In maintaining and controlling my sobriety and mental illness it is imperative that I take inventory of myself on a daily basis, even in the aftermath of all the intensive therapy I’ve done. And because I consider myself a giant, lazy wuss I kind of don’t understand it when people around me are just unwilling or even incapable of doing the same thing to themselves when it’s absolutely needed.

Admittedly I’ve taken being self-aware and explorative to a bit of an extreme as I’m constantly overanalyzing every move I make almost to a fault, but at least I can confidently say that I’ve thought about every decision I’ve made, the motivations for that decision, and how this decision is going to affect myself and those around me. This is not to say that I don’t make wrong decisions, but I’m at least able to honestly take full responsibility for anything I do, regardless of the outcome. And frankly, that cost thousands of dollars in therapy to be able to accomplish. So there isn’t anything I do that I haven’t thoroughly considered, even if I’m deliberately making an unhealthy choice (A recent example: “I’m having sugar cravings like a crazy person and will ingest a Reese’s SonicBlast every single day for two weeks, fully knowing and accepting that this will cause my ass to expand, which I will deal with once I’ve exhausted this craving and moved it out of my system.” By the way, it worked and I’m not craving sweets with such ferocity but I totally owe God a favor because somehow I only put on three pounds after a solid month of constant indulgence.)

So, not to sound like a holier-than-thou arrogant prick but whenever I’m around someone whose flaws are palpable and this person simply will not confront them to get themselves out of misery, I’m not only frustrated but genuinely confused. It’s hard for me to realize that because most people’s flaws aren’t life threatening like depression or alcoholism, there’s no pressing need for them to do the emotional legwork and actually deal with their problems. As long as they can live a functional existence, they can afford to avoid delving into their inner selves and picking up the therapeutic habits of self-awareness, even if that means keeping walls up between themselves and their pasts, etc. And that’s kind of a foreign concept to me. After so many years of being exposed to self-improvement techniques (whether I was actually practicing them or not) I kind of forget that most people don’t think in terms of recovery and the mental therapy required to change their lives.

Naturally, I’m not saying that every single person requires therapy. In fact, I’ve been happy enough to know many many people who have that perfect balance of self-awareness and clarity. However, I’ve been in the presence of so many people who just settle for mild misery and the lower-end of mediocrity in their lives simply because they’re too afraid to confront change and the idea that they might have to evaluate themselves. Again, because I consider myself a stubborn lazy-ass, I just don’t get how so many other people can be scared of things that are really not so bad.

For example, I know a woman who is in a marriage she should’ve left a long time ago. She and her husband haven’t communicated in years and, in turn, have created an intricate web of blame and disdain for the other. Intimacy is foreign to them but instead of sitting down and actually bearing their feelings and talking about the state of things and how it came to their present situation, they avoid each other, he sometimes running to other desperately alone women in hopes to fill the hole. It’s sad, yes, but it’s unbelievably sick above anything else. I can’t imagine how living in fear of having to deal with the inevitable pain of confrontation and a marriage disintegrating by spending every single day in misery, living with someone who hurts you and makes you loathe yourself even more is better than just growing a pair, dealing with the pain for a couple years and living the rest of your life in the happiness you’ve made for yourself. It’s so so sad and unbelievably frustrating to watch. I understand that this woman is afraid of being “alone” (even though I can’t imagine feeling more alone than living with someone who is perpetually emotionally devoid) and having to learn to function in the real world on her own and will probably have to finally tackle some massive demons instilled from her crappy childhood in order to build the confidence to get out of this marriage she’s punished herself with for too too long, but it just seems so cowardly for her to spend the one life she has being miserable because she’s afraid of fucking feelings.

And it’s like that with anyone who is in a terrible, demeaning relationship of any sort (obesity, addiction, romantic, etc.) They’re somehow more comfortable being constantly hurt by something else than just ripping off the band-aid, dealing with the terrible emotions that will follow and then getting on with their lives. I understand it because I did it for about 5 or 6 years with someone constantly working to demoralize me, but now that I’m on the other side of that mental barrier and see how easy and undaunting those feelings that I was terrified of confronting actually were, it just seems incredible that anyone would spend their life not taking the risk of making themselves happy. Or at the very least, not increasingly miserable every day.

It’s just amazing how, when not in someone else’s mind, the prison their fears create are completely superficial if not nonexistent. It’s amazing to watch how crippling someone else’s mindset can be to their entire life. And it kind of gives a renewed perspective to how false the power of my own fears actually are.