Mental Health, Addiction and Recovery.

The story i share is experience i have lived through and am finding new ways to live life.

I have struggled hard with accepting myself.

I have struggled with opening up my walls and believing in myself.

I have struggled with knowing that I am good enough.

I have struggled with toxicity in relationships.

I have struggled with letting toxicity out of my life.

I have struggled with love.

I have struggled with guidance.

I have struggled with anxiety.

I have struggled with depression.

I have struggled with vulnerability.

I have struggled with self confidence.

I have struggled with being alone.

It’s okay to begin your story today! The mistakes you made along the way are lessons not failures. You were meant to get back up find a way that resonates with you. I am called to make positive changes in my life. I am deserving of love, happiness and health. I am worthy of all things wonderful. I am not afraid of making changes in my life but yet i am still so afraid. I know that change can be hard; good or bad. I will be gentle on myself in this time of transition. I have a clear vision of the direction that i would like my life to go in. I will take it one day at a time and i am conscious of my thought patterns and remember to let myself heal in the ways i need to heal.The is NO expirations date to REINVENTING YOURSELF… just keep breathing…

Don’t hate the addict, hate the disease.

The chapter i am closing leads to opening up a new one, one filled with reflection and growth. The past was not a failure or something to forget. It taught me to get back up for the things that matter, to walk away when something is no longer worth it, and to care for myself, even in the darkest of nights. I am growing. I am healing. I am learning and its really beautiful to watch how far i have come.

I am going to talk about some deep shit that some know about me and some don’t. I have shared multiple times in the past about my struggle with mental health but I have more to say today than I have in the past. I feel like it’s important, not only for the healing of myself but to potentially open the conversation for someone else who struggles.

I choose to share MY struggle with addiction and mental health. As known as “cooccurring disorder.” I want mental health to be talked about regularly and not just on days someone is feeling down. I want addiction to be talked about not just on the days you find someone overdosed. My words matter. My struggle matters. My addiction matters. But not many people know that, having to struggle on a daily because is the biggest challenge to overcome. Don’t hate the person, hate the behavior. If its hard to watch it, imagine how hard it is to live it. Some people only think of “addict” being some junkie on the side of the road who cant get their shit together. But there is so much more to what an addiction is. Who might not understand why or how people become addicted to drugs. It mistakenly gets thought that using drugs you have a lack of moral principles or willpower. “You can stop anytime you chose to.” In reality a drug addiction is a complex disease and “quitting” usually takes more than a good intentions or strong wills. Drugs change the brain in ways that make quitting hard, even for those who want to.

I want to be a resource for someone else who is struggling. I want MY voice to be heard and not talked about by others I choose to share because this is my path and journey I choose to share as an outlet for me to release feelings (even if I don’t physically or socially share) I choose to share because I care I choose to share because I want YOU to know YOU are not ALONE

I have struggled with multiple things in the past, since I could remember. Going to therapy, talking, taking meds, having support, going therapy, talking, taking meds, having support. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. For years! I struggled finding who I was or who I am and i still continue to search for that person. I know she’s somewhere, and eventually will be healed and mended enough to bloom. I was never given a handbook to read saying, “in this chapter you will find yourself being addicted to drugs” but i will say that struggling with drugs is part of MY journey. I believe that everyone has their own paths, their own journey. It’s how you choose to handle the path. You have 2 choices to go. You do or you don’t. Unfortunately i chose a way that harmed my body. Harmed my family. Harmed my friends. Harmed the community. I found that using drugs made me escape the pain of life. The pain in my relationship. The pain in work. And the pain of just living day in and day out. I taught myself how to hide. Hide my feelings, hide my pain, hide my happiness, hide my fear, hide my anger. Hide what triggered me. Hide from everything so no one asks questions. I couldn’t confront anyone. I couldn’t bare the looks i would get. I saw my life flashing red lights and i pushed it to the side. I hurt the ones i loved because of an addiction that was getting out of control. I let my addiction control my life. I let it control my day to day things.

