Soulshine

Feelings can be fabulous and feelings can be a nightmare. Those of us with addictive personalities have had a lifetime of struggle with our feelings. For the most part, I’m used to allowing my feelings to walk all over me. I’ve allowed myself to be powerless against the weight of fear, anxiety, sadness, etc. But recently I learned that I have great positive power when it comes to my feelings. In July I switched my OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) medication from Zoloft to Prozac. It was a rough transition that left me feeling frightened and anxious a good deal more than I am accustomed to feeling. The doctor and I finally worked out a proper dosage for me and I seemed to be adjusting well when one morning I woke-up and I felt extremely frightened. I got up, made some breakfast, sat down and said to myself “Enough is enough! I’m sick to death of feeling frightened and anxious! I refuse to continue to be a hostage to my feelings! I refuse to feel anxious today!” Within a mat...

In her book Toxic Parents , Susan Forward says that many adult children of alcoholics “subconsciously find ways to punish themselves with various emotional and physical symptoms” like headaches, gastrointestinal problems, etc.” This certainly rings true for me. Both my codependency issues and my obsessive-compulsive disorder have caused many psychosomatic physical problems for me. Looking back over my life I can pinpoint many times when I had physical problems that made no sense. My first ever panic attack happened when I was in my early twenties. I was in our den at home watching television when suddenly I felt warm, then I started having chest pains and difficulty breathing. I thought I was having a heart attack, which made no sense to me since I was so young at the time. After I calmed down, the symptoms eased. A few months later, I went to bed one night and felt short of breath. Breathing became more and more difficult, and no matter how hard I breathed-in, I couldn’t se...

“A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.” E.W. Howe I had a very big scare over the past week that was like hitting bottom harder than hard. My father had heart disease, so I had a calcium scan to make sure I don’t have heart issues. The calcium numbers themselves came back great, but the scan indicated a potential mass in my chest. When those words were spoken to me over the phone, my heart sank through the floor. I never expected to hear anything like this. Then my OCD went on a tear: “Oh, my God! What does “a mass” mean? Is it huge? Is it cancer? Am I going to have to have surgery? Radiation? Lose my hair? Die before I ever even truly live my life to the fullest? I never in my life have seriously thought about dying. I’ve always been amazingly healthy for an often wacked-out OCD codependent crazy (!), but now I was faced with the true reality of life and death. I turned to my Higher Power and said “Enough is enough. I’ve wasted too many years hating myself....

“It’s just my imagination running away with me.” The Temptations, Just My Imagination It’s the 4 th of July and that means fireworks. If you want some real fireworks in your relationships, however, just try being suspicious, controlling and distrustful of the people you believe you care most about in your life. Oh my God! Do I remember those days and all of the relationships I destroyed through by obsessive-compulsive thinking. In the past, I could never believe anyone was really interested in me, much less loved me, because I didn’t love myself and wasn’t interested in helping myself. So I’d enter a relationship and everything would be good at first. But the more I saw the person, the more insecure I’d become. I mean, how could this person possibly love icky old me? So I’d start obsessing about who they were looking longingly at if we were eating in a restaurant, or dancing in a club. When we were apart, they’d be on my mind constantly. What were they doing? I know. ...