First and Only Step

I went through a painful break up in June, 2007, ending a 10 year relationship. I got into that safe but ultimately suffocating relationship because my abandonment issues were too much for me to take on my own. I finally found the strength to end it last year, and have been staring into the void of all of this psychic pain that I never dealt with – neglectful, abusive parents, crippling loneliness and the lack of a family system, blah blah blah. I threw up walls everywhere, I stopped living for myself, and I gave up on my dreams in order to feel safe and loved. Now that I’m trying to strike out on my own, I feel crazy and dramatic and out of control. I keep telling myself, it’s not too late for me, I can keep my job, I can keep my sense of self, I can do what I want to do, and I can do it on my own — but obviously I’m not doing the best job of it right now. Obviously the drinking has to go. That’s really the first and only step I’ve got on my list right now. posted anonymously on ask.metafilter.com/

First you take a drink,
then the drink takes a drink,
then the drink takes you.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald