Nov-17-2013

Being stuck in not having the option to leave and go somewhere makes me feel so confined. Maybe I want to go to the store....maybe I want to go see a friend...maybe I want to go visit a family member. But I am stuck here because I wrecked my car and this is my only option. sitting here...finding things to do here....which is probably what I would have done anyway but knowing that I cant makes me want to go out and do anything and everything and it tortures me more knowing that I cannot do it and now I want to. If that makes sense. I am torturing myself because I want things I technically didn't want to do anyway, but now do. I want to option to do whatever the hell I want to do.

I've been thinking about that this morning. I've always been like this, as I'm sure many are. You tell me I cannot do something or that I am forbidden or that the tools absolutely necessary to do something are gone then Im going to get frustrated in a split second. You may say to me "You cannot have an ice-cream cone...at all...anyone else can but you!" ....excuse you?! I'm getting a damn a ice cream cone even if I have to go completely out of my way to find one or get one and then Im going to eat it in front of you. ...And I cant even eat ice cream as I am lactose intolerant to the max. But I'd deal with it if someone tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to have one...because I do what I want. Same thing if someone ever tells me I am unable to do a task...as in they don't think I have the skills to do a certain something or complete something or meet some kind of deadline. That immediately gives me all the motivation I need. I probably didn't want to do it to begin with...I probably would have rather been lazy and done less of it than I was capable....but if you tell me you know I cannot do it or do it in a certain amount of time...guess what, I'm going to do it. There isn't any doubt about it. That's how at work I do twice the amount of works anyone does in a 10 hour day... in my 8 hours. and now consistently do it. You can say a lot of things to me. Things that wont bother me. You can call me names. You can throw things at me.... but you cannot tell me I cant have something or I'm not capable of doing something that I know I can. I take those as challenges....and I take those seriously.

Which brought me to thinking of this. I remember when I started running again in August (I used to run several miles a day years ago while still being a smoker but not as heavy of one as I became) people were like "man I hate running" "good for you" ....then I was still doing it in September.... getting better. People were starting to get inspired to wanting to start too. Now, I was always outside smoking with my smoker friends. The biggest response I got from anyone... smokers or non smokers were that they couldn't believe I was doing it and still smoking in my day to day life. I assured them I was jogging but it's not like I was race material...it was only to relieve my stress and it brought me some kind of sick happiness to feel like my muscles and everything in me were going to die and then it being all over with that smile on my face.

I remember one person outside smoking with me said something along the lines of "wow...I'm just astonished you can even jog in a mediocre fashion since you're a smoker. You've been talking so much about how awesome running makes you feel it made me try it out a few times and I couldn't even make it a half mile. ...do you think you could become an amazing runner if you stopped smoking?" ...at this point I had built myself up to about 2.5 miles a day sometimes more and they were shocked they couldn't do a half mile. I told them I had no plans to stop smoking.....that I enjoyed it and that I enjoyed running. I would give neither up. Smoking has been in my life too long. I told them. They are my friend and are there when no one else is. I wouldn't know what to do without them, plus I'm not running to amazing at it...I'm only doing it for one reason...because it relieves my work/life stress so much since I started, so there is no reason to become amazing at any of that.

That was the extent of that and that just made the wheels in my mind turn for quite a few days. I'm very competitive...with anyone or even with myself. It's almost a disorder. I started paying closer attention to my times and distances and breathing. Dammit, I thought, I really could get better at this since I get better every day anyway and was suddenly at a standstill for a couple weeks. Should I give up my cigarettes? maybe... wait... no ....that's dumb Rachael you aren't going to do that. Quit talking crazy to yourself. (which was obviously my addiction talking to me...I've never had a thought of possibly quitting until that moment)

Then just a few days later I was talking to someone a few days later who was telling me someone told them they couldn't do something. And as I've just told you, Rachael is not a fan of that. I asked if they proved them wrong and shoved it in their face? And they told me no they didn't want to look stupid if they failed at it and that it just didn't feel worth it to them.

I'll start the next of this off with saying I am a very outspoken person. I do not really have a filter. I usually say whatever I think of. Some people don't like this but I don't worry about all that. Anyway, I laughed a little when they said that and stared at them in shock. I told them how rude it was of that person and that you cant let people treat you like that. They don't know what you can do and it would have been better to try and fail than not to try to show them that you can in fact do something. I was kind of scolding them telling them it was ridiculous to get treated like that when you are an adult and you can do whatever you want and that person doesn't own you or get to make your decisions on what you do or don't do....or on what you can and can't do and that they needed to quit letting people treat them like complete garbage. Then they decided to hit me with a reality check, which never happens.

