Hi Moonlight
I feel for you as you work so hard to find the way forward. Not always easy while we're in the process of working out what our triggers are, making greater sense of our emotions and managing a whole stack of other factors. Sometimes it's not 'til way further down the track that we can hit on the realisation 'I wasn't fully conscious of just how many challenges I was facing at that time'. Raising ourself to that level of consciousness is something to be proud of, as it isn't easy.
I admire you greatly. As a 56yo gal, I've never had the confidence or vision to move to a different country. I always regard people who do this as brave. Doing it while you were facing one of the toughest times in your life is also something to be incredibly proud of. That would have stopped a lot of people. As your challenges have developed over time, it sounds like you found what worked for you initially but is now creating great disorder in your life (the addictions). Not easy to break a habit that initially served us, sometimes because it still serves us in some way. A dopamine deficiency can definitely become depressing, so anything that gives us that 'fix' or 'high' will do at times. As an ex emotional drinker, I traded that for emotional eating which is now out of control something serious. Even though we know our addictions are not good for us, it's hard to resist the dopamine high they supply or the emotions they can offer that we long to feel. Actually, it wasn't until I stopped being an emotional drinker that I realised just how much I relied on alcohol. It reduced social anxiety, turned down the volume on depressing inner dialogue, brought out the carefree part of me (offering relief from the part of me that led me to stress about so much) etc etc. Being multifaceted creatures, alcohol can help manage certain facets. The down side involves not developing the skills and abilities that can lead other really productive facets to come to life. Alcohol can diminish the driving force that forces us to do the work that brings them to life. While it can take the edge off sharp or raw emotions, I've found that it's the pure discomfort of those emotions that has previously driven me to develop beyond them.
I think one the key purposes for being on this planet is to gain greater self understanding as we go along. With every challenge we face, we graduate to higher and higher levels. We're here to figure out who we are and how we work. Sounds like you're on the way to going next level. While I have a significant library of self help books, gradually established over the years, I've come to rename these types of books. While once I referred to them as 'self help' books, these days I consider them to be 'Help yourself to anything you need or want to know' books. Sometimes the question is 'What do I need or want to know next, when it comes to how I tick?'. While the earlier part of my library reflects my desperation to escape long term depression, these days it's a little more outside the square. Whether it's about how to access the subconscious mind through lucid dreaming, how we work emotionally through a quantum physics angle or how much of ourself relates to imagination (which includes the placebo effect), there is just so much to know. It's all potentially mind altering stuff. I think sometimes it pays to not question 'What's wrong with me?' but instead state 'I'm a seriously complex and rather amazing and fascinating creature who's trying their best to work out how I tick'. I hope the audio book helps in taking you to the next level.
