Not Quite Day One
To put it simply, 2021 has been the worst year of my life. It all began in January, as most years have the habit of doing. However, it was in this particular January that I discovered the fractures that had formed that would ultimately become the fault lines that would cause the rapid disintegration of all that was once certain in my life. My marriage, my work and my understanding of who I am and where my life was heading.
My name is Garrick, I am 40 years old, and I am a recovering love addict. I use the word addict, because having had a history with substance abuse in my life, I very much feel the similarities that exist between stopping using drugs and trying to quit the hardest drug of all, the drug of being addicted to someone else.
In this blog, I am going to express myself. For the very simple purpose of trying to be healthy. Not so much happy, for that is a complex thing in my opinion, whereas health is a little bit more definable, again, in my opinion.
So what do I mean by healthy? First of all, physically. I have a long history with body image issues, having been bullied for my weight in school, and then having powerfully negative feelings towards my weight in my 30s. Now, at the beginning of my 40s, I want to get into shape, and I feel that I am definitely on the way to that destination. More on that in later updates.
Now for the tricky one. Mental health. Here I am at a complete loss. Growing up in South Africa in the 80's and 90's, men's mental health was never a topic of conversation. I come from a family where mental health was never talked about, I lived in a society where the only emotions that were acceptable for men were anger and happiness. A man was never allowed to be sad. Sadness was weakness and weakness made you vulnerable.
All of that is absolute bollocks to be perfectly honest. And that is my starting point on this not quite day one.
So that is what I am here to do. I am going to try very hard to record my experience of being a recovering love addict and my path towards physical and mental health, and most of all, I am going to express feelings that I find nearly impossible to say out loud, I am going to write my therapy as a means of healing.
Because you know what? Fuck you 2021, you can suck a fuck. You will not win. You will not break me. All of this depression, heart ache and pain that have been placed upon me will be weights that I put on the barbells of awesomeness as I bench press the worst you can throw at me to shape muscles of flexibility and steel.
Not quite day one on my journey out of being shit and doing my absolute best to be awesome instead, awesome to myself first and that outwardly to everyone, even those that have hurt me the most.