It took so much from me. My kids, my family, my relationships, my friends, my money, my job. EVERYDAY things. My heart started hurting. I became weak. I was losing the person, whoever that was, slowly. My feelings didn’t matter anymore. I was constantly empty. The second i used the empty feelings would go away. The drug loved me. The drugs took the pain away. The drugs found their way to “make me feel better, but worse at the same time”. Then I sat there and would cry, isolated myself, slept, dismiss my hunger, became angry, but didn’t know why or how to let go of those feelings. So they bottled up and bottled up. Then my usage became stronger and more intense. I believed that using more would make those feelings go away. That made me isolate myself even more. I started feeling that the lonely feeling is just how it was going to be forever. There isn’t a point to reach out for the help. There wasn’t any reason to come out of the black hole. No reason to stop using. No one would understand. No one would make sense of why. The fear of loneliness became so powerful it over looked my path. I was fighting myself, for myself. I had no one to comfort me in the times of loneliness. In the end all it is, is you against you. That’s all you can do is fight for yourself. But I didn’t know how to do that. You learn to find the comfort in yourself when you take a look at what path you are walking down. In the end we only regret the chances we didn’t take. “No matter how far we ran, we always carried fear with us.” I used because i was afraid to feel any of the emotional or physical pain. The fear of what others would think of me became the one excuse i needed to get high. Then the anxiety would kick in, strong, and it made me afraid if everything on the outside world, and i was unable to leave my house without using first. But the biggest fear was the fear of the unknown. I no longer had control over my life. I let this one little pill take over everything. I no longer needed to run in fear. Addition is a chronic disease characterized by drug seeing and using that is compulsive or difficult to control. The initial decision to use drugs is voluntary, like i said i used because i thought i could handle the best of both worlds.

I finally got to the point where i began to stop fighting. I stopped fighting for myself. I stopped fighting for my kids. I stopped fighting for what i wanted. I was just done fighting. My fight shouldn’t hurt. I shouldn’t have to fight myself in such a hard way. I was getting weaker and weaker as the days continued, as i continued to fight myself. I fought long and hard enough. I gave up. I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. I knew that eventually i would no longer have a job, a place to live, food on the table, i would have nothing if i kept up this life style. Knowing that a drug addiction can lead to relapse after relapse. I was scared that if i stopped i would lose everything. What I didn’t know is that i had already lost everything. The drug just made me believe that i still had it all together. I had tried to get clean once before. I called treatment center after treatment center and no one was accepting patients. I was stubborn with it. I didn’t wanna go to the hospital because i new they would take me from there, and i was at the highest level of anxiety and fear. I made up excuses for myself no to go. I didnt wanna miss out on what my girls had going on. I didnt wanna leave my relationship behind. I was being selfish to myself. I called for months, and finally gave up. I gave up the idea of being “clean”. It just wasn’t gonna happen.

I’m not sure when it clicked in me, maybe it was the day that i no longer had my drugs. Left alone in my bed to fend for myself. I knew if i was honest with people in my life that, they wouldnt understand what this “sickness” was. I got told that “as a parent, you don’t get to have sick days.” You don’t to quit just because you are sick. Little do people know that I wasn’t “sick, sick” like the flu, but sick as in withdrawal sick. It was the absolute worst. Couldn’t move, every inch of my body hurt. I flip flopped in bed trying to find comfort. Trying to find anything that would take the pain away. I didn’t get up for 6 days. I would crawl to the bathroom, didn’t eat anything and could barely hold a cup to even take sips of water. My body was at its weakest points. I had given up on even the thought of being alive. There was no point. No one showed up. No one called. Laying on the floor, alone. In my darkest of dark days.

I gave up. I just wanted to be gone. Flashes would appear before me every time i blinked showing me what it looked like after life. Blank. I really thought that this was the end of it. The hot and cold cycle of attention followed by neglect will create a trauma bond. I feel unsafe, the anxiety floods my mind. It became difficult to sleep and focus on the importance of my life. For me to stay sane through this process i needed to understand my brains prime motive. Do i keep going? Do i give up? Do let the power of thought control my every move. Do i just get up,even tho it was hard. Do i just go get more drugs. Who do i call, i was so scared. When was it far enough that i needed to go to the hospital?

When the thoughts of recovery come to play i would think of being the person i was before this disease increased. But there is no going back. I wont ever be that “person” again. I will never be what i was. I might have the same traits and looks but i will never have HER back. Recovery didnt just merely happen. I sat in a hospital bed crying for hours. Ya they took the physical pain away. I still had the mental and emotional pain. I still had to come to my sense and realize that, i am addicted to drug. That will never go away.

