Detox

Elisa A. Escalante/ LCSW/ 12-04-2023

“What I’m trying to teach myself now is to learn how to go with the waves of life. Life can’t always be forced. We can’t always be at our best. Some weeks we will thrive, we will be on fire, and we will accomplish everything we want to and more. While some weeks, we will be drowning. And all we can do is muster all our strength to come to the surface to breathe and survive. Can I be okay with that? Can you? Can we elarn when to fight? And, can we learn when to let go and surrender?” -EaE

When we rid our minds and bodies of a poison or a drug; it’s called Detoxing. But, drugs aren’t the only poison people detox from. Sometimes we must detox from a toxic life. Toxic people, self destructive habits, wreck-less behaviors, terrible jobs, and awful lifestyles. How many different ways can we chase highs? Some people live their lives chasing these poisons. They don’t know peace, and even worse, they don’t trust it. Because to detox also means to grieve. It means to give up an identity of chasing. It means to stay away from the things that get you high, which brings up new feelings. Lonliness, boredom, confusion, and anxiety. What is next? There is nothing next, you are supposed to be learning to live your life differently. More calm, more peace. Yet, it feels so… off. As you detox, you will have to come face to face with the loss of a life you were chasing. You thought maybe you could have it all. You thought that toxic relationship could work out if you fought hard enough. You thought that you would remain friends with that person forever. You thought you would attain that career goal, no matter how much it was killing you. You thought that those self destructive habits were worth it, because at least they calmed you ‘in the moment’. However, the glass has shattered, and you know now that you cannot go on living this way forever.

My life detox started after my last break up. Late January of 2021. It was definitely not a smooth process, and it still isn’t. As positive as the general public makes it sound, there is nothing easy about detoxing your life, your mind and your body. My process and many other peoples include: less to NO drugs, a healthier job, a more balanced lifestyle, removal of toxic BF’s and friends. More thinking before I acted. More reflection on how I acted. More acceptance of who I was as is, not ‘who I am going to be once I attain X,y,z’. More acceptance that I will not be ‘everything I had once set my mind to’. More acceptance of who I lost and why I lost them, as well as the part I played… hence more accountability too. More boredom, more lonliness, more crying and thinking through why I was actually crying. It’s funny, because I have been the ‘less productive’ I have ever been in the past few years, and yet, it’s also my most substantial personality evolution. Somehow, less really can become more. I am no longer on autopilot. I am no longer waiting for ‘what’s next?’. When I want to get back into my old habits and act compulsively, I force myself not to do it and sit in whatever emotion I have. This takes so much discipline. As we detox, we crave.

What do you need to get rid of?

Society does a whole lot of ‘what’s next?’ ‘What’s more?’ “What’s the goals?’ ‘What’s the new project?’ Do we ever ask each other ‘What do you need to get rid of?’ And how will you do it? I would say in America, not so much. This concept does not agree with our produce and consume society. To detox means to be more minimalist in your lifestyle and in your mind.

Ask yourself now: “What do I need to get rid of?” Is it a _____________________________________?

Toxic work environment?

Toxic friendship or relationship?

Self destructive habit?

Busy lifestyle that you hate?

Pattern of stressful thoughts?

It takes a lot of inner reflection and courage to detox. Most people are on autopilot, meaning they aren’t thinking about the life they live and whether or not they even have the capacity to change it. What comes up is a lot of “I don’t have a choice”. In turn this creates a dynamic of victimhood. We become victims in a world that forces us into things we do not want, and we must exhaustingly keep up with the pressure.

If I’m being honest, everything was so hard to detox. But the hardest? It was/ and still is my pattern of stressful thoughts. I can learn to live without people. I can leave a job easy. I can modify my habits sometimes. But my thoughts? My brain haunts me. It’s my biggest enemy. It’s the one thing I cannot escape from no matter how far I run and hide. And i have done this with everything else in my life. I have run and hidden from ex Bf’s, ex friends, ex jobs, areas I’ve lived in that I grew to hate. I’ve managed to quit ‘most drugs’ and keep them out of site. But, I can’t run from my mind. And sometimes, I think it hates me, the world, and everyone/ everything in it. So, don’t be surprised if in your journey you default back to an old version of yourself that you try to get rid of. It’s probable that you will.

Progress is never linear; especially in the mental health world

A common question that comes up when people are enduring their mental health journey; “When is it going to get better?” “Why am I still feeling this way?” This comes with the assumption that we ‘get treated and then get cured’. I do not believe we do. And in terms of detox, this can get all the more confusing. “I quit this destructive thing, why arent I happy yet?” “I’m doing all the right things… so why do I still feel like crap some days?” The simple answer is that you are still a human, even if your habits are better. And, progress is not linear anyways. Progress is not what we are taught. Sometimes progress is deceiving. Progress can be weight gain vs weight loss. Progress can be one less drink or drug a week vs full on sobriety. Progress can look like crying in your room vs having fun with that person you think you want; that will end up abusing you later. Progress can be ‘no friends’ vs a bunch of bad ones that make your life harder. Yes, it’s very confusing sometimes. So, as you detox, give yourself some grace.

Optimistic take

I believe, that if I detox enough, that perhaps I can get back to a template of who I ‘truly was meant to be’. Before all of the trauma and grief damage took it’s toll on my brain. We can’t go back, but we can heal, as they say. But healing cannot take place in abuse/ trauma or even a place of chronic stress. Healing requires peace, peace requires detox from harm. Lowering harm may require an extensive change in habit. And to change habit means to view ourselves in a different light. It requires identity shifts. I’m proud so far that I have not given up, and you should be too. There are healthier ways of living that can still get us ‘high’, we just have to search harder to find them. We have to get out of ‘instant gratification land’ and be more present to notice.