The things I get upset about are unimaginable to me today. I think it's probablly the first time in my life I ever looked at or even monitored my credit. And I'm 41.
It's been a wild ride to say the least. My addiction started at 16 and progressed till 32. I was getting degrees and having really professional jobs, but adulting fully. Yeah that was delayed. They say you stop maturing emotionally when you start your addiction, so really I'm 25. OMW that's funny. Explains a lot. So I guess normal people start growing up, and I'm at a 16 yr loss. I guess I'm looking to date 25 and up. Makes sense now, sorry I'm freaking out a little, I thought I was older :)
As I sit her paying my $35 a month interest charge on $1,800 while I'm in nursing school full time and unemployed. I think holy shit you bastards, this is modern day slavery. How dare you pricks! And yes I did look them up to go down there and talk to someone!!! Too bad it's in Charlotte, NC :( No really, that's probably why there's no mailing address just a PO Box, cuz my thinking was like, how can I hurt them too.
So yes I did CHOOSE to get a credit card, because no rental car company in Orlando would rent to me when my car broke. I put a hotel room on it for 3 nights 2 years ago, but I never thought I'd still be paying it. It charges me $500 a year in interest on $2,000 and it's designed to never get out from underneath!
I never planned on having it still have a balance, but my car broke 3 times and was undrivable. Then I needed 2 new tires. Life does that.
How do people with children EVER GET OUT from underneath, I have no idea. Being rightfully angry, I think, can we sue? Is Morgan and Morgan available?? I would really like to talk to someone, and ask them how they think that this is right in the middle of a financial crisis!
It frankly makes me angry, they started coming after me when I was 18 and in college. I had no idea what I was signing up for, but they gave me a hat or bag. (Damn pirates!)
It was like that from 1998 till 2005 when I was 25 on UCF's campus. They agressively marketed towards us. Being from a home with both parent's working full time and divorced I had no instruction in this. Both my parent's come from a different generation, where jobs were stable. They both were in the medical field, and had stable dependable income's. I never really saw either of them struggle financially like my sister's and I have with business college degree's we thought would guarantee us a stable income.
I wonder if it's because we work in a "right to work" state that is Florida. Is everywhere else this freaky? Or do I need to move! In college I had an internship in the Naval Air Warfare Systems Training Division, a simulation center in Orlando. I saw people that had been in their careers for 20-30 years and had real security. Of course there was no job for me when it was over, because there was no movement because people kept their jobs. (Cute pic of my Valentine's birdy, Dezi....squirrel!!!)
So I went into education, they were just getting rid of tenure when I began teaching in 2003.
So basically those credit cards became too much when I had my mental health diagnosis reared it's ugly head in my mid to late 20s around 2006. It was a crazy time, I was trying to get out of my second back to back physically abusive relationship. I also was realizing I didn't drink like other people.
My boyfriend and I at the time would go out "drinking" and we would think in pitchers. Not being employable at this time, I of course put it on my credit card. After my bipolar diagnosis, and a psychotic break brought on by the moring after pill I couldn't keep up with them anymore. (Letting the shoe drop ;)
Eventually 7 years later they came off my credit. What a crazy 7 years those were, at the end of my addiction.
It feels like a lifetime ago now. I'm coming up on 9 years of sobriety May 15th. It's really hard to believe. I am a completely different woman now, mind, body, and soul. Honestly, I didn't even notice my credit when I was drinking and using for the next 6 years. I wasn't able to actually stop untill 2012. (Trubbie lived thru it all even got thrown into a breakfront as a kitty by my ex-who actually picked him out from the pound in '05)
I came into my recovery program in December of 2009, and would get a few months here, 6 months there for 2 years. For me I needed some structure and a faith based recovery program to break the bondage I feel the dark realm had on my spirit. Alcohol is called spirits for a reason. (This church saved my life!)
I feel like when the dependence happens, something in the brain changes. You begin to live to drink, and without it you can't function. Your higher order thinking skills are basically gone, and your in survival mode.
When I got my first year of sobriety, it really was a miracle. Even in sobriety I would put myself in crazy sober situation still, because I was so used to chaos and it being around me. (The new me-> I read stuff like this...)
Most of my relapses probably had a lot to do with my codependency. That addiction is what fueled my other one's. Without drug/alcohol, what would fill my loneliness? Being an identical twin, I would always wonder of all the people in the world. How can I be lonely, I mean I shared an egg and didn't even have to come into this world alone.
She was always there, growing up but there were times when that loneliness just hurt. I know now it's the seperateness from our higher power, and only that connection can fill it.
