a work in progress
dark mind dark in mind dark invades mind feels here steals me there corrodes the light is it truth dark mind no one is real dark in mind the illusion dark invades mind float now embody the drift flood the light dark mind dark in mind dark invades mind
I wrote this about two and a half months after I quit drinking. No editing, just the way I wrote it then. If anyone in early sobriety can relate, this is for you.
December 5, 2016
Well, here it is. The unclouding.
I’ve been living under a blanket of alcohol and cynicism.
I just didn’t know it.
So heavy are/were my fears of failure and my insecurities so unbelievably unbearable.
Drink it away. Just don’t tell yourself.
Don’t let you know or you’ll know for sure.
You’ll never be like them, you aren’t allowed.
You were never any of those things, so you try to fill the void by pretending.
If your opinion is strong (while you’re so weak)
You can make statements and sound self-assured (you’re not, even a little)
later you’re stuck thinking about it
digging further into the hole (watch the bottle hit the floor)
Well, fuck that.
Fuck all of it.
Now I’m digging deeper into my soul.
I want to know who it is that’s been tossed around and buried beneath the yarn I’ve been spinning.
It might take awhile and I’ll probably still never fully know – but this is the wandering soul only I know and she’s just beginning to come out.
Today I sit here just about three years sober, and I can tell you – she has come out and will only continue to emerge from the dark spaces.
This journey is ever-changing, hard as fuck, and painful at times, but there is absolutely no comparison to the pain and heartbreak of tossing your soul around like a rag doll and never being able to figure out why you can’t feel unless you’ve got poison permeating your blood flow.
-roxii
I hope you have some time before you start reading here because I’d love if you read the article I have shared below before reading what I have written:
Why Wine Mom Culture is Problematic
I must also preface this by expressing that this is not written to diminish the needs of Dads. Dads also have needs because parenting is hard, but I am not a Dad. I am a Mom and I can only write from my own perspective. My perspective is also that of a white, cis-gendered female, I can only speak to my own experience, but I am aware it is not the only one.
The article I am sharing here does a good job of breaking down the reality of “in your face” alcohol culture geared towards Moms. While I agree, we need less t-shirts and memes that praise and uplift the ideology around using alcohol to cope with parenting, I also want to add that we need less “mommy needs wine” and more “mommy needs healthy coping mechanisms”.
I don’t care what stage of parenting you are in or how many children you have. Parenting is hard. Period.
Women experience a very real, very valid, and very necessary hormonal shift during pregnancy and for a long time thereafter. Each woman responds differently to that shift. For some it may make things run smoothly for others it may make things extremely difficult – either way it is a significant life change. Pair that with the reality of parenting and it’s a recipe for mental instability for a LOT of us.
While I plan to research this topic more extensively while in school, I’m a Mom who also got sober before I became a Mom and technically I fall into the category of an older millennial who came of age around binge-drinking culture. I feel marginally qualified to speak on this topic, at least for now. I know that throughout our existence there have always been different ways of dealing with motherhood. I’m unsure if it has always been hush hush, but even now in the age oversharing there is still a layer of “we don’t know how but we find a way to manage” that still permeates our lives and creates an air of secrecy. As much as I wish we were beyond it, a lot of women struggle with wanting to “have it all” and look like they’re “loving life while doing it”. We tend to cope with whatever is placed easily right in front of us.
What magically appears most easily right in front of us? For a lot, based on my reality and the things shared in the article attached – it is alcohol. The article discusses how in the 60s there was an epidemic of women using Valium to cope with motherhood. It does not mention that in the 40s and 50s what we now know, essentially, as Meth, was pushed to Moms and housewives to “get it all done in time for dinner!” I don’t know that it became an “epidemic” so to speak, but it was advertised to women and commonly prescribed by doctors. Women have often been subjected to the normalization of using substances to cope with mom-ing and housewife-ing. The truth is, no two women are the same and traditional gender roles (a bullshit fabrication of a colonized patriarchal ideal) put an immense amount of pressure on women to do it all and cope with it at whatever cost. Yes, the female body is designed to have babies, but that does not mean every female brain is designed to fit into what we have come to know as the “mom and housewife” role. We are nurturers and protectors of the babies we created, that means different things to different women.
