A time for new beginnings and fresh starts yet I don’t dare to dream beyond the day. A lifelong habit: get through today and if that works get through tomorrow. Some days it’s just “get through this hour, get through this minute”. Sometimes it’s like that for many days. The tyranny of the urgent pulls […]
I thought I was done – that the Beast had been slayed and I was the Conqueror. On the one year anniversary of sobriety from self harm I got it tattooed: the date by the word “Healing”. I was so confident, so relieved, so PROUD. Pride goes before a fall. I was laying in bed […]
There’s a reason many alcoholics say “I’m an alcoholic”. Present tense. Because if you say “I was an alcoholic” you can fool yourself into thinking maybe someday you can drink again. Be normal. Many of us avoid alcohol like it’s poison even if it’s been years because we can’t trust that we will ever be […]
There seems to be no way to gain any perspective lately – the sadness, ache, and fear are overwhelming. It colors everything. I know that it is not the whole story but I cannot escape. I cannot escape and so I hide. The shame of the sadness drives me into isolation. I feel broken: unable […]
There is a frustrating truth that the longer I ignore the Ache the worse it gets: it feels shameful and wrong. I try to operate like it’s not there but it sabotages me in the smallest moments about the smallest things to keep reminding me of it’s existence. It sees where I am falling short […]
It took a month after getting home from the hospital to feel like I was doing more than just getting by. I came back more lost than I was before I left. I began to wonder if I would ever be fully human again or if I would be a fragmented shell for the rest […]
I had to go to the hospital again. Something I had vowed to never repeat. I was shutting down so much I couldn’t function and I wanted to hurt myself to get out of the fog. I was trapped, hopeless, alone, and frightened. I’ve been home for a couple of days and I don’t really […]
I was gone for more than two weeks. I was gone and there seemed to be no way to get me back. My mind was in a hellish place and the lie that became an obsession was that I shouldn’t be here anymore, that the only solution to save me and others from my pain […]
I go to a yoga class every Saturday morning at 8am. It isn’t easy and it is probably only possible because the studio is five minutes from my house. I find myself going out of a sense of obligation knowing that it is good for me. My attitude changes when I get there: relief begins […]
The ghosts of the past trail me looking for weak moments. They say that cutting is the only way to get relief . . . They notice me take a long, deep breath of rubbing alcohol fumes that take me back to the days of martinis and blackouts. How could I long to go back […]
Healing The Ache 