Proud of myself.

I feel like there is a new hole in my heart and it’s where my writing once lived. This hiatus of words has not been forced, but I feel myself forcing it right now.

I sit often and wish that there was something I needed to let out – something that was so important that I found myself sick at the thought of holding onto it. But like I have said – everything has changed. I am less sick than I was before. I am becoming a living, thriving, functioning human being and for some reason it feels like the constant need to write doesn’t live inside of me anymore.

I wrote when and because I was sick. And this is sad to me because I miss the connection I have with my words and the thoughts. They are sweet and they are bitter and my expression felt like at times it was all that was left of me. But that’s not true anymore.

The things that hurt me, and the mistakes I have made I understand a bit more clearly now. Like I still miss my daughter everyday and I think about her more often than not, but to write about her and cause her distress by her reading it is selfish of me. I feel so much, and I need to understand that she is her own person, as am I.

But my words were not only sending distress signals to her, they are doing the same to my family and my boyfriend. To my friends and even people who just read this. Things were so dark for so long and I just wanted to let it out.

I feel like this journal was more than just words because it helped me reconnect with myself. Now I feel disconnected from the writing again and I need to come back to it. But this time I want to write as a healthy version of me. As the person I have grown to be without the outlet of these words.

School starts again next week and I’m finding myself feeling a slight bit nervous, but also more courageous than ever before. I have already completed three semesters and have two left before my diploma. Then hopefully two more years of school and I will have my BSW. This is a huge leap from where I was even three years ago. I am doing this.

I am no longer questioning my ability to act as a professional because I am really actually doing it now. I am a professional and I don’t quite know yet what kind of social worker I want to be, but there is still much to be learned.

Today I am really proud of myself.

Huge Victory.

The constant rambling of my inner dialogue has become quiet. It feels like something inside my brain has been turned down low. The volume was at full blast since I was in my teens and for the first time in my life it’s at a bearable volume. The voice inside of me has not only quieted, but it’s changed.

Everything has changed.

My medication changed that happened in December, from Wellbutrin to Celexa – tried to kill me. This new choice of medication was chosen by a new psychiatrist who had spent a whole of an hour with me and decided that Celexa would be a good choice for me. I spent months dealing with this horrible darkness that wanted me dead and I tried convincing myself that it wasn’t the medication change that did it. That I could fix the problem on my own. I needed to be strong in my eyes, but the truth is that Celexa was harming me more than anything. I couldn’t quite come to admit that I wanted to die because my life is so good and to say outloud that I wanted to die, that the feelings of despair had come back into my life would be selfish. Greedy. Wrong. Ungrateful. I was ungrateful for all that the world and my life had given me by thinking such a thing.

What do you do when your medication and your mental illness try to kill you? You talk about it. You tell your doctor. You seek help because that is the only way to take your life back. So that’s what I did. I went and saw my family doctor and I told him that I was having dark thoughts. He upped my dosage of Celexa from 10mg to 20mg. I wanted to believe this would help. I tried so hard to trust it would work. But it didn’t. I waited almost two more months before I finally went back to see him and told him I couldn’t do it anymore. Something needs to be done. We talked for a bit and he told me that the prescription that the psychiatrist had prescribed me was a very old medication and he was suprised that she even prescribed it to me. There was a newer version of this medication called Cipralex and that’s what he would be prescribing me.

I was hopeful that this new medication would bring the life back to me. I gave it a chance and it’s only been a month and a half and I am a new person. Every inch of my brain feels new and hopeful about my future. I finally feel like I have some sort of balance inside of me.

The rambling has stopped though, and this is upsetting because I miss writing. I miss pulling out my phone or my computer to update this blog with all the mess that is happening inside of me. It feels like the only times I can write is when I am in a state of mind that somehow appears to be a mix of mania and depression both at the same time. I know that doesn’t make sense, but somewhere in the back of my head I am nodding at the thought.

With my new casual position as an outreach worker at the company that I did my last practicum at, I have a code of ethics that I must abide to. As a future I social worker I have a code of ethics that have become my life. There are things I see that I cannot talk about. There are people I see that I have to hold onto their secrets. There are so many thoughts in my head that I have to tuck away and hold onto and this new way of living and learning is so much different from the way I have spent the last three years of my life. No more secrets in my own life, and now I am having to learn about the art of keeping secrets.

I have so much to learn still, and I am so thankful that I have become hopeful and teachable once again. I didn’t let my mental illness kill me and this is a huge victory for me.

Better.

Everything feels better now, and that’s all the words I have to say.

Sharing.

So much has been happening and I haven’t wanted to talk about it. I have been isolating. I have been quiet about it. I have done all the things that I know I am not supposed to do and it feels just like I’m in addiction all over again. I don’t want to talk on the phone, I would rather sleep. I don’t want to write about it because I don’t want people to be concerned. I don’t want to go to recovery meetings because I don’t think anyone will understand that my life is so good right now that I can’t even face it.

