Step 4, Part 3

I've hit that magical level of exhaustion where things click into place because I don't have the energy to overthink them.  Time to exploit that fact.
More inventory:
My red rage scares me.  I don't mean anger or frustration, I mean flat out, berserker RAGE. I don't have it as often as I once did, but it's still far more common than I wish it was. It's always over something I can't control.  It's always well beyond what the situation calls for. And much of the time I either lash out and hurt someone I love, or turn inwards and feed the storm into myself because I don't want to or believe I can't take it out on the offender (see: getting laid off.)  Neither of these is healthy.  I actually got complimented, once, for how professionally I took being removed from a position.  What he didn't know is that I was being very neutral and clipped in my speech so I didn't get arrested for assault, and it was taking every ounce of strength and determination I had.
I guess being able to hide, or at least mask, unwelcome expressions can be a good thing in the working world.  Being labelled sensitive or  explosive can haunt you.  I do need to remember to deal with those emotions, though, and nt keep them sealed off forever.
I'm still not sure how much of my anxiety (GAD) is situation based, past based, and asthma based.  I have a difficult time distinguishing between them, because so often it's one feeding another feeding the other, like an anxiety centipede.  I do know it has a firmer grip on my life than I'd like it to, and that I need to remember my emergency inhaler's existence more often.
I expect chaos.  I may not thrive in it, but I expect it.  When will the other shoe drop?  When will things go to hell, because things always go to hell?  What drama will unfold?  I ask my God to remove me from the hurricane I live in, and in the same breath wonder how I'd survive in calm normalcy.  Even something that should be minimal chaos, like talking to friends, or asking for another project at work, has me making contingency plans along the way for when it will all go to hell.
I make contingency plans.  Hell, some of my contingency plans have contingency plans. I realize that planning ahead and having certain contingency plans aren't necessarily a bad thing, that it's actually quite a good trait, in moderation. I don't do it in moderation.  I have contingency plans for the most inane things, like if I run out of gas on a stretch of road when I have a full tank, or if the dog dies suddenly.  There are times I haven't even realized I had a shit plan until shit happened.  There are other places I need a contingency plan and I refuse to even touch the topic (see: talking to my mother on a bad day and dealing with my middle sister.)
I have a strongly mathematical and scientific, but not necessarily rational mind.  I like to think I consider logic above all else, but my heart tends to rule my head.  These two sides of me seem to be constantly at war.  I get a gut instinct and then try to figure out if it could be rational.
I am frugal and often cheap.  Frugal is not spending more than you need, cheap is buying the same $5 item 20 times when I could have bought it once for $20.  My husband is slowly helping me go frugal as opposed to cheap.  I'd say that's largely due to not having enough money to be frugal when I was a kid; we had to settle for cheap. (Did you know there was knock off ramen?  I didn't know name brand ramen existed until college.)
I am tiny built, and fit into extremely small spaces well.  I learned how as a method to hide from pain.  I still find myself curling into a smaller shape or whatever crevice I can find when I'm in pain or uncomfortable.  It's a defense, but that defense doesn't work against emotional pain.
I can, and do, sacrifice myself for others, far more than I should.  It was an unspoken rule growing up: take care of the small people (those younger, smaller, or more delicate than you) first, be that giving them your dinner, comforting them when you're in your own hell, or protecting them  (Hey, look, a memory.)  I guess it can be a god thing, in moderation, to help those in need, but my needs should (often don't, but should) come first.
Aside from basic survival needs, I put myself last. If you look hungrier than me, I'll even push my hunger aside.  That hurts to admit.  I thought I did a pretty good job taking care of myself, but looking at it, I guess I should probably do more for me.  It's funny.  People tell me to relax, take time for myself, do things I want to do for myself.  I don't know how to do any of that, really.  I know how to do what needs to be done, but when it comes to my wants, those tend to get shoved aside.  The only relaxation I know is a bath with a book and one I hate to admit, even to myself (booze.) As I refuse to become my father, I refuse to comfort myself with alcohol.  I try meditation, and get caught up in trying to be "perfect" in it. I can't thoroughly relax while getting a pedicure because sudden movements tweak me out.  My journals are my outlet, and I tend to censor those, to an extent.
I have dysthymia.  It's a form of depression where my high points of elation don't really reach much higher than your blah days and my dark days are like falling away from the sun with an anchor strapped to your back.  People have actually said "Just TRY to be happy!"  I give them a Wednesday Addams smile and send them on their way. When I eat right, I get a glimpse and a taste of nondysthymic emotions.  They scare me.  To actually be able to be consistently happy feels like euphoria, which scares the hell out of me because it feels like a loss of self control.  I think that's why I self sabotage my efforts to eat right with "treats."  The euphoria of normal happy scares the pants off of me.
I occasionally get the urge to run (I ran so far awayay) like my mother used to do.  I've never acted on them.  I know that my problems can outrun me and will be waiting on me when I get home.  Even if running would help (I don't see how,) I refuse to do it for fear of turning into my mother.  I don't even run to exercise, for fear I might like it and then start running away, like Mom.  (Well, that and the real possibility of a severe asthma attack.)
When I was younger, the only reason I didn't cut was fear of discovery.  I had dreams of carving symbols and words into myself and making them scars.  I'm glad I didn't.
On my worst days, I am suicidal. It's not really something I can ignore.  My mind will see every day objects and views and invent ways I can off myself.  I don't see suicide as an option, but that doesn't stop my imagination from inventing new way to do it.
I need a safe coping mechanism, a candle against the red and the darkness. Biting it down only works for so long before it festers. I don't know of any way to handle negative emotion besides a whirlwind of emotion that dissipates quickly and leaves destruction in it's wake or biting it back until it festers into tears weeks, months, even years after it was created.
I can't name most of my emotions.  I can tell you the Big 3: Sad, Mad, Glad, and Sad and Mad weren't to be shown when I was little.  I can point out some others now (bemusement, bewilderment, confusion, frustration, fury, irritation, euphoria, calm, happy, elated) but the majority of my emotions fall into the lumpy category of Other.
I will push myself to my snapping point, and beyond, to the point where my head is doing nothing but screaming "I want out, I want out, I want out."  Being able to push myself can be good, within reason.

