150 days

It’s been a while since I’ve truly felt like myself. I am not even sure who that is anymore or when the last time was that I lived and breathed my values and my truth.

I spent a lot of the last year lying and hiding, denying myself for the benefit of an addiction. I became a different person, putting something so destructive before my peers, my work, my relationship, my life. In the evening I would be dependent, flying high on a belief that things would be ok because at least I could work and persevere, despite.. no.. thanks to the addiction. In the morning I would wallow, looking forward to the moment I would come alive again, unless interrupted, where I would bleed and cry and curl up in a ball on the bathroom floor.

At the time, there was nothing but logic in my mind. I knew it was wrong but rationalised it to a point where I deceived everyone, including myself. For a period, there was nothing but this as my truth - it kept me going and pretending to live a life where the shell I had built, my exterior persona was still surviving. And god did I do everything for it to survive. I had lived 28 years in this body, with this mind, surely I could continue being this person despite violating everything about myself for a fleeting sensation of artificial self-worth. But it felt like without it I was nothing.. I had been fine without it but now it was here, there was nothing but it giving me life, giving me meaning. It was terrifying. It is terrifying.

People didn’t notice. I was a bit off, maybe I was drinking too much, or oversharing, or just overall a bit different, but everyone was at that time - and nobody was close enough to see (and those that were trusted me.. to their greatest deception). This made me even more convinced that I could live this way - but also that it was just a phase.

But slowly the shell started to crack, and those cracks were destructive. My life was slowly coming apart and no matter how much I would spend and how much I would give in to my addiction it was all unravelling. And I was scared, because now I knew I couldn’t keep going but I couldn’t stop, and I was this thing, this shell, with a shadow of myself that had self-manipulated to become dependent on this powder, this substance. I was alone, more alone than I had ever been - nobody knew my truth, and nobody could see that I was no longer me, because I had been so good at hiding it. And as it started cracking and I couldn’t hang on any longer, I was faced with the facts: I had lied and betrayed everyone around me, time and time again for the better part of a year.

When the truth came out, at first it was like a weight was lifted and at the time I believed myself to be better, because I had shared and sharing meant I was no longer alone. Except.. it was worst - because I couldn’t live in the shell anymore but there was nothing left, the remnants of my soul and who I was had been bleached away into a gaping hole filled by my addiction. The shell was cracked, the interior was disintegrated, and people cared but I couldn’t - I just couldn’t deal with the pity, the hurt, the anger, the shame, and the knowledge of who I had become. Suddenly it wasn’t about enhancing, it was about numbing, it was about surviving. Because I had destroyed what I knew of me, until everything was simply a lie - even what I thought I understood or remembered about me.

I continued and got better at lying, so much so that I couldn’t even tell truth from inconsistency anymore, my entire life was a fallacy. I damaged the people around me, and everything that I touched was built on sand, a fake veneer that perpetuated the notion that the me that once was still resided in my body. So much energy spent on this idea of who I should be, who people could be.. that no energy was spent ono finding out what happened to me, what I had become and what part of me was still there.

Today marks 150 days since I stopped for good.

I wanted to sweep this under the rug, to close my eyes and pretend it didn’t happen. But I couldn’t focus, constantly trying to fill the void with something - first alcohol, then activities, shopping, and more. With some help I am starting to piece together the parts of myself that I forgot and that hibernate within my heart, kept safe somehow from the ravages of my actions.

I’m still taking it one day at a time - too much stress or pressure makes me want to go back and I just can’t afford to. I’m speaking to someone who is helping me through my hurtful beliefs and what I’m learning are co-dependent traits. Thats a story for another day.

Today marks 150 days and I am proud. To be honest I thought it would be easier.. to get back to my life and to myself, but every day is a step forward, even when looking backwards.