I feel I write a lot … oh well …
This morning I woke up with a feeling of certainty in negative expectation about things in my life I’m working on … like a disconnect … it feels artificial …
I don’t know why but some part of me inside is interpreting my success and drive as certainty that I’ll fail. I feel quite strange. I haven’t added any new bets/been away from the markets mostly– pushing myself not to think about or check prices. I get this strange feeling in my hands like a hot energy that feels stirred up about this.
The change that’s happening last few days (which feels good) just feels THAT wrong to some part of me … The more I disconnect myself from risk and betting the more these layers of emotion and past and thought bubble up like boiling water on a stove …
People describe gambling as a madness — it certainly feels has felt and looks like that in every stage … to me it feels like an inner madness to feel this much emotional resistance to getting out of positions of entrapment and letting my currents of connection and happiness emerge …
It feels hard to tap into or really talk about it … seems like the madness of the language of the attachment layering back and forth with sadness … the voice of the urge definitely feels like the voice of madness …
People have described it as two separate entities — one the real you and the other the addiction … that’s exactly what I feel and see in my imagination right now … I feel me simple straightforward and direct … and I feel this “other” as someone twisted and hungry to bend and twist things for a high …
Shame … that’s the word I was trying to think of earlier … interplay sandwich of madness and shame … I feel like the voice of the madness hides feelings of deeper shame … and possibly vice versa as well… they feel like they hide each other.
Shame hides madness of addiction/attachment feelings … and madness of attachment hides the shame … like those two feelings feel like they’re oscillating in a feedback loop …
The confidence and intentions of the madness (the voice that tells me something’s terribly wrong if I don’t make some kind of market move “now”) feel soaked in confusion and self destruction … gambling feels like the digital equivalent of self harm or cutting.
I wonder if anyone else has ever felt that … I haven’t self harmed or thought about in years (not since late teen years — even then it was more of a strong thought/feeling than something i followed through with much) … but that does feel like part of the feelings under the surface that trigger an urge to bet …
I went through a lot of crazy stuff in a short period of time after turning 18 and felt like i had to push all those feelings down deep … I was intent on survival at that time and the motive was to deny feelings of self harm to keep myself out of the hands of destructive people who would harm me further if I told them about it. I didn’t feel safe.
Fast forward 10 years later and I’m here wondering to myself if this is another emotion that the addiction drew from in the early stages … it seems like CG feeds on different wavelengths of emotional and thought triggers and spreads itself like roots of a plant or tree deeper into consciousness … burying the root triggers behind the urges and fogging them up …
The two definitely feel hand in hand though as I write this … I have no intention to actually do (and haven’t taken any physical action toward in years) any form of self harm, but it feels like a deeply buried emotion about knives cutting that triggers an urge to bet … it feels scary to even say or share that. Back then I was around dangerous people who would hurt me worse if that knowledge was shared.
But it does feel like an urge to hurt myself pulsing there … with words, with feelings, with facial expressions, with imagination, etc. … a drive and emotional yearning for a slice of pain to “feel alive” or whatever … the urge to check prices feels like a translated digital emotional urge to hurt my own spirit and feelings … to step on myself …
These memories and feelings are quite unpleasant and i feel embarrassed in them … embarrassed that they are still there … I guess I forgot who I was as a kid … so many intense negative emotions pulsed and pushed toward the person I saw in the mirror …
Do gambler’s hate themselves so much because they bet? Or do they bet because they hate themselves? Feels like a catch 22 that probably started with the latter … but feeds itself like a vicious dark whirlwind …
Self hate feeds the urge to bet … the urge to bet feeds self hate/shame … even just feeling the urges feels shameful …
I thought “I’ve already written about this and feel better” — which I have. I keep feeling this oxygen I’m reaching for, but am breaking into deeper layers of the roots of this thing as I go on …
It does feel like a hunger that won’t be satisfied til I feel pain inside … an urge for my own pain and disappointment … an urge to let myself down … so strong. Too strong. And an urge to feel greater discomfort in staying clean and acting in my own best interest … “I must make myself fail” … filtering my surroundings and everything I see through the eyes of looking for resources that will create my own failure/downfall …
Only thing I can think of is feeding this emotional urge into my drive to succeed/guard myself against risk and harm … the urge to feel hurt and pain triggering and shifting into connected action of acting in my own best interest.
I know I repeat a lot … I feel shame in that repetition… like I shouldn’t be writing about all this … shouldn’t be digging deeper … that it’s boring that no one cares and that i most certainly should not care …
These emotional waves are intense … I’ll keep going through the layers but for now will let what I’m feeling serve as a cue for me to give positive self expression in my day today.
<3