Tiny Buddha

Tag: recovery

  • How to Get Through Your Darkest Days: Lessons from Addiction and Loss

    How to Get Through Your Darkest Days: Lessons from Addiction and Loss

    “You are never stronger…than when you land on the other side of despair.” ~Zadie Smith

    In the last years of my twenties, my life completely fell apart.

    I’d moved to Hollywood to become an actor, but after a few years in Tinsel Town things weren’t panning out the way I hoped. My crippling anxiety kept me from going on auditions, extreme insecurity led to binge eating nearly every night, and an inability to truly be myself translated to a flock of fair-weather friends.

    As the decade wound to a close, I stumbled upon the final deadly ingredient in my toxic lifestyle: opiates. A few small pills prescribed for pain unlocked a part of my brain I didn’t know existed: a calm, confident, and numb version of myself that seemed way more manageable than the over-thinking mind-chatter I was used to.

    At first the pills were like a casual indulgence—I’d pop a few before a nerve-wracking audition or first date, the same way other people might have a few drinks before going out on the town. But my casual relationship to opiates was short-lived: soon the pills were no longer reserved for awkward dates or nerve-wracking auditions, and instead necessary for any type of outing or interaction.

    I knew I’d crossed an invisible line when I began to feel sick without a “dose” of medication. The physical pain they’d been prescribed for had long subsided, but they’d created a need that only grew with more use. Soon I became sick if I didn’t take any pills, which is when I began going to any lengths to get more.

    I wanted so much to stop but felt trapped on a terrible ride: I’d wake hating myself for what I’d done the day before, and with deep shame I’d vow earnestly to quit—then afternoon would come and with it, withdrawal symptoms. As my stomach would turn and my head would spin, I’d lose the resolve to stop and begin searching for my next fix. With that fix would come a few hours of relief, followed by another cycle of self-loathing, a vow to quit, and more failure.

    It was a spin cycle that likely would have killed me had life not intervened in ways that at the time felt devastating; in a span of two weeks my “normal” façade collapsed and, with it, most pillars in my life. Like a house of cards toppling, I lost my job, car, relationship, and was evicted from my home.

    It felt like a cliché country song where the singer loses everything, except in those songs that person is usually likeable and innocent—but in my story, I felt like the villain.

    As I watched my entire life crumble around me, I felt no choice other than to return home and seek the shelter of the only person who had always been there for me—my mom.

    The mom who had raised me with morals like honesty, accountability, and kindness, although I hadn’t been living them for a while. The mom who had struggled raising two kids alone, gotten us off food stamps by going to nursing school, and who watched helplessly as I descended into the same cycle of addiction that had taken the life of my father.

    She told me I could stay if I was sober; I vowed to try, though I’d stopped believing my own promises long before.

    In the recovery program I found soon after, there was an oft repeated saying on every wall: “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” If taken literally, it makes you think about how dark the night sky is before dawn breaks… how heavy, looming, and consuming. Before the light returns, it can feel like the darkness will never end.

    That was how my early days sober felt.

    But as I cobbled together a few weeks and then a few months, I began to feel the faintest bit of trust in myself. Through abstinence and therapy, mindfulness and a sober community, the hopelessness that had seemed so all-consuming began to crack open and let in some light.

    I moved out into my own apartment, returned to school to complete a long-sought college degree, and had a waitressing job that I loved. Then, just after I achieved one year sober, I got a phone call from my brother that would change everything.

    “Melissa, you need to come home,” he said, his voice thick with tears. “It’s mom.”

    My stomach dropped as I gripped the phone, suddenly feeling about five years old. I’d find out later it was a heart attack.

    I felt the darkness descend again.

    —

    In the days that followed her death I felt like a dependent child that was unable to care for myself. I dragged myself through brushing my teeth, dressing, and arranging her funeral; it felt like my heart had stopped along with hers.

    The same thought kept circling the drain of my head—how can I live the rest of my life without my mother?

    I couldn’t imagine not having her at my graduation, wedding, or when I became a parent. Her disappearance from my future brought up a dread much worse than that of the previous year— but as I began to settle into my grief, I realized I had a path through this moment, if I were willing to take it.

    The tools I’d forged in sobriety would prove to be useful in the dark days that followed. I share them below as an offering for anyone who travels through a dark night of the soul: simple steps to keep in mind when you can’t see a path forward.

    Take things one day at a time.

