I felt out of sorts and agitated today. It’s like everything closes in on me and I don’t know what to do about it. Worries become intense and unsolveable. I act inappropriately, such as getting angry while driving today. We visited some friends for dinner this evening, and that agitation melted away after a couple of beers. It doesn’t take a lot to ‘medicate’ the nerves but the more I have the better it feels. I wish I had more beer at home so I could have kept drinking. I’m like the social smoker of alcoholics. I’ll have a couple here and there, and once in a while I’ll buy myself a six-pack. Why not just abstain? Because sometimes the feelings need to be turned off. I smoke pot daily. It’s either helping me cope or helping me avoid depending who I tell. I should just be able to regulate myself like a normal person but I wouldn’t be in this mess if I could do that. That’s how days like today happen. Now that I have feelings they don’t always cooperate. They’re not just a minor nuisance either, they’re prominent like a throbbing headache. They’re getting revenge for being denied for so long, making up for lost time. I’m always afraid I won’t be able to contain them in public. I’m a paramedic, I know how to be fucking terrified on the inside and collected and functional on the outside. To have feelings challenging and winning against that well honed capability is scary. I can’t do much about it though. I’m supposed to learn from it and grow or something.