They said I was being a hypocrite. Which immediately pissed me off and got me on defensive mode. I told them how offensive that was. I never let anyone walk on me...I'll walk on someone else before anyone treats me like that or tells me what I have to do. The notion was ridiculous that they would say this to me. But then they pointed at the cigarette I was smoking and said that I can't stop smoking...not only if someone told me I couldn't but even if I wanted to stop smoking. basically I then told them that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I can stop whatever I want to stop doing just like I can do what I want to do. I'm 27...I do and don't do what I want to do. And I want to smoke. Then it was getting more heated and they spewed out a huge spiel at me that I cant remember word for word.... but went something like this. They explained that maybe I thought I wanted to and that I thought I loved it as much as I wanted but that I didn't really like it and that deep down I hated it whether I said it or not. That I have been a slave of R. J. Reynolds for 10 years or more and that it was a fact. That I did what he wanted me to do and I had no choice in the matter. That I was in so deep with this dude that I didn't even realize I was his slave and that he had mind fu**** me since the very beginning slowly...brainwashing me to think that I wanted to go into that gas station almost every day and buy those two packs of cigarettes (not because I smoked completely 2 packs a day but because the thought of being without or running out when I couldn't get to more was nightmarish.) They said R. J. Reynolds is telling you and has been telling you for years that you have to go get those you need those to live your day to day life and that without them you wont survive. You have no control over this. You can't quit. You are an addict. You don't love it. You loathe it. You hate standing outside in the winter three times a day at work. You can't stand smoking. But you are the deepest kind of slave and you have been told you can't leave this cigarette prison, ever, and so you tell people you don't want to.....but I know, and people know, that all you want is to be let out of it. So don't tell me what I should have done to that person or that I let anyone walk all over me. You're in a dungeon....and they won't let you out and there is nothing you can do about it. ......And then they stormed off....

That was a lot to take in. No one had said anything like that to me before. I felt violated by this person...but at the same time there was so much processing going on in my brain. What were they talking about? oh well...I'd deal with it later. Then on the way home from work I went into the gas station and bought cigarettes. walking out I realized this person was completely right. wtf has been happening to me all these years? I just wanted to smoke an occasional one while drinking in my teens with my friends. I never wanted any part of what this was now...of what this has been for years. I never signed up for this. All these thoughts flooded in at once. I've been broke many times but to me they were like food...I don't care I had to have them. Shamefully I realized to myself I hadn't looked at the price of a pack of cigarettes...in....years. Because it didn't really matter...I'd be getting them anyway. I went back in and looked at what it cost for 1 pack and walked back out all while being hit with a realization that I was in a prison and that I didn't know how to get out of it. What was this feeling? I had never felt this before. I wanted no part of someone or something telling me what I had to do or that I could live my life not doing this. When did this happen to me? I searched my mind for the exact moment that these things threw me into a dark pit and shackled my legs. I couldn't find that moment in my head. All the years blurred together. I got home went on my run. got a really good time on 3.1 miles (given that I was a smoker.) then my competitiveness kicked in and I realized I liked this not just for stress relief but that the one person was right...I wanted to be better...I could be much better. then I drove home. I lit a cigarette (to "reward" myself with my new best time). and then I sat there and realized I did not love this. That person was right. I did not enjoy doing this. I felt I had to do this. My brain thought i had to buy those and smoke those and do these things and at some point in my life someone or something did start telling me what I had to do.... that I had to smoke cigarettes. That I had to buy them, no matter the cost. That I could not be without them.

Well, dammit, I got pissed. Id went and let myself get tricked at some point and let this person/thing into my brain and now I was doing whatever it said and not doing what it said also. what an eventful day.... between being in the car after that run realizing I wanted to be the best I could be at it and sitting on my couch "rewarding" myself with a cigarette I realized this was going to be over for me very soon. No one tells me what to do or what I have to do. Now, I am not stupid, I did not feel I could suddenly quit at that very moment in time. I gave myself a little over three weeks to prepare my brain to say goodbye to this awful person/thing controlling my actions. I knew I probably wouldn't make it if I quit right then. I had years I had reinforced into my head how much this was my only true friend, always there. Stockholm Syndrome is it? And I had to let it sink in...so November first seemed like the perfect time to make my escape. And I did. And I think that's why I've gotten through this without caving so far at this point or feeling intense need for it. I am mad that it was controlling me and I was not controlling it. Nothing controls me..I always say that but for years something was controlling me. Sure it felt sad to give it up and there are things I do now that feel awkward without having them but each time I feel that awkwardness going away bit by bit. I want to get myself back. I will not allow something to control me and now I am finding myself at the point of trying to forgive myself for letting something like that get to that point. The point where I didn't even realize what I was doing...just going through motions that were ingrained in me for so long.

I thank that person for saying those things that at the time ticked me off. I needed to hear it. Someone who wasn't afraid of telling the "mean girl" what was up and that she was trapped. Because after that all I could feel was confinement like I do without a car. I felt cornered by cigarettes and felt all the walls closing in upon me.

Anyway, the thought of being cooped up in my house with no car to drive across town in made me think of that cigarette prison I was in but didn't realize it. I was in a confined dungeon for years being told that I couldn't leave...that I didn't want to leave...that I had to go drop all that money on something...that I had no other option...and that if I left it my life would be filled with emptiness. That I would live in a nightmarish world filled with darkness if I left. Even just at this point i see what lies those are. Completely disgusting lies to allow yourself to believe. To stay in that small space and be imprisoned. just in the past 16 or whatever days I am filled with more happiness than I was before and there is no darkness out here...nothing nightmarish. Shameful.

Sorry for the long post.... you get cooped up in a place for two days and your mind might start going wacko on you... and then starts to relate being carless in a confined apartment to smoking cigarettes for years. So if none of that made sense.... lo siento... but at least it killed a bunch of time for me that I would have been bored out of my mind.