“Almost none of us commit suicide, and almost all of us self-destruct.”

It’s a cold and breezy morning here, wind is blustering in grey clouds and there’s a chill in the air that belongs on green Irish moors, not Texas in (almost) April.

This morning I’m introspective and for the first time in weeks I didn’t wake with an overwhelming dread, anxiety closing off the world around me.

I’ve been thinking this morning of a statement from the Natalie Portman movie Annihilation that I’ll never forget:

“I think you’re confusing suicide with self-destruction. Almost none of us commit suicide, and almost all of us self-destruct. In some way, in some part of our lives. We drink, or we smoke, we destabilize the good job… and a happy marriage.”

I was self-destructing and calling my alcoholism for seventeen years (from 21 to 38, still sober though, in September it will have been three years) “coping”. I recognize it now. Perhaps that’s part of why I’m trying so hard to treat my mind and body so much better these days.

I finally don’t want to self-destruct. I finally feel some worth in myself. Even as much as I love everything I am, part of me has never believed that I deserve to exist or be happy. I’m trying to be more understanding of that side of me now. Treating it gently instead of abusing my body and covering up pain with booze.

I’ve self-destructed since I was a kid of seven or eight. I didn’t start drinking alcohol at that age, but was self-destructing in habits and thoughts. I think back and wonder why but all I know of happening at that age was my horribly abusive second grade teacher, and I don’t even remember that year of my life. Which is in itself unsettling. Anything I know of that time was told to me by others. There are small snippets I have in my mind, but I don’t even know if I’m actually remembering or just imagining what I was told by others.

Perhaps this past month of uncontrollable anxiety that pinches my senses down until my ears ring and my vision goes haywire has more to do with it than I realize. When the attacks come I feel encased and trapped and completely isolated from everything. And as it’s in my own mind there is no escape.

The bars of this cage grow from within.

But I refuse to live in fear. Even if it envelops me until I’m walking in a dark corridor with no end in sight. I will not allow myself to be caged. Even if it’s by my own hand, as it has been since I was a child.

I will not allow my dreams and hopes to fade beneath such a harsh mistress. I owe her no fealty, and never did.

Too much introspection so early. I’m gonna cuddle Yuki and read and sip decaf Earl Grey.