I don’t really hang around much with other people, or consume any media made in this decade — the radio in my car is pre-set to the Lithium 90s grunge station, and my TV is usually tuned to some black-and-white Hitchcock drama or “Twilight Zone” rerun, when it’s not showing “The Sopranos” on a loop — so I’m pretty much oblivious to current events. Living in my out-of-touch bubble, I’m also susceptible to believing that I’m special. Different. Unique!
Or, completely and hopelessly f*cked up. It depends on the day.
In reality, though, most humans are feeling “it,” in some form. The strange atmospheric energy engulfing our planet as the seasons change is impacting everyone. I see it in my clients at the clinic, my grad school classmates (the ones I still associate with, amid the chaos of Year 3…), and the women in the “Helping Hands” support group I attend every other Sunday for two hours.
Today is the “off” week from group, and it’s October 1, which in past years would find me giddily brewing up pumpkin spice coffee and doing yoga by the light/scent of pumpkin-maple-apple-caramel-bonfire-hayride-ciderhouse (am I forgetting anything?) Yankee Candles, before heading out for a delightful jog in the crisp morning air, then cooling down to the pensive strains of U2’s “October” as I scour the trees for new bursts of bright color. Talk about being not special; I’ve come to realize that declaring “I love fall!” makes me as rare as a Jalen Hurts jersey in the 215 area code.
My “caring about sports” days pretty much ended when I quit drinking alcohol, and lately, conversation in my social circle (such as it is) has centered around “eclipse,” not football or the MLB post-, season. A woman in my group is into astrology, and when I came in last week ranting about how beyond-the-pale insane I was feeling, vacillating between a feral beast in heat and a catatonic zombie from hour to hour, she calmly explained that’s it’s not just me.
Apparently, according to my group-mate and the “Ghost of a Podcast” she recommended to me, there’s an Aries full moon and all sorts of powerful planetary movements going on in advance of a lunar eclipse — two of them, actually — happening this month.
And hearing that woo-woo weather forecast was a huge relief! I was desperate for any excuse explanation for the intense heaviness I’d been dragging around and the amped-up anxiety I’d been struggling to keep caged for the past few weeks.
Social media has become my sanctuary since I got sober and all my pent-up psychological and emotional issues burst out of hiding like spooks in a haunted house. Whenever I’m cursing the universe for continuing to send me stupid prizes when I thought I had ceased playing stupid games, I can go on Instagram and see that, yeah, stone-cold reality bites, particularly when you’re paying attention and trying to grow…but it’s still better than staggering through life in a blackout stupor!
Hell, my own Insta feed was a horrorshow around this time in 2018. The pictures I posted look tame, but behind the scenes of my short-lived, ill-fated stint earning minimum wage as Fall Fest support staff at Shady Brook Farm, I was more or less “quiet fired” for drunken shenanigans at the house bar after my shift. Yo, now that I think about it, the supervisor basically staged a mini-intervention after the night my husband came to retrieve me and we caused a ’lil scene in public, and then, I found myself relegated to floor-sweeping duty in the greenhouse until I quit…but somehow, I didn’t see fit to admit or address my alcoholism for another nine months. 🙄🙄🙄
Now that I’ve (thankfully) left behind that season of my life, I still find myself lamenting my own dumbassery, because what highly sensitive introvert chooses to give up their protective shield and then walks naked (and afraid) into an industry requiring them to deal with people on an intimate level all day long with no easy escape? When I get to feeling that way, I find solace in the strangers on my phone screen, saying, “hey, you’re doing just fine and it’s gonna be OK….”
Or, “you really should stop taking shit so seriously!”
I’ve referred to my reality as a “mad season” a few times before in this space over the past 4+ years, which just proves the old maxim that recovery is nonlinear. I went from riding a “pink cloud” for the first half of this journey to mucking around with a mid-life career change, and that’s not exactly a straight, smooth shot from points A to B.
Between the summer of 2019 and fall 2021, the pandemic (awful as it was) provided me a safe, structured comfort zone where I could turn away from booze without having to face the world. But transitioning from COVID quarantine to full-time grad school to a “real” job as a therapist with a caseload of 15-20 clients at a substance abuse treatment center turned out to be more of a culture shock than I was mentally, emotionally, even physically prepared to handle.
Fall 2023 finds me with eight months, four classes, 400+ internship hours, a bunch of annoying academic projects, and a high-stakes (because it costs money!) national counseling exam left until graduation.
Meanwhile, my job is so demanding and draining that I often come home crying, sleep through my off days, and shell out $120 an hour for therapy because my therapist stopped taking our insurance and I can’t bear to lose the one place (besides home) where I can get everything off my chest without being judged for it.
Did I mention that $120 is like half my biweekly paycheck? No joke.
Being a helping professional under capitalism will certainly sour your pumpkin spice coffee creamer. Meanwhile, my favorite season is made all the madder with wacky moon cycles and Mars squaring up to Pluto and Mercury opposing Neptune — do I sound like I know wtf I’m talking about? I literally just cribbed all that from the podcast notes 🤣 — and it’s no surprise that I feel like crawling in a hole whenever I get the chance.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. I still gaze up at the starry, full-moonlit sky with wonder as I’m schlepping through the park at 5AM on a Sunday, reveling in the knowledge that the only reason I can be there and see that is because I’m sober. I still bask in the scented glow of my smorgasbord of candles as I wile away supposed “homework hours” scanning Instagram and spilling my guts in this blog, serenaded by the comforting sound of Alfred Hitchcock’s, Rod Sterling’s, or James Gandolfini’s voice emanating from the TV.
In other words, I’m an unapologetic introvert who loves doing introvert things, and you best believe I’m spending those expensive therapy sessions trying to unpack why I always insist on picking really hard extrovert things to do for a living!
It’s clear that my stars aren’t fully aligned right now, or my moon isn’t in the house where it can feel at home, or whatever. I definitely wouldn’t say I’m thriving in this season of my life, but I’m also pretty sure I’m not meant to.
If I’m self-isolating, it’s so I can preserve the limited energy I do have so I can get through the shit I have to get through without falling apart and losing everything I’ve been busting my ass over the past four years to gain.
There was a time I might’ve thought I was weird or wrong for the way I feel and the way I deal. Over and over, I turned to alcohol as a “cure” for that awful uniqueness. To thrive in a world that didn’t want me, I needed to hide behind that all-powerful protective shield.
Turns out it’s a whole lot better when you stop thinking you’re special. Surviving full moons and down times gets (pumpkin) spicy for us all, especially those doing it sober. Thank God I have Instagram to help me feel seen and keep me sane throughout this season — for free. 😉
Jen Wielgus Journalism 