    In sobriety, you learn that imagining your whole life without another drink or drug can be so daunting that you just give up and get loaded. So instead of borrowing future worry, you learn to stay in the week, the day, and the moment.

    I didn’t have to know what having a wedding without my mother would be like—I just needed to eat breakfast. I didn’t need to imagine my graduation—I just needed to get myself through one more class. As I pieced my future together one moment at a time, I found that I could handle the emptiness in bite size pieces. I didn’t have to figure it all out—I just had to keep going.

    Allow feelings to come and trust that they will go.

    Much of what I’d been running from as an addict was the discomfort of my feelings. I didn’t want to feel rejection, so I contorted myself to be liked; I didn’t want to feel sadness, so I busied myself with the next activity. In recovery I learned that we can run from feelings all we want, but eventually they catch up to us in some form. Instead of running I’d learned to allow; instead of busying myself I’d been taught to turn toward pain and trust that it wouldn’t last forever.

    Though this was easier said than done, some part of me knew that running from the grief of my mom’s death would only snowball into a freight train later. I’d scream in my car as I seethed with the unfairness of it all; I’d rock with sobs on my couch when the sadness became too much. It wasn’t pretty and it felt terrible, but when I let the grief shake through me. I found that there would always be an end… that at the bottom of my spiral a thread of mercy would appear, and I would be able to go on.

    Tell the truth.

    From a young age, I felt much more comfortable in a mask of smiles and jokes than sharing how I was actually doing at any given moment. Though getting sober had helped me shed layers of the mask, I still found myself trying to likeable, approved-of, and “good.” But as grief zapped my energy and ability to make myself palatable, when people asked how I was doing I started to be honest.

    Sharing the pain I felt after my mom’s death was like standing naked in the middle of the street—I wasn’t used to crying in front of people and didn’t think they’d like me when they found out I wasn’t always “fun and easy going.” But it was exactly this type of vulnerability that allowed true friends to materialize, old connections to deepen, and the support I longed for to appear.

    Allow yourself to be forever changed.

    In recovery from addiction, I began to think of my sobriety date as a second birthday—the start of an actual new life. Though the way my former life had burned to the ground was painful, I welcomed the chance for a new start.

    But when my mom died, I didn’t realize that losing her would again scatter me into a thousand unrecognizable pieces—pieces I kept trying to fit back together but weren’t ever going to be the same, because I wasn’t.

    Once I allowed my life, relationships, and priorities to be changed by my grief, I found a self that was stronger, more resilient, and somehow more tender. I never would have chosen the form of this lesson, but I came through these experiences a more authentic version of myself… an overarching goal of my life.

    *

    It’s now been seven years since my mom’s death, and I’ve been sober for eight. As my journey continues to unfold, I never lose sight of how broken I once was and how dark things seemed. I also know that the struggles of life aren’t over; they’re part of being human and living a full life.

    But something I now keep in mind is that it’s always darkest before the dawn—I know I don’t have to always see the light…

    I just have to keep going.

  • 44 Things to Never Say to a Rape Survivor

    44 Things to Never Say to a Rape Survivor

    “It was not your fault, even if you were drunk, even if you were wearing a low-cut mini-dress, even if you were out walking alone at night, even if you were on a date with the rapist and kind of liked him but didn’t want to have sex with him.” ~Joanna Connors

    Child sexual abuse victims who speak up are incredibly brave and vulnerable. If a child comes to you for support, be mindful of your energy and reactions. If you need to ask them questions to get a better understanding, be mindful of your tone, body language, and intonation.

    When I experienced sexual assault at the age of thirteen, I didn’t tell anyone because I was afraid that I would be punished.

    I grew up in a home where I was trained to not show too much skin and to always avoid the male gaze. The day I was raped, I was wearing a skirt. I knew that, somehow, I would be blamed and punished, so I stayed quiet.

    As an adult, I learned through spirituality that I needed to change how I viewed rape survivors and myself. None of us “asked for it.”

    When addressing a rape survivor, it’s important to use consent-oriented etiquette and language. There are a variety of words and phrases you should never say.

    Be gentle with sexual assault survivors. Rape is a delicate and triggering topic. If someone comes to you for help, ask them what they need and if there is anything you can do for them.

    Listen. Check in on them.

    Look past your judgments of the situation and just be there to support them as best you can. Be sure to take care of yourself and your energy while helping others.

    Typically, I would only ask questions if you need to. Some people do not wish to share details of a traumatic experience. This is understandable.