I am just soooo amazed at what God has been doing for me. I cried the whole Easter service, because I thought because of Jesus the holy spirit really is alive and active in this world. It just made me sad, that some people aren't open to it because of their hurts, and all the joy they're missing out on it they can just try one more time.
He/She/It is literally a breath away, people in meditation feel that peace/calm instantly when they realize in this moment everything really is ok. It always is, if you center yourself in this moment only and stay in the present. I've counseled so many kids and families and asked them the same question. In this moment, do you feel that everything is ok. When they pull themselves into the moment and stop thinking about the past or future, they have always 100% said yes I am ok right now. If that's not God, I don't know what is.
When you walk outside, and everything just seems to be working in nature what is that? I live by a nature preserve and at my most stressful school moments, when I just try to stay in the moment and put on music while i learn. I literally have sandhill cranes come fly to the front porch and chill/study with me. My social life is no longer under my control. I have no idea what my schedule will be from day to day.
When I have time to do what I want, and not school I can't make plans because I don't know when that will be, literally. It's the craziest thing. I've had to cancel my gym membership because the last time I was able to go, was November. I keep thinking I'll have a day, but it never materializes because when I do I'm too tired and just want to do nothing.
It's a good kind of tired though, I started in the hospital a month and a half ago and it gives me life again.
I'm 6 months into the program and still have 8 to go. It's hard sometime. At first they said we'd be out before thanksgiving break, and now it's before Christmas. We didn't technically start till November though. We're going back face to face in the fall 4 nights a week, and I think they literally are trying to kill my spirit with that one. Now that I love zoom and all the freedom it gives me. I still get all the work done, 4 chapters a week I can't imagine sitting in a classroom again 16 hrs a week on top of like 25 hrs of classwork a week, and 40 hr weekends bimonthly.
I've got this far with financial help and a scholarship, as Mike says on Jersey Shore. God didn't take me this far to drop me now, it'll be ok.
Honestly if I stay out of the way, this is the nicest financial time I've had in a while with unemployment and covid assistance.(One of the 3 trips I've been able to take) I can focus full time on just learning and enjoying all the stuff I'm learning as my job. Being a bookworm and total dork completely I'm in heaven. I never imagined God could lay this all out so perfectly.
The only thing I really miss is my social life I used to have with my recovery program, but I will appreciate it so much more when I get to have it again next December. The recovery experiences I had before Covid are so rich and varied I feel super blessed to have met so many different types of people in my lifetime. There's a community of about 1,000 people at least I know in Orlando because of my recovery programs, that would never have happened without being an addict/alcoholic.
In my nursing program we're doing the chapters on addiction and mental health.
It's kind of hard listening to "normie's" people without an addiction problem talk about what we're like from a nursing perspective and not break my anonymity. I understand why we get a bad rap. We are like animals when our addiction is running the show, but we're not all alike and that's what people don't get. I was taking my drug dealer with me into church and bribing him with money to go with me. I always had a conscience and relationship with God.
Maybe b/c I grew up a catholic school girl and went 8 yrs to catholic school I don't know. My mom was the reason I quit, because she had no hope left for me and I saw that clearly in her eyes. I didn't even know what I would do next, and asked my family to leave me in jail because at least there I felt safe from myself. God was telling me I didn't have a lot of chances left while I was in 33rd and I could hear it clearly because I believe I was near death.
I don't know what saved me, and why some people don't make it. I believe it is Grace and some die so other's can live and realize what a gift we have. I've lost a lot of close friends to this disease, and know how lucky I am. I never would have made it today with the fentynl laced stuff and being an iv drug user. I feel there's a whole generation behind me that has just vanished. So many of my friends in their 20s are just gone. I remember a guy sharing in the meeting that out of his rehab of 20 guys addicted to heroin there were only 3 left. I believe it, and it's beyond sad. It's such spiritual warfare.
If people don't start talking about taboo things like God, and Spirit, be willing to have an open mind we're going to keep losing people. I remember balancing my chakras in 1998, and getting accupuncture when it was "wierd." The looks I would get kept me from speaking about it till recently. Now it's mainstream.
Maybe we can get that way too with God and spirituality.
I really feel we are at a crossroads where people either are going to follow the way of love/openness to spirit, or paranoia/fear. I live in a home where 2 very sane women are you tube addicts and follow q anon. If they can be turned to "the dark side" anyone can :) It's not that I don't hear their points about corruption, child trafficking, etc. I know all that stuff exists, but we can't focus on the problem if we want change.
We need to focus on the solution and actions we can take today to change things. I organized a community event for easter and went door to door to try and build a better sense of community and getting to know our neighbors. That is where change happens like Jane Goodall says at the heart level. Dolly Parton is also good at getting it. Change happens with love and understanding of each other's hurts, and honesty. They are my heros.
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