I wanted to thank everyone for all the birthday wishes the other day, it really made me smile. I want to thank each one of you individually, but I don’t have much free time, and I don’t think being on social media is good for me right now. So just know I saw it and really appreciated it.
It’s crazy how fast time passed me by; I can tell I went into a new age demographic because ever since my birthday Facebook seems to think I really need to buy a house and luxury designer furniture haha!
Now for the serious stuff since I’m trying to be more open: I feel incredibly lucky to have made it this far in life, both literally and figuratively. My life has changed so much so quickly, I love my work, I have a nice and safe place to live, and a wonderful partner. These are things I never thought I’d get to see myself have. If you asked me 3 years ago where I thought I’d be in life at 25, my answer would not have been “sober, married, and in the suburbs” it would have been something along the lines of “Ha! You think I’m making it to 25?” I honestly never thought I’d make it this far.
Yesterday was my reevaluation at the addiction hospital, and it made me feel something profound inside of me that I can’t quite describe. After my therapist told me she was keeping my case as “high-risk” until my next evaluation she went through my file (which is as thick as a dictionary already) and asked me to clarify some of my history with substance abuse. I answered her questions and told her some of what I had done, at one point I had said something that made my normally calm, composed, and professional therapist’s eyes widen in shock and she just exclaimed “SHIT!” She immediately apologized, but it was an eye-opening experience for me. I always felt like I never had it “that bad” but here I am making a therapist who has worked in this field for decades curse when I explained something that was “normal” to me. It’s hard to be honest with others; it’s harder to be honest with yourself. I didn’t think I had a problem back then, and I still minimize what I had been doing. I still think things like “it wasn’t that bad” “[x] never happened to me, so it wasn’t really serious” “I’m not sick enough to deserve treatment” and other similar things. I still can’t be honest with myself about the severity of the situation.
After we wrapped up our session and my therapist was closing up my file she says “you know, you’re really lucky to be alive.” That stirred something in me; I am lucky to be alive. I did so many things and was in so many situations that should have killed me, but they didn’t. I’m here, I’m alive, and I can’t help but think there’s some reason for it. I don’t know what the reason is, but I feel like there has to be a reason I survived. You can call it wishful thinking or total bullshit, but a part of me feels like I must have some kind of purpose in life and that’s why I’m still here today.
I have a lot to think about, I have a lot of self-reflection to do, it’s been an emotional week, but I’ve made it another year.