With all of that being said, sometimes it is necessary due to a mental health issue to be prescribed medication in order to aid in living life as a person with a mental issue in the society we live in. Being appropriately treated for a mental health issue doesn’t even necessarily have anything to do with parenting, but they are connected if you are a parent. I am not an advocate for abstinence from all things. Science and medicine have done many good things for us humans, but unfortunately with good always comes bad. The pharmaceutical industry makes entirely too much money benefiting from the mental instability that is a result of humans living in a fucked up society. Anywho… that’s a conversation for another time, but not unrelated to this topic.
What we need to be told and encouraged to do is to learn healthy ways to cope with the reality of parenting. Yes, it takes a village but if you’re suffering from postpartum anxiety and/or depression, that village may be out of reach for you. Yes, we would do anything for our children, but for some women that “anything” might feel like removing themselves from the equation in one way or another. Yes, creating a child in our body is a miracle and amazing, but we continue to share our bodies with our babies forever. They will always be attached to us in one way or another and while that is beautiful, it is simultaneously exhausting and suffocating – at times. Learning how to navigate your own life, not lose yourself (or just begin to find yourself), possibly still be participating in a partnership with a human that you had this child with all while shaping small human(s) to live in the world who are completely dependent on you for everything is a gargantuan feat. It is not easy and it is okay to say it is not easy. It doesn’t mean we love our children any less by admitting that we are having a hard time coping with this intensely major life shift.
What it is not okay to do is perpetuate the idea the we need intoxicants to deal with this rather than freely educate Moms on how to develop healthy ways to cope with this reality. Unfortunately, this information varies for each person. One method cannot be true for every Mom. It is complicated. I do not have all the answers (but I’m going to school to learn more! stay tuned…). If we numb ourselves with alcohol and drugs and don’t discuss our difficulties we can never gain access to the information that applies to us each individually. Getting access to the proper information can be difficult for some, but abusing substances is not a great way to try to find out how. If we are continuously being fed the idea that drinking and secretly popping “chill pills” are appropriate and normal ways to deal with being Moms, the conversations may never happen.
Most of our issues are a small offshoot of a much bigger picture problem our society faces, but that doesn’t mean we have to escape, stay numb, and remain silent.
The more we participate in mommy drinking culture, the more difficult we make it for women who need real help and feel abnormal for knowing they have a problem. If you are struggling and reading this, pease know that there is no amount of alcohol consumption that is “normal”. You do not need to be a person who drinks to be “normal”. Mostly because “normal” isn’t even a real thing. Some people can have one, some can’t have any. We are all our own version of “normal” if we must use that word.
Reach out to your women’s health doctor’s office if you are experiencing signs of any type of postpartum anxiety, depression or otherwise. Anxiety can come through in many different forms, it doesn’t always mean panic attacks and always being uptight. Depression doesn’t always equate to thoughts of suicide. If you feel off, especially if you’ve had a baby within the last few years, it is always okay to talk to your women’s health doctor. (Family doctors are also an option, but it is likely that your women’s health doctor has more experience in this area. Even if you use Planned Parenthood, they are there to help you.)
Reach out to a friend or family member who you can openly discuss your feelings with, and if you do not have one you feel comfortable expressing things to, look for a therapist.
If you have access, find a therapist anyway, even if you do have friends.
Ideally we could discuss these things with anyone, but unless you have the experience of being pregnant and/or raising kids, you may not be able to understand and may be alarmed at some of the things that are being expressed to you. If someone comes to you and you cannot relate, please urge them to speak with a professional about how they are feeling, and do not make them feel judged for how they feel.
Someday maybe we will have better resources for mental health in all capacities for everyone who needs it. Until then, we as a whole entire society need to be more accepting of the human condition. We need to stop being afraid of ourselves and how we feel.
I’m here to tell you, it’s okay to feel bad and terrible, if you can help it – don’t buy into all the marketing bullshit telling you to drink to cope with motherhood. You don’t need it.
-roxii
Even before I became pregnant, the idea of me breastfeeding made me uncomfortable. I was never uncomfortable around others who were feeding their babies, but picturing myself doing it was… unsettling.
