Acceptance

Acceptance is one of the building blocks of my recovery, however, it does not exist in black and white. Not only does acceptance not paint everything in my life with broad brush strokes, what it does touch it covers to varying degrees.

Accepting that I am an addict is almost absolute - sure I have my moments that I question my addiction, or the severity of it, but they are fleeting and pass quickly in a logical remembrance of what it was like and what it is like now. For over five years, one day at a time, I have been able to remind myself of the fact that I can not safely use in any amount, and substance. For my recovery to continue to succeed as an addict I need this to be black and white - there can be no grey area, nothing up to interpretation, and thankfully that has been the case so far.

My mental health is another matter. Accepting that I am bi-polar was not easy. It was much easier to accept that I was an addict, than to admit that I had mental health issues. Once I had accepted that, I still had to work on accepting that I needed medication to deal with it. I still struggle with this on and off. Part of it is the nature of the medication cycle - I start to feel good for long periods of time so I naturally question whether I need to continue taking meds. Part of it is the experience of the illness itself - I MISS being unmedicated, I miss the rush of a full blown manic episode - for me it is the equivalent of an extended cocaine binge without the drugs. Complicating things further is that over time I have developed increasingly effective coping skills and tools, making the necessity of medication less important in some ways. I can do self feedback and monitor my moods and to some degree successfully steer them in a safer direction. It is a lot of work, requiring extreme self-awareness and a strong commitment that often leaves me physically and mentally drained by the end of the day. The end result for me is worth it though. I have managed to work with my doctor and get my medication down to the bare minimum - he worries about the possibility of a relapse if I am completely off meds, and given my lifelong history of long periods of functional mania followed by extreme suicidal drops, I would have to, and did, agree with him on this one.

Recently it occurred to me that I have to accept that I will probably not work again, that in essence I am retired. I have been off work for over a year now, and was only working part time for many years prior to that. I have had many successful years of working full time, however most of them in the past few decades have been while I was self-medicating and outright using. Recent events put me into a work-like environment for several hours, which put me into an eye-burning, almost trembling state of hypomania for a day. I loved it. What a rush. Unfortunately, it was followed by a two day crash and recovery period. It made it clear to me that without the benefit of drugs, I am not capable of maintaining this for long, and more medication simply saps my ambition and energy to be functional enough to work. The only logical alternative is to accept where I am right now, as the possible long term solution as well - that I function best with minimal medication as long as I don't add further stress to my life, such as employment.

It seems so simple looking at it written out on this page, but I laugh inside thinking about it. How many years it has taken me, how many different medication regimes, how many different doctors, psychiatrists and counselors, and how many jobs. I have fought this one for a long time before I came to the realization that I must accept what I cannot change - that to remain healthy I need to keep doing what is working and to keep NOT doing what doesn't add to the quality of my life. Today I accept this.