Soulshine

Sometimes we fill-up our codependent emptiness by being obsessed with something other than a particular person. Looking back over my life it’s easy to see that I’ve consistently had something or someone to be obsessed over. In those times when my radar wasn’t glued to one particular person, I’d easily find other things to be wildly crazy about. For example, last year I was mesmerized by the new Great Gatsby movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. I saw the movie five times in the theater and I wanted every piece of Gatsby merchandise I could get my hands on: posters, soundtracks, press kits, photos, etc. That obsession lasted about a month before I started wondering why I was so hyped over Gatsby. Then, I was watching The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn and suddenly I was interested in everything about Errol Flynn. After a couple of weeks, I was over Errol Flynn in the same way I was over Gatsby. Next I rediscovered singer Donna Summer and I was on Ebay looking ...

“You are the only person who thinks in your mind! You are the power and authority in your world.” Louise Hay It’s true that we have power over our minds, although that power can sometimes be limited by brain chemistry. I suffer with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which is caused by a lack of proper serotonin production. As a result, I sometimes am powerless to override negative thinking with positive thinking. Over the past six months I have been free of any drugs that help your brain to produce serotonin, like Zoloft or Prozac (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). I wanted to see if I could now manage my serotonin through diet, exercise and an increased awareness of my obsessive (irrational) thinking. The first four months went really well. I got all of my feelings back and was able to cry again. One of the downsides of selective serotonin reuptake drugs is that they suppress your feelings. So I was initially happy to feel again—until some of the feelings got...

The past few days I’ve been on a real emotional rollercoaster. Since 1998, I had been taking 200 milligrams of Zoloft everyday for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Last year I talked with my doctor and decided to start weaning myself off of the Zoloft, which I had started taking as a means of increasing my natural serotonin production. It helped with my OCD, but later I learned that it also was emotionally numbing-me-out. Deciding that I wanted to start feeling the full rainbow of my feelings again, I began working my way down to 100 milligrams of Zoloft a day; then down to 50 milligrams a day. Last week, I took the last Zoloft I had. Since that time, emotions have started gushing out like crazy. Last Sunday evening I was watching an old Ginger Rogers movie called Romance in Manhattan . Rogers plays a New York showgirl who chance-meets a newly-arrived Yugoslavian immigrant (played by Francis Lederer). They go up to the top of her apartment building one evening; and as Led...

“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. ...