While pregnant, I did a lot of research on the subject and, as every mother can attest to, I wanted to provide what was best for my child. The benefits of breastfeeding are invaluable. I had a lot of anxiety while I was pregnant and this was just a little more fuel to that fire. I practice meditation as a sobriety tool and I spent many days and nights trying to ease my mind about the thought of breastfeeding through meditation. It wasn’t external pressure I had, I particularly do not care what others have to say about the way I choose to parent, so luckily that was a non-issue. No, the pressure to breastfeed was an internal, personal one. How dare I not give my child the nutrition and bonding that she deserves because the thought makes me uncomfortable. It is natural, it is incredibly amazing, and it is free.
In the hospital the first couple days, the discomfort was present, but I was in the clouds. No discomfort would prevent me from doing what’s best for my baby. It was there, but the elation that I was experiencing after having my baby was preventing me from fully experiencing the feelings of discomfort in the pit of my belly. I fed her with a shield because that’s how she latched, I pumped to supplement and we finger fed her to get her enough nutrients, we supplemented with formula because I wasn’t producing enough for her demand. It was all perfect. As those early hours peeled away even though time seemed to have stopped moving, the feeling began to creep up into the forefront of my mind.
At home, I was going to power through the discomfort at any cost because I was not going to let whatever my fucked up feelings were about something so important to her well being get in her way. Well, if you’ve ever flown anywhere you know the rule: put your oxygen mask on before assisting others. You can’t help anyone if you’re dead.
Within the first week it was becoming increasingly apparent that I may not be able to live this way. Every time I fed my daughter (every two hours at first followed by pumping) I would also be crying. I wasn’t able to speak to anyone else while I was feeding or pumping. There had to be something funny on the TV because otherwise I was actively searching my mind for ways to end myself. This was not sustainable.
I, of course, began googling the symptoms.
A deep well of feelings of shame and guilt in the pit of the stomach rising up to the throat. Increasing in strength the longer baby or pump was latched on. Thoughts of having made a mistake, thoughts of suicide. Which led to thoughts of immense guilt and thoughts of shame at the thought of abandoning my child and leaving her without a mother. Shame and guilt for feeling like I made a mistake because how could such a perfect little soul ever be a mistake? She was not. Thoughts of guilt about stopping because my supply was good and she was latching on better than ever. The cycle of shame and guilt caused by feelings of shame and guilt finally culminated.
Google came up with a possibility called “D-MER” dysphoric milk ejection reflex. Everything fit except the description of D-MER was experiencing these feeling on the let down, not the entire time. Everyone is different and experiences things in different ways. When I mentioned this to the lactation consultant, she encouraged me to continue trying. When I mentioned this to my therapist, she reassured me that it was okay to stop.
I spoke to a few wonderful mothers who said “just stop, it’s okay. Formula is a valid option”. I had also spoken with some wise women prior to getting pregnant (I’m a hairstylist and my clients are all women, we talk all day long and I am grateful). One woman in particular who had experienced struggles with breastfeeding suggested that I write myself a letter before I give birth that expressed, in my own words, that it would be okay if I had to stop breastfeeding. I am grateful for the words from these women. It was necessery and helpful. My husband was supportive of anything I chose to do. He could see how visibly disturbed this was making me and fully supported whatever decision I made. I am lucky.
I lasted three weeks breastfeeding. I’m not sure if what I was experiencing was D-MER or not, but what I am sure of is that the second I stopped breastfeeding and pumping, the quality of the bond between my daughter and I immediately became better. I may have been feeding her with a bottle of formula, but she still snuggled into me because she knew I was doing what was best for her. I may not have been using my gifts provided by mother nature herself, but I wasn’t sobbing into my baby while contemplating death as a valid option as she ate her meals.
I know there is a lot of support for both breastfeeding and formula feeding, but the internal turmoil the debate can cause could be debilitating for a lot of mothers out there.
It’s always okay to do what you need to do. Women are written off as being “overly hormonal” during and after pregnancy, but those hormones are real. The emotions that we feel are valid. Listening to your body when it is telling you something is important, and when we create life, our bodies have to scream at us to make sure we are listening. It’s okay to listen. It’s okay to break promises to yourself when your body is screaming at you to do so.
✌🖤
Ps. Formula is expensive as fuck, and that really sucks, but I am very grateful that we were in a position to (barely) be able to afford it. I understand it isn’t an option for everyone due to cost. I don’t have answers for this problem, but I recognize the privilege we had of being able to access a second option to feed our child.
I will be curating a more organized comprehensive list of resources, but for now here a few places that have helped me on my journey.