So I hide.

And I come to the surface to go to school, to go to work, to do the bare minimum that I need to get things done. And I find myself half in half out of these things because when I am having a good time my face hurts from laughing. My belly cramps because that laughing hurts so good, that I wonder how I could even be depressed?

I don’t even want to use the word depressed because it makes it feel like I am trying to get attention. But the truth is that I am not the same as I was last year. Something has gradually taken over me and I have been fighting this darkness with all that I am. I have been busy, but not too busy to write. I have just been avoiding it because I don’t want cause for concern but the truth is that I have been concerned.

My doctor changed my medication again and it’s only been a few days and I don’t know if it will help. I’m not giving up, this is just me reaching out.

I feel weak in everyway possible. I have been trying to put on a face to show people that it’s not that bad, or maybe to convince myself that of I can manage to put on makeup I am still safe.

I am alive, and so confused. Why would this sickness appear in the most amazing time in my life? I don’t know. I don’t understand.

But this is the truth about what’s been going on and I needed to share it.

Flood me with light.

I have starting writing so many times for this next entry and I have deleted everything. There isn’t proper words or even feelings to explain what I have been experiencing.

It is a very confusing silence. My mind is swirling one minute and I’m living and breathing and so grateful, then it just stops.

When I wake up I feel tired even after 12 hours sleep. I am so confused as to what is happening with me because how can I feel this way when my life is so good?

You are so ungrateful. I hear myself say in the back of my mind. It’s over and over and the words are swirling and everything is so complicated and I feel so alone in these feelings. I can hear the distress signals going off.

Then when I finally get out of the house I feel mostly feel great – if I haven’t overslept. But when I have overslept I feel like I am coming off drugs and I just need more sleep.

I feel confused by myself so much lately because it’s been over three years since I drank or drugged and five years today since I have used crystal meth – and this is amazing!! But I can’t help but feel like I’m still so far from healthy. That my carefulness with my mental health has become stunted. That the truth might just be that I am ashamed of feeling this dark, when my life is filled with so much light.

That I have nothing to be down or sad about. But about half of the days I am, with no actual reason. Just that it’s dark.

Please universe – flood me with light.

Joy.

How did I get to such a perfect place in my life? I am sitting outside enjoying the sun between classes at university. I have so much freedom in my life now that the drugs and alcohol are gone. But simply removing drugs and alcohol did nothing for me, until I decided to put in the work to change. And so here I am, changing. Every single day I can feel a change inside of me and lately I have found myself hiding inside, scared like I was back in my addiction again. The fear and isolation felt exactly just the darkest of days in my addiction. But without the drugs and alcohol what could the problem be?

It’s me. It’s always been me. I am the one who can make or break my day. From the second I open my eyes I have already decided how I am going to feel for the day and it’s been ruining too many of my days.

I need to learn to be more patient with myself. With the universe. I need to stop being so damn selfish, but also understanding the balance of self care. I need to be gentle with myself while at the same time pushing myself where I need to be pushed.

I am so grateful for this gift I have been given, but sometimes I feel like I’m overflowing with unnamed grief. Yet other times it feels like unrecognizable joy. Today I feel joy.

I’m going to show up.

I have been stuck in hiding and unsure of how I even feel. I would choose bed over anything because the cold honest truth is I feel like I am so close to the darkness that I don’t even have any words.

I spent the week at my parents house 3 hours from home and I just couldn’t manage to shake the feeling that something just destroying me from the inside out. I couldn’t find any sort of balance inside of me. I was exhausted the entire time and I thought maybe I was just in relaxation mode – but deep down I knew exactly what was happening.

Depression is creeping back in and I can see it this time. I am standing here on this dock and I have been watching the waves roll in for so long and I have been ignoring them. The truth is that I don’t really think I am ok. And now I’m still standing here on this dock but I’m watching a tsunami roll in.

Run.

But then there is another truth in that I have no idea if this is how normal people feel, because the only times I have ever felt this calm before in my life, was during the darkest times. The calm usually acts as a warning.

Stay.

I don’t know who I am as a person without my addictions, or mental illness. I feel so lost in my own truth that I don’t feel like I know anything anymore. Like my entire truth has been erased and now I need to relearn it. Ever day that I further into my sobriety time I feel like I am changing but I don’t know how to even deal with it. I don’t know how to even act around people as the person I have become. I still carry around this damn label of alcoholic and addict like I’m wearing it like a badge. I know what I am not just my past so what am I having such a hard time becoming the person that I actually am?

My mind is spinning. I wish I had gone to a meeting today but I napped instead. This is a slippery slope and I can’t go back.

