Pirates have definitely taken over in the last 24 hours.  Maybe they’ll get bored soon and leave.  Sometimes I am entranced by my pain.  Today, not so much.

I had intended to write about my vacation last week in the Sonoran Desert – Tucson.  See my lovely picture of a crested Saguaro cactus!

Instead this post will likely be rambling and disjointed.  Jumping to the point– I think is the point is I don’t know how to ask for help.  Or I just refuse to ask for help.  Or I just can’t ask for help.  This realization has been coming toward me for some time, but two days ago a coach, while talking about shamanism, had reminded me that to change and create a new identity, I would have to let go of an identity.  Maybe more than one would have to go. I was ok with that.  I felt really good after my call with her and eager to explore the shamanic ideas and do the homework she gave me.  I thought I was just going to write a list on a piece of paper.  Wham!  Thanks, Universe!!

Yesterday afternoon I broke my months-long abstinence. Driving to work I had a flash of thought, “I’ll have to give up my eating to be a shaman.”  Then I thought no more about that. After a lunch meeting, we had several cookies left over.  When I took them to the break room, I saw that another meeting had leftover cookies, too.  Cookiepalooza!  I went to my desk without a cookie, but then the thought grabbed me.  I want a cookie.  [Insert lots of if-onlys here, but especially, if I had waited only a few more minutes, others would have taken them all.]  I went to the break room and wrapped a paper towel around two cookies. Back at my desk I ate them.  They did not taste good.  Like sand with weak chocolate.  Once they hit my stomach, nausea rose and then dizziness.  I went back for two more, wrapped in another paper towel (hiding, yes).  Then once more, for the last one.  This must be what a zombie feels like.  Mindless destruction.

Now the shame was in charge.  I  didn’t call anyone, but just listened to my voices harass me.  I kept  thinking no one would know.  I don’t have to tell anyone.  I wanted to inflict pain on myself for distraction (this is why people cut).  I went home and paced around the house wanting to hit something, including my head against the wall. Energy roiled chaotically.  A day later, I ask myself, “Why didn’t you call anyone?  Why didn’t you even think of it?”  I don’t know.

Last night, I dreamed I was climbing on a sandy, rocky path and I had to go up then down, and then switchback.  I rusted iron railing was hanging upside down from the rocks and couldn’t be used.  Somehow I jumped down and now I’m on a corner looking at a fenced in, overgrown compound.  I ask the guard how to get in and he says I can’t get in this way, I have to go back around and I don’t which way to go and I see young people running up and down the path like it’s easy. I know I left a shopping basket somewhere back on a hill and now there’s no way to get back to it.

When I wake up, my arm hurts.  I see some blood on the sheets and deep scratches from my cat high up on my arm.  I have no idea how she did that to me in my sleep. I go into the kitchen and see the snow on the ground from last night.  Now I’m angry about the weather.  Wham!  Thanks, Universe!

I was aware enough now to prod myself to call someone even though I was ashamed I had broken my abstinence.  However, no one I called was available. I do know that if I had kept calling, someone would have been available.  In just a few calls I had confirmed my beliefs that a) I am a helper, not a helpee, and b) Who am I going to call?  No one can help me.  Oh, yeah, and c) I can’t be a shaman because I am not perfect and can’t even use the tools I know I have for myself to deal with a chocolate chip cookie.

This amount of crying and self-flagellation has been exhausting.

Some growth:  damn rigorous honesty got me to admit this.