I, personally, do not use AA/NA for my recovery. A lot of people do. It is a great program for those it works for, but please know that if it does not work for you, that is okay. You’re allowed to try other options. That is true for all of these resources, but I particularly feel the need to preface the AA/NA link with this.
The following is an unedited journal entry from about seven months after I ended the longest relationship I’ve ever been in – my love affair with alcohol.
If you are not a person who re-entered the world with a sober mind after abusing a substance for a significant period of time – you may not relate. Or, maybe you will, I don’t know your life. It is hard to explain the experience and even though an explanation is not required (nor ever fully completed), I feel a peek inside the confused, raw, easily wounded mind can’t hurt.
If you do relate, then this is something I’m putting out just to say hey, you’re not alone and how you feel is how you feel and that is acceptable.
April 28, 2017
It can be difficult to hang out with other people sometimes.
They have their own memories, their own version of life.
It doesn’t always align with your reality.
You begin questioning your own memories.
How you felt.
Was it validated?
Were you wrong?
Does it matter?
Why do I feel the need to justify my own feelings and experiences to everyone when I’m drunk – or in general.
I guess maybe today when I was questioned, it really got me. Got me thinking.
I was asked why I was trying to be so weird – essentially.
Like, I’m posing as a weirdo.
Someone was judging the fuck out of someone else and I called them out. I said weird isn’t bad. The response was, “why are you always trying to defend the weird”.
Which translated in my mind as this:
They aren’t your people
You are not a member of that club
you don’t know me
no one does
It made me feel like a wannabe
It made me feel how I’ve always felt and have been trying to escape from for my whole life.
At some point
I just stopped – I halted myself.
My insecurity grew so much it overgrew.
It snuffed out my person – it crushed me under a pile.
I’m coming out now, and I’m sad to have missed so much.
I can’t even articulate what I’m going through or how I feel.
It’s all in my head ‘cause when I talk out loud it’s not the same.
I feel that gaze.
I hear that judgement.
—
I stopped learning because I was afraid I was doing it wrong
—
I looked at everyone else before I moved because they all did it better.
Now, I’m trying to do it myself first, without the validation of others.
It’s so hard because people are not afraid of the same things you are. So, they say things out loud – or maybe they feel the same, and when they hear themselves they are just as frustrated with what they’ve said as you can be.
I wish we could all wear our moon on our sleeve.
I wish we could all see each other raw.
—
People who can articulate the raw –
those are the artists.
those are the gems
those are the ones who get it
I still feel like this a lot of the time, but I have a much better sense of recognizing that I’m the only person who has the power to make me feel judged. I may be a couple decades late, but I also have gotten to a place of fully embracing my weird and not being resentful about never fitting into a category. No matter how much we preach about doing away with conformity and “cliques be damned”, there will always be those who lump together. However, the thought that everyone else is in some kind of club that I don’t know about is my own mind creating an illusion. Just like everything else. There is no category for me, I am my own version of weird and I’m good with it.
I may no longer get too far into my head about why I can’t find my place, as I have created my own, but I will always defend the weirdos. To me, weird is the highest compliment, so keep ‘em coming.
-roxii
Recently, I was speaking to someone about my time in Florida.
They asked a simple question: why did I move there.
I normally somewhat boast about the irresponsible nature of my move (always acknowledging said irresponsibility, of course).
This time as I recounted the events leading up to, during and after I was met with some not good feelings.
Instead of doing what I always used to do, which was to suppress those feelings because they are unpleasant and make me feel very shitty about myself, I allowed the feelings in.
Now that I have names for these feelings, I was able to identify what it was I was feeling in my body:
shame
guilt
embarassment
gratitude
My inflated sense of ego during that time was so obviously rooted in insecurity.
I never understood who I appeared to be because inside my mind I was no one. Not no one in the sense that my physical presence on this earthly plane is an illusion – but no one at all. Period. This event took place during the beginning of my time as an Atheist.
We cannot ever know how we appear to others when we are immersed in believing the illusions created by the mechanism that is the brain. The illusions we see falsely keep us safe. They are our defense, but they are not real. I did not see myself as egotistical because my insecurities filled me all the way to the top, there was no room for objectivity. It’s an interesting concept, to feel that no one gives any fucks about you because you feel meaningless while simultaneously being consumed by fear of what others think. A wonderful recipe for alcoholism.
