SOBER

Since coming in I’ve learned a whole lot of acronyms. One was HALT (Hungry Angry Lonely Tired). Since learning that one I’ve recognized it whenever I feel it, even when I just feel it approaching. The one I learned this week is SOBER – Son of a Bitch Everything is Real.

This is one of the sentiments I’ve felt a lot this week. Particularly when, as someone described it today, my brain fights behind enemy lines.

Yesterday I averted a breakdown – barely – and only because of the support of friends and the Crisis Line. These friends, some of whom I’ve never actually met, talked with me on the phone for close to an hour. I spoke with the crisis line for another half hour solid. That’s an hour and a half on the phone – remarkable for someone who works on phones and thus hates phones even more than I did before.

What was almost more remarkable is that when I walked into work (because this all happened in the parking lot at work…where I was…four hours early) when my boss asked me how I was doing I got teary eyed. I told her the day was a struggle. And she said, “It’s okay.” Another supervisor gave me a hug as we walked out to our cars because one of the people I had spoken with on the phone told that supervisor I needed a hug.

My mantra as I was driving home was, “This day is over. Tomorrow is a new day. You did the next right thing – by not doing the wrong thing. Tomorrow may be more of the same, but take it a minute, an hour, a day at a time.” Any time I try and push beyond the moment I feel like I’m drowning in my mind.