As I Lay Dreaming 1

First, a bit of a preface.  There are certain intuitive traits (I hesitate to use the word "psychic," though they could be perceived that way) that run down the female line of my mother's side of the family.  One is the ability to see the present or future in dreams.  I have never had one be literal, but most are so close to literal it's scary.  I do not choose when these occur, nor can I force one to occur. They come to me.
I had such a dream right before I woke up just now.  It wasn't a full nightmare, but I woke up crying in my sleep.  I dreamt my Sponsor had died, and I was going to the funeral.  I could easily point out to you on  map where the funeral service was help, but it wasn't as it is now.  Another church(?) had taken over that spot.  I dreamt they spoke of her childhood, but there was a movie in my head.  I think it mixed up her childhood and her college years, just based on an address that they spoke of.  It showed her wandering about a forest in brown cords, a green shirt, and wild curly hair, clutching 2 action figures and a dinosaur(?)  She sat down to play beside a puddle that, from an overhead view, was easily discernible as a dinosaur footprint.  The voiceover gave what I thought then was an intersection but I now think was a street name of some importance when she was in college, thanks to Google.  It described lots similar to what Google maps shows for those streets.  I dreamt I came out of that reverie and someone that was her, but not her, was sitting beside me.  Whoever it was looked closely at me and said "She spoke often of you, and proudly, like you were another of her kids."  Before I could ask anything, I woke up.
I woke up convinced for a second that she had died, that I'd hafta find another Sponsor.  I know she didn't, but those dreams definitely stick with you for a few days.
I think it also provoked a realization that, while I CAN go it alone, I'd rather someone else with a torch lead the way.  While I'd sorely miss her if she vanished for some reason, I think I could handle finding another Sponsor, as scary and depressing as that sounds.
I think it may also have be a warning, for my own journey. There will be times where she'll only be able to go up to the mouth of the cave, and I'll hafta be the one to spelunk inside.  She might be cheering me on the whole way, and encouraging me, but I'll hafta face some things that go bump in the night on my own.

