Up In Smoke

Up In Smoke

For months, I’ve been spending my mornings in my brown recliner, anxiously fretting and worrying about catastrophic future scenarios that never come to pass. Or I’ve been gripped in fear over a future scenario of being alone, broke and insane on some bench downtown, with no one helping me. All of this started when I outlined my fears in my 4th Step with sponsor Shawn awhile ago. Ever since, I’ve been gripping tight to these fears, unwilling to let them go and just be open to the possibility that my Higher Power has a better outcome in store for me.

Remaining “trapped” in this recliner, battling fears and inertia and sedation caused by my bipolar medication, has been something I desperately want to change. It feels like a rock bottom very similar to the one I experienced with alcohol and marijuana years ago. I voiced this to my talk therapist Matt and he in turn posed a very interesting suggestion to me.

“What if you were to burn the recliner?” he asked. I laughed. “My husband is extremely frugal,” I replied. “He wouldn’t like it.” He went on to ask me to take a picture of the recliner and send it to him so he could print it out. Then he handed me the picture at our next session and told me to take it home and write on the back of it all of the things I wanted to let go of. 

“And then bring the picture back and we will burn it,” Matt said. “Is this burn therapy?” I asked. “You could say that,” he replied.

So I did everything Matt asked of me, and this past week we met to send all my inertia and fear and shame and self-flagellation up in smoke. After making our way outside to the parking lot in front of his building, I got teary-eyed as Matt handed me the lighter to set my recliner picture aflame. I wanted to cry over the countless hours I’ve spent worrying in the recliner, time that could have been spent in a much more productive way. But not wanting to beat myself up, I instead whispered, “Goodbye to you” and set the lighter’s flame to the piece of paper.

As the flame consumed the paper, I tossed it into a small, silver trash can Matt had brought out. Soon there was nothing left but ash, and we slowly made our way back to Matt’s office. He put the ashes into a baggie for me, telling me to mix it with some soil in a container and perhaps plant something in it. My husband is the gardener, not me, but I might try my hand at planting something. 

Was the burn therapy successful? Well, I’m sitting in the recliner this morning and I don’t feel as glued to it as before. I’m honestly considering getting dressed and going for a walk, a new twist to my morning routine. I don’t feel anxious right now, making me wonder if maybe I might be able to dial back a little the dosage of my anxiety medication. I’ll ask my psychiatrist what he thinks about that. All in all, I feel optimistic about things. I’ll take that as a sign of progress.