Optimism, Somewhat Less Cautious

I am still nervous as hell, but :::crosses all appendages::: still not sick.

If I can make it to the weekend without symptoms, I'm going to relax. Seven days is long enough for anything to leave my system completely, and last time I was sick as hell by day 3. Today is Day 3, and I'm in good shape. Not perfect--but okay.

Those of you who have been asking about LJ and whether or not I should tell him: My therapist was the one who brought up the possibility of telling him. I told her I didn't think that was such a good idea; when I explained my reasons to her, she summed it up like this: "So you don't trust how important you are to him." Which is an accurate summary, if I've ever heard one. That's been my problem since day one; he's not the sort of person who does the sort of things that make me (or anyone else) feel important, and I'm insecure about my own importance to begin with. I don't think that means I'm NOT important to him; it's just a combination of circumstances that make it more difficult for me to do things which might test that importance...like tell him about this relapse.

After I agreed with her view of the LJ question, she said "We can work later, maybe, on whatever it is that makes you willing to settle for being with someone when you don't know if you're important to him..." Which, yeah--needs to be addressed, definitely. But there's a lot I can't explain; like I KNOW I'm important to him, it's just hard to see in any of the tangible ways people expect. I think this is how he was raised--men don't show emotion, but they prove their love by taking care of a certain subset of "man things". And I think he has a very strict sense of duty, as far as that goes; when there's something he needs to do, something on the car that needs to be fixed or a payment that needs to be made on something I don't have the money for, it weighs on him, and he'll mention it repeatedly. I think he's a little uptight about those "man things"--I'm a little more flexible. Of course, the existence of that set of "man things" also posits the existence of "women things", which I disagree with completely--but again: this is how he was raised. He's a grown man, and a hard-headed one to boot; I don't expect to change his fundamental way of looking at the world, especially since there's nothing wrong with it--it's just different from mine.

So I know I'm important to him; every time I've questioned him about it, however obliquely, he's seemed honestly surprised, like "why on earth is that even a question?" I think the problem here may be more with my perception, rather than anything he's doing, and the objective will be to make it easier for me to ask for the attention I want, instead of living without it.

Mostly I'm glad to have brain cells available to worry about relationship questions, rather than where I'm going to get my next fix. It's strange, the way my brain has shifted into a different mode now that I've decided to be done with heroin for good. For example, tonight when I went to pick up the food we'd ordered for dinner, I had to go past about four of the spots where I bought heroin--like, within 50 feet of one of them. And it didn't even register, really, til I was driving away from the restaurant--like a few days ago I would have turned there, and... There was no draw to it at all--I know that's going to be hard to believe, but it's the same feeling I've had for all the rest of the time I've lived here before the relapse--like it was just a part of a different life, nothing that interested me in the slightest. It's a very difficult thing to explain, because I know it sounds like a cop-out or some level of denial--but it's not. I'm not saying I'll NEVER think of it again--but I didn't think of it TONIGHT, and in terms of how long I've been clean (or how briefly, to be more accurate), that's highly encouraging. As my therapist said, "With substance abuse, it's generally not that you stop and then never never do it again--it's generally more that the intervals between relapses get longer and longer each time. And if you made six years just this last time..." I know I can do it again. And if I can make it to Saturday without getting sick, I'm going to do something to celebrate. I don't know what--and it will probably involve buying myself something fun--but if I make it to that point, I'm going to be relieved enough to celebrate. I already feel like celebrating, really...it feels so good just to not be thinking about getting high. A normal life is really underrated.