again. Next time I feel like relapsing, I'm going to read through this post, and hopefully think again.
