August 26th 2022- Friday
I just now looked at the date and realized that tomorrow would have been my 18th anniversary. I was going to write about how desperately lonley I have felt. How looking at a couple kiss, hold hands and embrace freely makes me sick with envy. Still, what does it mean to be normal? I don’t remember the last time that my live accurately represented that ideal. A great deal of me is still in mourning; still grieving the loss of the idealic sentiment of a nuclear family. I find myself continuing to question what my new primary role is in this world; if I do not get to fulfill the comprehensive life that I had wanted for myself as a full time, stay at home mother. I find that I remain confused about a great many things. I do not feel as if I am a highly successful mother right now. Their absence, and the contention of it has provoked me and has pushed me further and further into my trauma, a place that I swore I would never find myelf in again.
I want to be better and to do better, but I am still facing so many obstacles that keep me from embracing fully a long needed sense of peace and wellness. Custody, Child support, pervasive Lonliness, bouts of insecurity, anger and hostility that flare up despite my best attempts to supress them and keep them at bay. I try to address them, and not supress them, but, being the Addict that I am, I continue to cave into the destruction that continues to be my internal narrative, and I mess up. Like tonight. And this is me taking the advice of my friend with whom I feel connected to; Austin Eubanks, who encouraged his audience to ‘Lean into their pain. And if they did that, that they could be a force for good in helping others.’ He advised us to speak our truth to a complete stranger if we had to, and indeed, I have done that multiple times over the last several months, as my progressive disease wans an waves through life and circumstance. With two weeks to go until I find myself on that Big Red Dot, set to deliver my talk,
‘The Illusion of Accountability in our Changing World.”
And my life HAS Changed in so many ways. You see, I will share with you a little secret, dear reader. What is the Illusion of Accountability anyway? What is the heartbeat and the core of my message?
“The Illusion of Accountability lies in the Reality that there has not been an alarming amount of people in this world who are intristically bad, nor predispositioned to commit acts of unspeakable evil. Rather; the Illusion of Accountability continues to lie in our ever present reality is that there is a predictable and persistent lack of Accountability among people who are; at their core, predominantly good. The vast majority of them who cause damage to themselves or to others reflect voices that are unheard. And if there is one thing that I have learned through my own life experiences, it is that when voices are unheard, voices will inevitably remain unheeded. In our Changing World, Accountability is not just for the Addict.”
-Jenny Miner McCombs- The Addict Empath
Because I know that I am a good person, despite the fact that I just caved into the impulsive destruction of my internal narrative, even though I know better, and I continue to know better. That, is symptom of my progressive and well researched disorder known as Addiction. That is NOT who I am.
And because of my humanity, a large part of me is very much Afraid and Insecure right now.
-Jenny Miner McCombs, The Addict Empath
Drowning in Madagascar 