You learn how to reinvent yourself. You become something completely different from what you were before. I could really only understand myself after i destroyed myself. I got high because i wanted to. It became a habit of life. It became my every move. It was a necessity. i knew I wasn’t ready to get clean. I tried. Failed. Tried and failed. I wasn’t patient with myself. It was suppose to happen over night. The magic of not doing drugs was suppose to cure me. It was suppose to take the pain away. It was suppose to bring me back. It was suppose to bring my kids back home. It was suppose to give me all of the things i had given up. It was suppose to give me back my life. THAT DID NOT HAPPEN. Who was i kidding anyways, i knew i there was no chance of me coming back. I didn’t want to. I fought myself in my head over and over. It’s exhausting. It’s time consuming. It’s overbearing. It hurts.

Only an addict can really truly understand how lonely the beginning recovery feels. How overwhelming it all seems. The sheer physical exhaustion of just getting out of bed sober takes up an entire day. I held onto whatever i could. Just barely. Gripping whatever i could to just make it through one more day. I didn’t think about what’s gonna happen tomorrow. I didn’t think about what next week will bring me. I didn’t think about who i was going to be in a month. I just sat, day in and day out. Letting the feelings come up, letting the break downs happen. Just went on one day at a time. We often want it so badly that we ruin it before it begins. Overthinking. Fantasizing. Imagining. Expecting. Worrying. Doubting. Just let it naturally evolve.

You just never really know how strong you have to be until being strong is the only choice you have. And learning how to be strong again takes a lot of work. Takes talent. Takes ambition. Takes courage and strength. Dedication. Reconstruction. Reevaluating. To become independent. Whatever it is that is going on is okay. It’s okay if you’re confused, if you’re hurting, if you don’t even know who you are and what you’re doing. It’s okay to be lost and its okay to be hurt. Because when you look back its not the moments that you felt lost and unsure that you’ll remember. It’ll be those moments after- like how you found something that you have fallen in love with and you’ve made it you life’s work. It’ll be what those dark moments lead you to-happiness. So don’t be afraid. Your moment is right there, its so close. You just have to believe in it.

I am now almost 4 months into being clean. It is a struggle everyday, but the struggle seemingly gets easier and easier. Healing comes in waves. Some days the waves are bigger and stronger then others. But all in all the waves have meaning. They move in and out constantly. That is how i look at my recovery. That’s how i make peace with myself. Knowing that some days are going to be a lot stronger than others, but i am still moving. Moving forward, one day at a time slowing and at my own pace. Still moving forward tho. I know there are a lot of amends i have to make with myself, with others, with friends and family. Writing this letter is a way of me doing so. I know its not as sentimental as it could be by directly coming from my mouth. But this is real and raw and i have a sense of forgiveness. I am working on loving myself again and in time that will lead to being able to love this world again.

Whatever is going on I am confused and sometimes second guess myself. And thats okay. If you’re hurting, if you don’t even know who you are and what you’re doing, its okay. It’s okay to be lost and its okay to be hurt. Because when you look back its not the moments that you felt lost and unsure that you’ll remember. It’ll be those moments after, like how you found something that you have fallen in love with and you’ve made it you life’s work. It’ll be what those dark moments lead me to, happiness. So don’t be afraid. My moment is right there, its so close. I just have to believe in it.

Recovery will be challenging. It will also be worth it. You will relapse, and thats okay. (As long as you keep your goals and keep fighting)

You may feel alone in your struggle but you will help others who are struggling.

Your loved ones may not understand. But you can always explain.

You will have good days and bad days. But the bad days will get fewer

Your problems won’t magically go away, But they will be manageable.

You might not feel different at first, But when you’re done you will be

Happier, Healthier, Stronger, And recovered. And thats why you have to keep fighting. I am going to carry this illness for the rest of your life. So i can either wallow away in the weights of it or i can fight for my only life and make it a good story.

I will never forget how far I’ve come. Everything i have gotten through all the times i have pushed on even when i felt like i couldn’t. All the mornings i got up out of bed no matter how hard it was and wanted to just give up. But i got through another day. I will never forget how much strength i have learned and developed. All the classes, and all the meetings, and all the talks, good and bad, all the sacrifices i had to make along the way. It is all worth it. I can rise up from anything. I can completely recreate myself. Nothing is permanent. I’m not stuck. I have choices. I can think new thoughts. I can learn something new. I can create new habits. All that matters is that i decide today and don’t look back.

I’m tired. I feel like giving up some days. But im not going to. You know why? Because i am are strong. If i can survive through all the shit my addiction put me through. I can survive recovery. I am healing and that terrifies some. They’ve never met a women who can break a million times and put herself back together using nothing but self love and gratitude. Its scary. I know. But i need you to know i am truly making the right choices and i have a beautiful life a head of me.

"Addiction is a physical, mental, and spiritual disease that affects every area of our lives.”