“Problems are not the problem; coping is the problem.” Virginia Satir

When things go wrong, when we lose control, some of us can tell ourselves that everything is fine. This then forces us to become something that we are not i.e. someone who is coping as opposed to someone who is struggling and this is when our (sometimes disastrous) coping mechanisms come into play.

For some, including myself, this is when self-destructive cycles show face. We do what we think will make us happy, we do what we think will fool people into thinking we are coping and sooner or later we realise that we are being completely untrue to ourselves.

Since moving to London I have slowly became I person that I hate. This must change because I am beginning to truly despise myself.

What the hell happened? And where exactly did I go so wrong? Two questions that I am pretty unsure of how to answer. One thing I am certain about is that the direction I’m heading must take a drastic 180-degree turn.

“Reason only controls individuals after emotion and impulse have lost their impetus”
Carlton Simon
I am too embarrassed and ashamed to go into depth about how much a mess I have become but I will admit that I have got into a horrible habit of drinking too much. Not to an alcoholic stage but a couple of drinks 4 or 5 days a week, going further than a couple of drinks on 1, sometimes 2 of those days.

“It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than with a bad reputation.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
It was Sunday’s hangover that made me really wake up to the fact that a change is needed, and quickly. From now on in, I am massively limiting my alcohol consumption, as it is when I am intoxicated (even if not to a great extent) I no longer listen to what my brain is telling me and instead go with what I think will do me good at the time.

It is a bit late now to fix all the bad decisions I have made and fix the opinions some people now have of me but from here on in I can and will change.

It wasn’t until moving to London that I realised to do not cope well with rejection and it has led me to gravitate towards people and habits, which do me no good what so ever – mentally, or physically.

“Telling the future by looking at the past assumes that conditions remain constant. This is like driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror.”
When people go off the rails I can’t help but think (if only for my own sanity) that it is important to focus on the present and the future rather than the past. We can shape our futures but we have no way of changing what actions we have taken in the past, we simply must learn our lessons and move on.

“Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future.”
This post has been far more honest than I originally planned it to be, but it seems that when trying to explain feeling untrue to yourself, it is simple contradiction to hide the truth from those you are confessing to.