My close friends were so livid with me for up and leaving everything, I could not understand why and met them with friction and frustration. My family were extremely against my decision and I felt they were being wildly unreasonable and also met them with friction and disregarded their concerns completely. I could not fathom that my personal choices and actions affected other people’s lives because I was no one.
[I was also being consumed by the reality of the seemingly insurmountable cost of debt I was quickly accumulating. This was my first lesson regarding the fact that debt doesn’t care where you live. While related to this, that is a post for another time.]
I knew of my insecurities at the time, I’ve always known them. My defense mechanism was to own them. If I owned them, they couldn’t plague me as much. Own them and they won’t make me feel as bad for what a sad, shitty, lost person I am. Owning your insecurities and actually accepting them are two entirely different things.
I have had such an intense blockage about this chapter in my life, at the same time being excessively open about the experience. The time I spent in Florida, short as it may have been, was a pivotal chapter in my life. I have been attached to the experience, I feel, for a number of reasons. Aside from the bullshit that brought me there, some good things happened in Florida. It’s clear to me, that clinging to the positive aspects and continued repression of the reality of why I was there to begin with – has been fostering a lot of unhealthy attachment to that time period. Rather than accepting it, learning from it and moving forward, I have been stuck in the suffering that the experience caused me and as a result amplifying the positive aspects excessively. Almost as if to sell myself on the idea that there was no negativity associated with the experience whatsoever.
I never processed my feelings about myself during that time.
How I allowed my mind and body to be used by a man who was equally as insecure as I was.
How I allowed myself to be manipulated and deceived regularly.
How I clung embarrassingly to a man who said one thing, but did another.
How I saw myself as an annoyance but continually responded when called upon.
How I confused dependency for love, even though I never spoke those words.
How I truly thought I could save a man child who was not ready to save himself.
[gaslighting: verb To manipulate someone by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.]
I can look back with compassion, yet I still feel resentful towards him for blatantly using someone six years his junior as a sexual object and then passive aggressively trying to disconnect from her. All the while lying and manipulating to hide his own internal lies and struggles, that I could so clearly see. Someday my resentment may fall away, but it is just how I feel. Feelings come with experiences. Release comes in waves, you cannot force it, but be grateful with each passing swell.
I can forgive myself for the way I treated those who genuinely cared about me and I know they have (mostly) forgiven me, too.
When a person is in a relationship and assumes the role of ”savior”, it doesn’t always come with the awareness of that fact. They aren’t doing it for kudos or to prove a point. They’re doing it because they can see the humanity in another human being even when no one else can. Unfortunately, this more often than not results in being mistreated, taken advantage of and in extreme cases being abused. While I did experience psychological manipulation, I would not consider this particular relationship abusive to the point of being criminal. I have not spoken to this man since shortly after returning back to Pennsylvania in 2007, but I hope that he found himself eventually and has been able to work through his own suffering.
The result of sitting with the discomfort of my emotions surrounding this time period have been profound. As I continue to absorb the lessons offered to me on this journey, I attain more and more clarity about my true self. It gives me peace when I find myself clinging to old behaviors. It allows me to lean even more into the flow of the present, rather than clinging to positive lessons of the past as if they are the only positive and enriching experiences I have had. It opens my eyes to happiness in the present. It allows my shame and embarrassment surrounding the situation to fall away. I can finally lend compassion to and forgive myself instead of negatively berating myself for being so naive. I was only twenty years old – I was naive – and that’s okay, it was not a shortcoming, it just was.
At the end of the day the one thing that doesn’t change is what an eye opening and enriching experience it was living in such a melting pot. Enriching in the sense that, like, I’m not a close-minded spoiled brat like I was before I went there. I made some great friends and did have a lot of fun times. It’s a wonderful thing now to allow the positives and negatives of that experience to coexist. One does not negate the other. Both experiences are true, and while they inform me about the present, they do not exist here – now. They just were.
Funnily enough, the man I followed to Florida was one of the first people who ever expressed concern over my drinking habits. He also expressed concern over my physical appearance and told me I had a lot of potential to be “hot” if I put my mind to it. My time in Florida was also a time that pushed me even further into using alcohol as a coping mechanism, for more than the obvious reasons stated here. All of these experiences are interwoven and do influence what path we ultimately end up walking. I’m grateful for all of the things that have led me to the path I am currently navigating.
