Anita

Thank you once again for your reply and the thoughtful work you put in for me and all the others who use this forum.

“Your solution to this full emotional experience of despair is to experience the opposite, fully alive, a 180 degrees switch. This solution has not worked for you because following feeling fully alive for very short period of times, you feel fully hopeless a whole lot of the time. You are stuck in a roller coaster ride of long-lasting terrible lows and short thrilling highs.” 

I never considered my behavior in this context, for some reason this brought to mind when i was struggling with cutting. I would cut when i felt dead, i remember telling someone once cutting reminded me i was alive, it was definitely a rush that a lot of people didn’t understand, looking at it through a brain chemistry perspective it also makes sense as it was my way of feeling good (dopamine) before i had access to weed.

“it will take a re-training of your  brain, training your brain to avoid thrill seeking behaviors, enduring the lack of those fully alive highs, enduring the low for a long time while paying closer attention to the lesser joyful experiences of life and over time, finding contentment and pleasure in them”

This is the solution i seem to be avoiding yet i know in my heart is way. I told myself and some friends that the next woman i met i would wait at least a month before having sex. Did i do that? No, i waited all of 3 days. It seems the old saying “true love waits” is not complete bullshit. I have got to start being more disciplined and relaxed, such as implementing a mindfulness exercise into my life as you suggested. I already meditated about 15-20min daily but clearly this needs to be increased to help me recognize and resist impulsive behaviors. I tell people all the time in therapy that one cannot truly experience all the joy’s of life if their mind is not at peace, i know this because my mind is not at peace, not even close right now. I know what that peace feels like though, i have been there before not for long, but i have been there where witnessing a sunset is all i needed to be content for the day. I need to get back that peace so i stop chasing cheap thrills.