My Turn.

I’ve been thinking recently about the journey I took to get to where I am today.

What feels like a lifetime of recovery, really hasn’t been much longer than 3 years.

It was a little over three years ago that I first reached out for help. I started therapy. I walked into AA for the first time (and in and out until finally sticking in 2014). I began to reveal some of my secrets to the first person who I felt I could trust at the time. Three years ago, I knew for the first time… that I needed other people. That I needed to reach outside of myself for help.

Three years seems so long ago. I’ve grown essentially into an entirely different person during that time. I’ve grown into someone that is honest, trusting (for the most part), self-aware, expressive and hopeful. None of these adjectives even remotely relate to the person I was before I started this journey. On the contrary, I was secretive to the point where no one really knew me. I was isolative and trusting of no one. I was a stranger to even myself. I did not know what I was feeling, let alone how to express my emotions. And I had no hope left. I had given up completely to the point that I didn’t care whether I lived or died.

It’s hard for me to imagine myself back then, because so much has changed thanks to recovery, sobriety, the wisdom of others and my faith in a higher power. But recently, I’ve recognized a fear that I have today. I fear going back… I fear living again with that insurmountable pain… I fear that loneliness that suffocated me… The person I am today fears the person I was then.

Three years ago, I had my first taste of what it felt like to no longer be alone. I let others hold some of the weight that I had carried on my own back for years. I let others into my life, into my feelings, into my secrets. I let myself be vulnerable. I let other people save me. Had I not, I guarantee I would no longer be here. And I’m grateful for these past three years.

But now, it’s my turn.

It’s time now, for me to start saving myself, at least partly. This means relying less on others, learning how to cope with emotions that, before recovery, felt unbearable. This means growing more comfortable with being alone. This means truly growing up, becoming independent (not completely of course, but enough that I no longer need to cling to others for support).

And I am scared shitless.

Now that I know what it’s like to be cared for, loved, supported… it is terrifying for me to consider letting go of even an ounce of that reliance. How do I know that I’m capable?

I never thought I’d say that it has been easier to trust others than it has been to trust myself… but the truth is, I’m not sure I ever really have ever trusted myself.

I’ve been educated almost excessively on coping skills, treatment approaches, the twelve steps, emotion regulation and the biological, mental and spiritual bases that I need to stay healthy.

And yet… knowing these things does not guarantee that I will do them.

I have hope, I know.

But I also have fear.

I’ve told myself before that fear is only proof that I value my life today. The person I was before recovery didn’t have much fear. Instead, she was numb, apathetic, uncaring.

Maybe it isn’t hope that saves us.

Maybe it’s the fear of going backwards.

Regardless, I know it’s time to start letting go of the person I was and to start trusting the person I am today.

The Day After I Killed Myself – By: Meggie R

This is beautifully written and very relevant for this month of suicide awareness. Grateful to be alive. Grateful to be a survivor. ❤️

The morning after I killed myself, I woke up.
I made myself breakfast in bed. I added salt and pepper to my eggs and used my toast for a cheese and bacon sandwich. I squeezed a grapefruit into a juice glass. I scraped the ashes from the frying pan and rinsed the butter off the counter. I washed the dishes and folded the towels.                                    
The morning after I killed myself, I fell in love. Not with the boy down the street or the middle school principal. Not with the everyday jogger or the grocer who always left the avocados out of the bag. I fell in love with my mother and the way she sat on the floor of my room holding each rock from my collection in her palms until they grew dark with sweat. I fell in love with my father down at the river as he placed my note into a bottle and sent it into the current. With my brother who once believed in unicorns but who now sat in his desk at school trying desperately to believe I still existed.
The morning after I killed myself, I walked the dog. I watched the way her tail twitched when a bird flew by or how her pace quickened at the sight of a cat. I saw the empty space in her eyes when she reached a stick and turned around to greet me so we could play catch but saw nothing but sky in my place. I stood by as strangers stroked her muzzle and she wilted beneath their touch like she did once for mine.
The morning after I killed myself, I went back to the neighbors’ yard where I left my footprints in concrete as a two year old and examined how they were already fading. I picked a few daylilies and pulled a few weeds and watched the elderly woman through her window as she read the paper with the news of my death. I saw her husband spit tobacco into the kitchen sink and bring her her daily medication.
The morning after I killed myself, I watched the sun come up. Each orange tree opened like a hand and the kid down the street pointed out a single red cloud to his mother.
The morning after I killed myself, I went back to that body in the morgue and tried to talk some sense into her. I told her about the avocados and the stepping stones, the river and her parents. I told her about the sunsets and the dog and the beach.
The morning after I killed myself, I tried to unkill myself, but couldn’t finish what I started. 
By Meggie Royer

http://imgur.com/gallery/4swX4N1

Keep Holding On.

  September 10th is World Suicide Awareness Day. This is a cause very near and dear to my heart. In a world filled with so many people, the mind can so easily convince us that we are misunderstood and alone in our suffering. It’s a lie that so often leads to a permanent solution to a temporary feeling. The world continues to grow more accepting of mental illness, but we still have a long way to go. Let’s help people who are struggling to feel safe to reach out, to feel heard, to feel accepted, to feel loved. RIP to all those who have tragically lost their lives to suicide and prayers for all those who have been left behind. 💛

“Enough.”