-roxii
This was a Facebook post I had written awhile ago. I’ve attempted to make it more blog appropriate as I feel it’s a good one to share here, also.
As always, I stress that these are my experiences and mine alone. It is never my intention to take away from other’s more intense and difficult struggles. I am just shedding light on what it looks like to have been unaware of the way my brain operates for most of my life, thus far.
____________________
Defying ADHD Stigma: We Can Be Our Own Role Models
As a person who is unusually open about almost everything (probably to the point of being annoying to some) I’ve been back and forth about how much I share regarding all the things I’m learning about ADHD. I was trying to articulate to myself why that is, and I came across the above article that does it nicely.
While I know people don’t have malicious intent when they respond in these ways, it’s patronizing and makes me question my already wavering self-awareness and the confidence I’m so desperately trying to attain.
I get the:
“have you tried…”
“are you sure you’re not just…”
“aren’t we all a little…”
etc.
These comments trivialize my own personal knowledge of what a struggle it is to have any type of mental issue. Going through life undiagnosed and unaware of what it means to be of the ADD brain, let me tell you: I have tried it all, I’m not just a little bit lazy and while a lot more people have ADHD than we realize, everyone does not have this type of brain. Understanding it now, I am better able to contend with myself and work on the weaknesses it presents to me. It’s not an excuse, but a reality. It’s not easy, but I’m working on it.
Having the awareness of what it means has been tremendously helpful in finding tactics that actually help with the weaknesses because most of the standard main “organize your life” suggestions simply do not work for me. Understanding what it means for my brain is the piece of the puzzle I needed to stop internally degrading myself when I cannot understand why I can’t just figure it out like other people can.
Here are some abbreviated fun facts that are directly related to having undiagnosed ADHD without getting into the emotional side of things:
This list could go on endlessly, but I have to stop somewhere. These things have plagued me my entire life and I have been trying to “do life” right since the beginning. These traits have persisted through lots of frustration and there was never a lack of being taught or trying to learn how to do any of it properly. Just learning, at 32, that all of it is a result of the way my brain is wired, and not just because I’m crazy, lazy or stupid, comes with a whole host of emotional baggage. There are also a lot of emotional aspects of ADHD that compound the difficulties of the task related issues.
When I speak about my experiences I am not seeking pity, I’m trying to bring awareness and understanding to people who do not have the same experience, in a non-judgemental way. I also share in hopes to expose realities that others may relate to. I have a tendency to over-share, so I’m trying to use that productively.
I hear and see kids, teenagers and adults get treated poorly because people don’t believe ADD is a real thing or they don’t understand how profoundly it can affect someone’s life (in this, our western colonized society) . Paired with any other disability or mental illness, it can be completely debilitating for some.
As always, my most fervent piece of advice is SEEK THERAPY (if you can). Speak to a professional if reading anything about this topic makes you wonder. Even if you do not deal with ADD, learning the inner workings of your brain makes a world of difference when attempting to navigate this life
–roxii
nothing is down
nothing is up
i suffocate
normal is a myth
i crave space
it keeps getting tighter
wait
play it out
exhaust the tape
that click tick
there it was
it's all plastic anyway
but my colors
are fire
they always melt
melt it down
melt the gray
🖤
This isn’t some profound piece on craving, it’s just some shit I feel because we all have shit.
The craving hit me so hard today. It’s Christmas.
I’ve been sober for 2 years 3 months and 1 week.
(six is an intriguing number to be correlated with a day of intense craving)
I can pinpoint the reason(s) why I’m experiencing this craving, which is helpful but also frustrating because the reason(s) are somewhat beyond my control. Some are, some aren’t and the ones that are… well, timing is everything, right?
I have the tools and I know the appropriate way to navigate through a craving a come out on the other side. These things are working and helping, but when I am in it, I am in it.
The cravings come few and far between, which is nice. Not like in the beginning. The mind also tricks you. It isn’t always alcohol I’m craving, but ultimately my emotional dependency would revert back to alcohol if I gave in.
Realizing the craving wouldn’t always present itself as a craving for my drug of choice was a game changer. Recognizing the emotion associated with my cravings was necessery.
I know this will pass, it always does.
Writing this out and sharing it is a helpful tool. One of many.
If you are craving, you are not alone. This time of year brings it on in a big way.
It will pass.
This, too, shall pass.
Breathe.
–roxii
roxii 