Let's Start Over

        Okay, for the last couple of months I have been off on a tangent. It's okay. I needed to go there, but as I re-read the material I have posted for the last two months, I feel that it fails to reflect the experience, strength and hope of one in recovery. You may have gotten something out of the last two articles,  which would be amazing, but I myself found them to be preachy and a bit convoluted. Well, in truth, that has been they way my life has been for the last nine months. I must recognize the fact that I have been grieving deeply and that this grief has distorted my thinking a bit. I commend my Managing Editor for her willingness to see if the articles went anywhere.

        Well, maybe I need to just share my experience, strength, hope, and the struggles that go along with deep loss, MPD and recovery. I am told that such a loss is difficult for everyone, and that successful navigation through such a time is dependant first: upon the kind of tools one has developed as aids in coping; second: upon one's support resources and their willingness to avail themselves of said resources; and third, but not least: upon ones spiritual identity and the quality of one's conscious contact with a Power greater then oneself.

        Okay, so I admit it! I have not been using the tools I was given to maintain my recovery. Most importantly, I have not shared my experience, strength and hope with at least one person every day. For me, this is the most important tool I have. It is the means through which I validate myself, connect with my Higher Power and possibly even provide assistance to another! I had convinced myself that I needed to take time for me. The more I stayed to myself, the more distorted my thinking became. Without attending my support groups regularly, my thinking began to revert to the type of thinking that kept me ill for so long.

        All I have been able to focus on is what is wrong. What's wrong with the world, what's wrong with society, what's wrong with the system, what's wrong with my life. Then, suddenly, one of those "Ahas" imposed itself on my consciousness in the form of a recovery saying. "If you don't like what you are getting, stop doing what you are doing." After that I was brought up short. Hummm, what is it that I am doing that has me in such a personal quandary?

        Well, first off, I have not been doing any service work and I am a firm