I heard a speaker last night at a meeting I hadn’t been to in about a year. Something I love about recovery and also something that I’ve had to work on over and over is to “look for the similarities and not the differences.” For so long, I was convinced that my story was unique, that no one knew what it was like, that I was entirely alone in my suffering. But as time passed and I was reminded by others in the rooms to seek those similarities, the more I found, often in the stories of those to whom I least expected to relate.

The fact is that yes, our pasts hold many different situations, home environments, specific tragedies and traumas. There are parts of our stories that are circumstantially unique. But those are details. Underneath the tiny kernels of technicality, beneath the exquisitely-decorated armor that we’ve crafted to hide the pain, are the scars and bruises that we all share, the feelings that have been neglected for too long.

The woman who spoke last night had a story that brought many of her listeners to tears. Like many of our own, her past was one of tragedy. As if she were echoing my old thoughts of feeling unique and isolated, she spoke of feeling that because her story was different, she hadn’t earned her place in the rooms of AA. Looking at the details, the specific events that set her apart in her mind, she walked back out seeking to prove to herself and others that she wasn’t the same and therefore, didn’t have a problem.

Several months later, still digging and waiting for her shovel to bang against her acceptable and “deserving” perception of a rock bottom, she attended a meeting. She walked in, fairly intoxicated and sat down.

This part of the woman’s story resonated the most deeply with me:

As she sat in one of the circular formation of chairs and waited for the meeting to begin, a man walked up and started to talk to her. The stranger, having guessed correctly, asked whether the woman had been drinking to which she responded, “yes.” He nodded understandingly, asking one more question: “it just doesn’t hurt enough, yet, does it?”

This question became a pivotal message in the woman’s story, motivating her to stop trying to find this mythical state of “enough,” and to accept that “enough” might not exist for her. If it did exist, she would likely die trying to reach it.

I, too, spent a lot of time looking for this point of having had “enough.” It’s almost as if I expected an internal timer to go off when I was ready to stop drinking, to stop hurting, to stop killing myself before I actually succeeded. I was waiting for something or someone other than myself to tell me that I was done, that I could stop. My dad used to wrestle with me and tickle me, refusing to stop until I said the dreaded word, “uncle.” The game was about seeing how much I could take until I gave in, surrendered. I didn’t expect that game to become a metaphor for my life. In the midst of my dysfunctional past, there was no “enough.” I guess that’s what made me an addict. I had too much pride, too much stubbornness, to admit I couldn’t handle any more.

Looking back now with sober eyes, I can see where this quest for “enough” would have led me.

There was never enough alcohol in my blood.

I was never numb enough.

I could never weigh low enough.

I was never empty enough.

I never had enough scars, enough pain.

What was enough?

The trajectory of my defiance would have led me to my grave, a place to which I came dangerously close on several occasions. My “enough” did not exist, at least not in my lifetime. It existed only in death.

I’m grateful, today, that I stopped looking.

I’m grateful that I never had enough.

National Suicide Prevention Day

Today is National Suicide Prevention Day, a day very dear to my heart. I’ve known people who have taken their own lives, I know many who have attempted, and I myself, have come to that point of desperation and hopelessness. Sadly, though, many of us suffer with suicidality in silence. We fear that by reaching out, we will be stigmatized as “crazy,” “attention-seeking,” “weak.” The world still knows so little about the plague that is depression (and other mental illnesses) and as a result, many don’t recognize their struggles for being real, worthy of mentioning. They feel alone, misunderstood, afraid of the world and of themselves. Not only is a suicide tragic in itself, but I believe it is almost more tragic to consider how alone that person felt in the end, that he or she felt so isolated that even reaching out felt hopeless. In a world full of so many people struggling with the same (if not similar) problems, it is a tragedy that so many of us feel alone.

So today, let’s do our part in spreading that vital awareness of the threat that is suicide. Learn more about mental health. Educate your friends and family. Tell your loved ones on a daily basis how much they mean to you, how much you love them. And take time when you can, to listen to a stranger’s story, to smile at them, to make them feel heard and appreciated. And if it is you that is struggling, pay attention to those feelings, give yourself care and love. If you feel that you can’t, please reach out and let someone else give you that affection. Despite feeling alone in your suffering right now, I think you’ll be surprised how many people want to be there for you, want to listen, to care, to hold your hand. I agree that the world can be a lonely place, but I also believe that our minds can make it feel even more that way. We can convince ourselves that we’re invisible, worthless, unloveable. But in reaching out, we can prove those internal truths to be false.

I’m not going to say that life gets easier, because it doesn’t. You just get stronger. You may still feel at times, scared, lonely, sad, or even, hopeless. But the more time that you allow to pass, you’ll start to realize that those feelings will, too. Slowly, we can learn how to cope with those feelings. By reaching out, we bring more supports into our lives, so that we are no longer the only shoulders upon which the weight will rest. It takes time to build that strength and resilience. But you’re deserving of that time.