I’m getting up early tomorrow. I’m setting my alarm. I’m doing my hair. Putting on a face. Heading to the noon meeting. I may not understand what it is I am experiencing, but that should not stop me from seeking help from my support system. Maybe I don’t have any words to explain what I am going through, but how will I know if someone else does, if I don’t even show up?

Tomorrow I am going to show up, because for some reason I am not ok.

Why me?

3 years ago to this day I drank my last drink. At the very moment 3 years ago I was sitting in a hospital bed. I was at the end of my rope. I didn’t want to live. I didn’t know how to live without substances in my body. But for the most part I couldn’t see a life without alcohol in it.

My story is a complicated one and right now I feel almost too tired to tell it. It’s exhausting to go back to that place. I can feel the pressure right now of my past and I shouldn’t be caught in that place. I should celebrate where I am, and the past should not weigh so heavy on me. I can’t regret the things I have done, or the people I have lost. Because if I had not experienced everything that I had, I would not be the person I am today.

Tomorrow I celebrate 3 years clean and sober and for that simple fact I am grateful and proud.

But all the things that have come along with my recovery are the true celebration. Sometimes when I stop to think about where I actually am, I feel so far away from myself. Everything feels different still. I often feel like a fraud because this new life is still so new, and I have only ever known myself as someone else. Someone not to trust. A thief. Someone who fails at everything. A half asser. Someone who is sick. Always high. Someone who is addicted. Can’t stop. Someone who has no hope. Why bother?

But that’s all different now. I am not that person anymore, but I often find myself feeling like there is no actual seperation between then and now. That somehow I just floated from one dimension to another so effortlessly. I was there and now I am here.

But I find myself wondering why? Why was I so lucky to make it out alive and thriving, when so many others have not?

Why me?

Something different.

There is a quietness within me that doesn’t want to talk, write, think or even feel anything that is happening in and around me. There is so much to talk about. So many things to update this blog with, but it just feels like it matters less now.

I started writing here because I felt like I was spilling over with the thoughts in my mind. That if I didn’t put them down somewhere then surely I would explode. I would find myself posting entry after entry. Even in my darkest times I was unable the slow the words just dumping out of my mind. Things had to be said. And now, it’s so different.

I feel like things have quieted since I published my book. Now wasn’t that the purpose? To have my story out there so that it could be understood. Maybe I can help one person by reading my story. Maybe that one person was me all along?

My book was released in store locally at Chapters yesterday. As soon as I checked the status on their website for the first time I saw that it was there. I was so excited, but I felt paralyzed in bed. The exhaustion from life is catching up to me. I was excited, but it felt different.

I put on my face, and I went to Chapters to visit my books. As I walked in to the store I was met with a table of extraordinary women’s books. I walked around the table and I looked for my book. Don’t they know where I have been? Why am I not here? I laughed at myself. I am not famous. I am not a celebrity. That’s why I am not on this table. It took some time and help from an associate to locate my books, as they were not yet brought to the floor. The associate put them in a temporary location which he referred to as the homeless books, because 40% of the stores books were removed for the next 6 months due to renovations. But my books were there.

They are there. And in about an hour I am going to go pick up my boyfriend and we are going to go visit my books.

Everything feels so different. It’s fuzzy and yet so clear. It feels like I’m dreaming the most phenomenal dream. Ever since the day I gave up on life which was 3 years ago, a week from today. Everything has changed. I am something else now.

I am something different.

I am grateful.

The past few days I have spent brewing and stewing, in the best way possible. I have been trying to accept that I will finish school in a year because I cannot financially afford it. But I won’t accept that.

I plan to live up to my potential of becoming an actual social worker and at this point I don’t know what that road will look like.

I will count pennies if I have to, because I have over a year to save for at least my first semester once I am done my diploma. I don’t even know how many tries it will take for me to get into the degree program. The future is so unknown at this point, but I do know where I was. I remember those feelings of complete and utter despair.

I didn’t think I would ever recover from not only the addictions I was caught in, but also the state of mind I was in. But here I am, alive and well.

The thoughts that have been running through my mind were about how I wish I had saved money from my past. I wish this, I wish that. And it dawned on me that right now I have the opportunity to save money so that years down the road I’m not sitting with a diploma in my hand crying to myself that I wish I had done things different so I could get my degree.

In one day I saved $50 towards my goal. I don’t need to buy tea at school. I don’t need to go out for dinner. I don’t need fancy stuff in my bath. I don’t need to go thrifting just because it makes me feel better. I don’t need to spend money because I have it.

Today I am reframing my mind and I am going to do whatever it takes to become a social worker. I will not feel sorry for my past. I will not let myself ruin my future. I will not regret all the time lost.

I understand the universe and it’s plan for me. I am not trying to run the show but I do know that in order for me to get to that end goal – I need to work harder than ever before.

I am grateful.