To Be Loved or to Sleep Peacefully?
If you promise to listen and not judge, I’ll tell you about my friend, who is a recovering addict. Yes, a recovering addict. And if you still promise not to judge, then I’ll tell you that her substance was a man.
A man that was not exactly a boyfriend and not exactly a situationship, if we are being technical. A man that was just a person she connected with on an almost cellular level, and now that the connection is no more, she is in withdrawal.
I know how this sounds, but I promise, there’s a point to my snitching. Stay with me.
My friend jokes sometimes that she thinks she finally understands why people smoke weed or drink alcohol. All the Ted Talks in the world and nobody warned her that losing a person could make your body behave like this.
She says that the withdrawal is worse in the evenings and in the mornings. Oh, especially the mornings. She talks about how she dreads going to sleep because she knows what waking up will feel like. She says that for a few seconds after she opens her eyes, she doesn’t remember. She decided that her body probably wakes up before her mind does.
So she reaches for her phone, almost automatically, you know, the way she always used to. There’s usually a message from him. Maybe he replied to something from the previous day, maybe he found a meme while she was asleep or maybe he sent something sweet to wake up to. But this time, there’s nothing.
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At first, she believes there’s something wrong with her phone. Perhaps she’s out of data? Or there’s no network reception? But then she remembers. Oh, her drug is no longer available to her.
She now knows that nothing is actually wrong with her phone. There is just no message from him, and her body hasn’t quite adjusted to this new normal yet.
She says that’s when the pit in her stomach arrives. Sometimes she feels like she is going to throw up, but she can’t. She wants to sit down and cry. She wants to sulk. She wants to disappear into herself for a while, but she can’t. She knows she has a life and she knows she still has to participate in it. So she has to get up. It’s hard, but she forces herself to.
She does whatever she is supposed to do while her stomach is in knots and her anxiety is through the roof. The sun is out and the weather is hot, yet, her hands are cold, her legs are cold. She struggles through the first few hours of the day and then she forgets for a bit. Only a bit though, because it’ll soon be evening and she’ll soon remember to dread waking up the next morning.
My friend swears that men are scum and she would never fall for another man in her life. But I know what a bluff sounds like, lol. I know it’s only a matter of time till she’s head over heels again.
I wouldn’t dare tell her this though. I’m not the one to rub salt on injury. Although, if she asked me, I would probably tell her to be more like me. I’d tell her to become emotionally unavailable. I think that’s the solution. Maybe if you never let yourself get that attached to anybody, you never have to experience this kind of withdrawal.
Then again, what do I know? I’m only watching my friend go through it.
Until next time,
Love, Miggy.