I came across this acronym a few months ago and sometimes, I recite it to myself over and over until it’s almost automatic. It’s taken me a while, but I believe I’m starting to believe in its truth:

Hold On, Pain Ends.

It does. I promise.

♥

 

*If you need support, please see the tab below my header entitled “Support.”

Island

“No man [or woman] is an island.” – John Donne

I used to believe that I was entirely independent of this world. Today, this seems like such a naive and ignorant notion. But my addictions brought me to the point where I isolated myself from the outside, closing myself indoors, unseen and alone. I had friends and people with whom I talked and partied, but I always kept them at a distance, never let them in too close. I believed myself “terminally unique,” as they say in the rooms. I believed that I could relate to no one  There was always something I could find that made me different, less-than, or even, special. It amazes me now that I know so many others who share similar stories, that I believed myself the only one to feel as I did, to suffer as I did.

It was a bittersweet moment when I walked into the rooms and realized I was not the only one who felt like this. For a long time, I wished I was. I wouldn’t have wished that pain and desperation on my worst enemy. But at the same time, I was grateful. I was not alone. And you know what? I never was.

This discovery has saved my life. I’m so lucky to have found recovery and sobriety. So many others haven’t made it this far. It’s for them, that I keep going. I live this sober life in honor of all those who couldn’t.

Yesterday, not far from my house, there was a man standing on a bridge over the highway, threatening to jump. For a moment, as I watched him standing there on my TV screen, I saw myself. How many times have I been in that same place of hopelessness? There was a period in my life during which I could not walk over a bridge without glancing over the edge. I wanted to pull over on that highway and yell up to him, “you are not alone! I know what you’re feeling and I’ve made it through! You can, too!” When someone gave me that same message years ago, I felt my heart lighten ever so slightly. Hanging from that ledge, someone had reached out their hand and I had grasped it and since then, I’ve hung on for dear life.

We are not islands. We can’t be. No matter how strongly we believe we can, we cannot survive on our own. Whether we like it or not, we are all connected to this world, to each other. Our words and actions affect others just as much as theirs’ affect us. We may feel insignificant, but the truth is, there is no way of knowing how we affect others.

If you think about it, even an island isn’t really an island. Sure, it’s surrounded by water, but underneath that, the earth connects every island to the mainland. An island isn’t an iceberg, floating in the ocean, disconnected and isolated. It’s connected, even if we can’t see the land that joins it to the rest of the earth.

And it’s the same for us. We are individuals, unique in our own ways, coming from different backgrounds, cultures, races, sexual identities, beliefs. Yes, we are different. But no one said that being different and being alike were mutually exclusive. We can be both unique and similar. We can be both independent and dependent. But even if we each make up a single piece of this world, however colorful or plain, flamboyant or reserved, liberal or conservative… we are and always have been a part of a whole. Even if we can’t see or feel that we are connected, we are. Even if the land joining me with someone else is hidden beneath an ocean, I have to know it’s there.

I am not an island.

No man or woman is an island.

We are not alone.

Brave

Survivor

A Story of My Life

By: Yours Truly

 

Born on her knees,

Her purpose to please,

She could never have guessed,

The pressure to be best.

 

A home made of strife,

Would anchor her life.

Try as she might,

They wouldn’t stop the fight.

 

In the midst of their rage,

She was locked in a cage.

What did “love” mean,

If it had never been seen?

 

Never a hug nor kiss,

What love was there to miss?

A “sinner” to her faith,

Did she deserve to feel safe?

 

Asking God at age five,

Why she was alive,

She continued to fail,

Hiding her truth beneath a veil.

 

To her body, she tried,

To match the pain inside.

Fighting her constant fear,

By suppressing every tear.

 

Starting a life of her own,

She faced her fears alone.

Knowing nothing but pain,

How could she choose sun over rain?

 

She refused to feel,

By avoiding every meal.

With every sip and smoke,

Her heart broke and broke.

 

She let the lust of men take,

What she no longer feared to break.

In pieces lay her heart,

She’d let fall every part.

 

She’d grown so, so tired,

She sought the strength she admired.

Could one day she find,

The self she’d left behind?

 

“I need help,” she finally said,

For a second chance, she pled.

So many times, she had said “good-bye,”

Said once more, it would not be a lie.

 

Could a stranger truly care,

Despite the shame she laid bare?

Having tried to fix with tape and glue,

Could her heart heal as if new?

 

For once, she let free,

The emotions she’d tried to flee.

She felt a tear on her cheek,

Her truth now allowed to speak.

 

So long deaf and blind,

She let the knot of pain unwind.

For once, she felt alive.

She could and would survive.

Survive

Take a moment and think of all of the days through which you didn’t think you would survive. Look where you are now. Not only did you survive yesterday, and the day before. You survived every day that came before today.

That is amazing.

You are amazing.

If we made it through every day up until today, how can we not have hope that we can make it through one more?

♥

It’s Never Too Late

“Even if I say, it’ll be alright. Still I hear you say you want to end your life. Now and again we try, to just stay alive. Maybe we’ll turn it all around ’cause it’s not too late. It’s never too late.“

“Never Too Late”- Three Days Grace ♥