​I Can’t Control Myself Around Food or Texting: Advice from So Sad Today

Dear So Sad Today,

It's been months and every time my ex posts a picture with his girlfriend I have a panic attack.

He blocked me and then he called me and told me he cared about me and then he followed me again. And then he started posting about some ugly girl with a mom name, Linda. Beware boys who smile at you when you go down on them and who date girls with mom names like Mary Pat or Linda.

Sometimes I always feel dead and then sometimes I see him and I feel sort of not dead but then everything hurts. Sometimes I think he loved me but then I realize he just liked how easy I was and that's OK?

Yours,

Zombietime

Dear Zombietime,

As someone who seeks out stimulation—no matter the cost—so as to feel "alive" or "different than I feel now," I have to say I think that might be what you're doing.

First of all, you're still following this dude. While panic attacks are awful, I think that some part of us finds them preferable to depression or sadness or ennui or just sitting there. If you weren't getting some kind of emotional payoff (as brutal as it can feel) from the panic attacks, you would have unfollowed him and never seen another mom name pic again.

Some boys who smile when we go down on them are wonderful people. Some may even be in love with us. But I too have mistaken "just sex" for love: particularly when the boy has a kindly or "glowing" face during the act and kisses me a lot and I want it to be love. It is absolutely fine to be "easy," as you call it—as long as you're OK with it. But it doesn't really sound like you are OK with it. Sometimes I wish I were "easier." Like I will feel "easy" in the act but then I catch unrequited feels and things no longer feel so easy. In fact, they feel hard. That's OK too though, because it's how I have learned the difference between who I really am vs. the "chill person" I imagine I am supposed to be or wish I were. Also, I'm a very slow learner and often make the same mistakes repeatedly. It hasn't happened overnight.

Having said that, one thing I've learned is that some people are like drugs . With these people, the dynamic between the two of you never really changes no matter how new or different it seems with each reconciliation. I know that this bro gives you a relief from the deadness. But like a drug, it sounds like it's only a quick fix. If he were a real solution, you wouldn't feel the pain after. That pain is withdrawal.

You can continue to see this guy and check his social media. Just know that most likely you will get fed up with the cycle again and then have to go through the deadness all over again. The good news is that if you cut him off entirely (think: ripping off a Band-Aid) you aren't going to feel dead forever. If you ever felt alive before you met him, you will feel alive again. Don't put any time pressure on yourself. Just know that one night in the future you will discover Holy shit, I wasn't that dead today. Like, I was actually alive for a few minutes. Trust me on this. I've been dead and undead a lot.

xo

SST

***

Dear So Sad Today,

I recently [Mayish] threw out a little over a year and a half of sobriety. The reasons are dumb and complicated but it was OK for a bit. Maybe two months. I then left Portland after ten years in July to spend the summer in California [my gf's parents live here], and it's gotten real bad, real fast. Concussion, broken foot.

All of that said: what I'm struggling with right now, and maybe the biggest reason I started drinking again, is I was just as miserable sober as I was drunk. And drunk, despite the obvious physical injuries, seems to be preferable at this moment?

What I'm asking is: assuming your inner life resembles @sosadtoday and your VICE column, how did you decide, and continue to choose, sobriety as preferable over non-sobriety?

Sincerely,

Turnt in California

Dear Turnt in California,

This is a really really really good question.

There are some sober people who say their worst day sober is better than their best day drunk. For me that's definitely not true. I had a lot of amazing, beautiful experiences fucked up. If I could have stayed fucked up 24 hours a day I never would have gotten sober. But at some point I always came down. And the comedowns got too painful.

I've had to deal with some difficult external things in sobriety. But the hardest stuff is always between my own ears: particularly my struggles with panic attacks, general anxiety, and underlying depression.

One might think that sobriety would make the feelings more painful. And while it's true that a drink or drug temporarily alleviates both small fears and existential dread, I found that the fear and dread would come back even worse after the substance wore off. That temporary relief would inevitably create much more suffering. I would wake up every morning and within 20 minutes feel like I was dying. These daily withdrawals only catalyzed my anxiety.

Obviously, as documented in this column, I still go through cycles of bad panic attacks in sobriety. I'm also often still scared of people, as well as death, life, my body, my mind, the meaning of being on earth, and whether I am "good." But overall, it's not at the frequency or intensity I experienced when I woke up every morning feeling like I was dying. Like, now I only die 75 days a year?

Also, I know through experience that I would have no chance for mental health if I were still drinking and using. Zero. The way I feel is that I would be lucky to even die. What would be worse would be to continue to drag my carcass around the earth, stuck in that horrific daily cycle of temporary (and messy) relief followed by a boomerang of worse pain. Even sober, I can't control myself around food or texting (or Twitter). If I were still drinking and using, I would be eviscerated.

Also, my sobriety forces me to use my creativity more. I rely on creativity, because I don't have anything else to take the edge off of life. Sometimes I used to write when I was fucked up. I'd be like "oh my god this is brilliant." Then in the morning it was like "what is this shit?" I doubt that @sosadtoday or this column would even exist if I were still getting fucked up.

Lastly, I've found a good deal of meaning, purpose, and shared dark humor, amongst other sober people. I don't understand people who are content with having a nice glass of wine and just being "chill with how life is." I like people whose minds won't let them rest (like me). It feels good to get out of my own disgusting head and be with them. I have found a genuine human connection—despite any differences in politics, gender, ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, or sexuality—amongst sober drunks and addicts that I haven't found anywhere else: even the internet. I don't want to lose that.

Wishing you luck on your journey.

xo

SST

So Sad Today is a never-ending existential crisis played out in 140 characters or less. Its anonymous author has struggled with consciousness since long before the creation of the Twitter feed in 2012, and has finally decided the time has come to project her anxieties on a larger screen, in the form of a biweekly column on this website.