My Cycle of Addiction and Growth

I’ve gone through this cycle before. Far into my depression/addictions, and then I try and get my shit together for a while. Whenever I am working at getting it together, I have typically gone at it full force. I want to be “perfect” at fixing myself. I push to grow, grow, grow. Then, something happens, and I spiral back down. I do get a lot of growth during that time, but I keep spiraling back down. Why is that? Every time I start working on myself again, I remember that you can’t numb just certain feelings. When I choose to numb something, I numb all of my feelings and emotions. There is no selective numbing. Joy isn’t as joyful when I’m avoiding dealing with my issues because my body and mind are working so hard to not feel what I’m considering to be bad. I wonder if the reason I have been repeating the pattern of spiraling back down is because as I’m trying to “grow, grow, grow” I’m NOT trying to “feel, feel, feel.” I’m using my head, my emotional intelligence, my intellect to figure things out. I’m not dealing with anything; I’m justifying and trying to make sense of things. I’m finding “thinking answers” not “feeling answers.” <a href="https://medium.com/@gettingcurious/the-cycle-a5413a389156">Website</a>