Followup On Andre's Remarkable Progress
Addiction, Patience, OCD, Vision, Travel, Traffic And More
"Gary, we are so limited in English for our words of thanks. We only have a few. We need to have more—more emphatic ones that describe gratitude for things like miracles, because this ongoing transformation in me is nothing short of that. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!"
Hi Gary,
I have been meaning to write to get you up to date but my sister is visiting from Vancouver and she's a bit of a handful (more on that later).
Addiction: Some remarkable changes are taking place, not the least of which is that I haven’t had—or even thought about—Ativan (for anxiety and panic attacks) since August 31. This is a better than two-decades-long addiction that is now just gone. I touched on it briefly in the webinar last week but didn’t want to suggest any hazardous activities to any attendees, and I know you don’t dispense medical advice. I said that I listened to my body to tell me when I needed Ativan. I didn’t make a conscious decision to get off it because it wasn’t doing me much harm and if that’s what I had to take to survive, then I was fine with it.
Since our work began (and continued) I just kept forgetting to take it. It was always my day-starter—under the tongue before I got out of bed—again, for decades. My usual dose was anywhere from 1mg to 3mg per day depending on what otherwise insurmountable terrors that particular day held in store for me. The need for it vanished but several hours after getting up I’d start to feel a little spacey which I know to be a symptom of withdrawal. Usually I’d feel it around 3pm, take 1.5mg, then it became 5pm and 1mg, then 7pm or 9pm and 0.5mg, then not at all and the next morning I’d get the feeling again, take another 0.5mg and then that was it. And it’s been seven days and I don’t think about it and it’s not at all difficult like something is missing or I’m suffering in any way for a lack of it.
This worked for me, but it may not work for others and I would never suggest that someone should try to eradicate a prescription addiction without medical supervision. I did because I was confident in my knowledge of how and why the drug works and I knew that I could always go back to it if I needed to. I am sure there will come a day when I don’t carry a small glass pill vial in my pocket—but that day is not yet today. I have to be sure, and the status quo does no harm.
I don’t know if it's possible for you to address this with other OEFT members, but my guess is that you wouldn’t. I just wanted you to know the extent of this awesome change in something that has been hanging over me for decades. I also want to state unequivocally—and I’m putting it in writing here for you—that at no time have you ever counselled or advised me on anything to do with my ridding myself of this addiction and that I did it on my own without medical supervision and that it was my decision alone.
Issues we have not address, but that have been improved nonetheless:
Patience: I’m impatient. I always have been. My sister tries my patience because she a boundary-buster, a time-bandit and a seeker (meaning she seeks me out if i don't respond to her). This visit is different. I’m not being dramatic in my use of the word “horrified,” because I was when she told me that she was coming for fifteen days. This was before we started our work. FIFTEEN days. To stay. With me. In my home. I’m not one who yells, but in previous visits there have been incidences of yelling—by me—because I have lost patience. Somehow, while there’s nothing different about her, I’m more patient and have come to a peace of ‘she is who she is and at sixty-two she isn’t going to change,’ So I have, or rather, the Unseen Therapist, has changed me. Of course, I’ll be grateful to have my house back when she goes, but I’ll know that this time it was a good visit . . . though at the same time, she doesn't leave until NEXT Tuesday, so we’ll see how things play out. I am, however, very optimistic.
OCD: Pictures in my house no longer have to hang perfectly straight (like with a laser level—seriously). My refrigerator and pantry do not have to be perfectly organized with all labels turned facing precisely forward (once I actually thought of alphabetizing everything to make it all easier to find, but that was going too far even for me—but I did think about it). I have a new phrase: “Not my job.” I can go into a store now and see inventory askew and I now know that it’s not my job to make it right. I check all the doors before bed—as most do. Check them again and again and yet again? Not my job. Razor sharp, starched creases on my shirt sleeves from shoulder to cuff? Not my job—a quick steam is fine.
I no longer have to print five copies of the same business letter so that I can send the one that has the signature that I like the best—I’m not kidding, it was a regular occurrence. The non-tearing paperclips I buy from Germany aren’t a necessity anymore, but they have been forever because they’re the best and I had to have them because if I sent a letter out with a paperclip that might tear the paper when it was removed—that happening in the recipient’s office and me never knowing anyway was still out of the question. I’ll still use the machine that folds letters into identical thirds because I already have it and it’s a tidy look. OCD can be expensive. Another example:
I’s unfortunate that OCD hadn't gone before a particular expenditure last month. In moving to my new house in February, because I was in post-surgical recovery I was slow to unpack—though the unpacked IDENTICAL moving boxes were stacked, perfectly aligned, on one side of my closet—I realized that somehow i had more clothing than hangers (AND there are more closets in my new house). All hangers in my house must be identical—it’s a rule. I tried to find the velvet hangers that I had but the company that manufactured them is no more. That was a thing for me. I was never going to let that happen again so I bought two hundred identical wooden hangers so that I would have more than I’d ever need. All the velvet ones were swapped out. They had to be because they just did or anxiety would come.
These new changes are unprecedented. I don’t recognize that guy anymore. I don’t want to say “what was I thinking?” because the only definite answer is that I was ruled by anxiety, and now? Well, not so much.
I dug out some of the velvet hanger from the Good Will box last week and hung some shirts on them in my closet to see if it would bother me. It didn’t. My partner said “What are you doing? You spent all that money on hangers so they’d all be identical and now this? Are you crazy?”
“No, in fact, it’s the exact opposite. I WAS crazy. Now I’m not, and I’ve just proved it.”
I will probably switch them back out again because it’s a uniform look, but when I WANT to . . . not because I NEED to. It’s not my job.
Vision: I’ve worn glasses since I was twenty-five. Each prescription is always stronger than the last, but recently my vision has seemed to have gotten better. i asked the Unseen Therapist (the name “Amanda” keeps coming to mind when I ask her questions) and asked for improvement. It’s difficult to describe, but colours are more vivid and what I’m writing right now is more black and clearer. This is something I want to work on, but did notice immediately that I could read 11pt text with only little effort whereas it was a total blur beforehand.
Travel: The terror of travel has been there forever. Thoughts of it were almost enough to send me packing to the laughing academy. There’s a sense of excitement I get now when thinking of getting on a plane and going wherever it stops next. I have NEVER gone anywhere without a plan. The thought of it now makes my heart pound in a good way that brings no anxiety. Putting it into practice is something that I’m eager to try but the trepidation of “what if” is still there, just now, less so.
Traffic: In a previous message I told you of colossally stupid and reckless measures I had taken in the past to avoid traffic (like jumping the median or abandoning my car). Seeing traffic on television was anxiety-provoking. Looking at a grid-locked overpass that I was going under was enough to make me retreat to safety despite that I wasn’t even in it. I took a video of traffic I was in last week. 5pm—unheard of travel time for me. Grid-lock. Almost no movement. No heart palpitations, no sweating, no vertigo. Nothing.
There is only one explanation because there can be no other. My life is back, but better than it was before. The baggage is offloading faster than I can remember to remember it. I can’t say 'I don’t believe it' because I have no other choice but to do so.
Gary, we are so limited in English for our words of thanks. We only have a few. We need to have more—more emphatic ones that describe gratitude for things like miracles, because this ongoing transformation in me is nothing short of that. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
Andre