Working the Book, Step 4, Part 1

What has kept me from working Step Four?
Fear. It has many different shapes and forms, but it is fear.
Fear of the unknown. I'm not sure what seeing it all listed out would do to me.  I may find pieces of myself that I deeply dislike.  I may find pieces in the inventory that I believe are "too good" and subconsciously want to thwart myself, because if I'm "good," people can't pin things on me.  Fear that knowing myself would remove my ability to chameleon change and I'd lose one of my handiest/ easiest/ worst coping mechanisms.  (Intellectually, I know that would not be a bad thing.)
Fear of harming others.  Not myself.  Others.  Fear that knowing myself and starting to act true to myself would hurt those I love and possibly drive them away.  Intellectually, I know that if someone would run away because I started trying to get better, they aren't someone to have.  The part of me that fears being abandoned goes "NOOOOO!!! Get back here, you can't leave me all alone!"  Fear that facing the music might somehow harm my mother and cause her to go into self destruct mode.  As ridiculous as that sounds, I blame/ blamed myself for some of herself destructive behavior.  Fear that my true self is nowhere near as kind/ generous/ helping as this persona I've put on.  While I know it's actually quite the opposite, that once you remove the cynicism, sardonicism, and expectation for things to fail  (hey, those are all related!), my personality will only get better,  there's still that little nagging voice warning me I'll turn into the martyr.
Fear of myself.  I've been this version of me for so long, what if I don't like what I turn into? My brain calls that preposterous, that this change can only be positive and that if I don't like it, I can always change it again.
Fear of doing it imperfectly.  I can't exactly go at this with surgical shears.  I'm kind of ripping and scrabbling and tearing at it, resulting in imperfect edges and bad seams.  While I know humans are flawed creatures at heart, I can't be, I hafta be perfect, right? Wrong. It's like I'm this quilt, with all these rips, tears, bubbling seams and flat out missing pieces.  While I can fix most of this, there will always be missing pieces and sewing errors.  The thing of it is, an imperfect quilt has more personality, hence the love of the crazy quilt and T-shirt quilt.  I'm allowed to be flawed.  I'm allowed to be imperfect.  I'm allowed to be the REAL me, without the layers of airbrushing and learned behavior.
Fear of fucking it up, which I guess goes hand in hand with the fear of doing it imperfectly.
How is Step Four helping me to accept myself?
Interesting word, "Accept."  Part of me wants to rebel and fight back with "whaddaya mean?  I've always accepted myself.  I'm here, aren't I?"  I don't think that "accept" was right, though. That one implies complacency and a certain "well, it's here, might as well do something with it."  I think the correct "Accept" in this context is the acceptance of the path to self love.
It's funny.  All these years, I've thought I had enough self love for 3 people, and enough ego for 4.  Looking back, I realize it was a pretty horrible cover stretched way too thin.  That self love was what I was "supposed to have," so I manufactured a version and dropped it in. It was cobbled together out of the wrong bits and pieces, so it never quite fit, but I'll be damned if I didn't keep trying to do it. It ws kinda like a round peg in a square hole.  It'd fit, with enough force, but it never really worked right.  That ego was a self defense ward.  If I piled it on thick enough, you couldn't see my pain and weakness.
I'm starting to see that the real version of me, the part that's been hiding (or chained up, not sure which) isn't quite so "bad"as I thought she was.  Weak?  It takes strength to show the truth.  Imperfect?  Think of Crazy quilts. Smiles too damn much?  Might be a side effect sign of a happy soul, not a cover against a dark world.
I'm starting to be able to shuck some of the layers of armor in favor of the goodness I've found within myself.
What benefits do I gain by completing a Step Four inventory?
I can find those holes and puckers and bubbling seams and replace them with fresh parts.  Well, not quite  "Fresh."  More like old pieces that fit better.  I can find those parts of me that no longer work and find old pieces of me that work better.  It's all in there.  It's just a matter of cleaning house.