    If you are required to ask some of the following questions for an investigation, be sensitive to your tone. Avoid judgment and any phrases that sound judgmental.

    It can even be helpful to say, “Rape is never the victim’s fault. I just need to ask you a few questions to get a better picture of what happened. Is that okay with you?”

    Only say what needs to be said. Only ask what needs to be asked. You may want to dig deeper, but you might end up saying the wrong thing and retraumatizing them further.

    Rape survivors need to be heard.

    How would you want to be treated if you went to someone for help? Give them the most compassion and unconditional love you can channel from your innermost being.  That’s the best way to support them.

    To shift from our current rape culture and into a culture of consent, we must change the mindless, go-to reactions that we have toward victims of sexual abuse.

    Why is it common to ask, “Was she drunk?” Why do people inquire about what someone was wearing at the time of a sexual assault?

    It’s common because society has taught us to judge instead of love. In a culture of consent, the mindset is different.

    In a culture of consent, we know that it doesn’t matter if someone was drinking. No one deserves rape.

    In a culture of consent, there is less blame and more compassion. Compassion is key when it comes to creating a culture of consent.

    Compassion in a culture of consent means extending unconditional love to sexual assault survivors. We can no longer live as we are as a society. The time for change is now.

    To implement this cultural shift, we can only start with ourselves, our thoughts, and our reactions toward rape survivors.

    I created the following list to help you take one major step in that direction.

    44 Things to NEVER Say to a Rape Survivor

    1. What were you wearing?

    2. Were you drunk?

    3. How did it happen? (Ask them if they are comfortable with sharing what happened. Listen mindfully and don’t oversteer their story. Respect how they share their story. Refrain from interrupting so they know they have the freedom to express themselves. This question is only necessary for law enforcement officials and healthcare professionals who are required to know the details in order to help the survivor.)

    4. Did you scream?

    5. Why didn’t you scream?

    6. You really need to get a gun.

    7. I know a self-defense class that you should go to.

    8. Your outfit was very sexy.

    9. How could that happen to you, again?

    10. Did you say “no”?

    11. Did you fight back?

    12. You’ve already had sex, so, what’s the difference?

    13. You’re a guy, you’re supposed to like it.

    14. Rape is every guy’s dream. (A girl said this to me while I was making consent-based chalk art in NYC in 2015.)

    15. How can a girl rape a boy?

    16. Rape can’t happen during marriage.

    17. There’s no use in crying about it.

    18. You need to let go of your anger.

    19. Are you sure it was rape?

    20. Weren’t you dating?

    21. Why didn’t you get a rape kit?

    22. Have you had sex since?

    23. You should have yelled “fire.”

    24. Why haven’t you reported it?

    25. I thought you liked him/her/them.

    26. It’s your fault.

    27. You shouldn’t have gone with them.

    28. You were asking for it.

    29. You attracted that.

    30. You led them on.

    31. That’s not rape.

    32. That was sex. You could have avoided it.

    33. You should have protected yourself.

    34. You shouldn’t have been out late.

    35. You shouldn’t have been drinking.

    36. You shouldn’t have gone to that party.

    37. That would never happen to me.

    38. You’re smarter than that.

    39. Stop putting yourself in situations like that.

    40. It could be worse.

    41. Get over it.

    42. It’s not that big of a deal.

    43.  I hope you learned your lesson.

    44. There are some things you could have done differently.

    Instead of blaming or shaming someone who has been traumatized, hold back those thoughts. Focus only on how you can be a friend to them in their time of need. If they came to you for help, it means that they trusted you.

    Spirituality helped me see my power and the importance of my voice. It taught me to have compassion for myself and fellow survivors. Sexual assault recovery can be catapulted when the rape survivor has a loving, supportive team of people who they can go to in times of need.

    How can you create this type of safe space for the sexual assault survivors in your life? How can you create this safe space for yourself?

  • How I Healed from Gaslighting and Found Self-Love After the Abuse

    How I Healed from Gaslighting and Found Self-Love After the Abuse

    “I smile because I have survived everything the world has thrown at me. I smile because when I was knocked down, I got back up.” ~Unknown

    Had you asked me only two years ago I wouldn’t have even been able to tell you what gaslighting was, nor that I had been a victim.

    That’s the thing about gaslighting, it can sneak into your life unknowingly, and before you know it, it can lead you to breaking point where you are doubting your sanity and your life is spiralling out of control.

    Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse, where an uneven power dynamic is created by an abuser, leading their victim to doubt their reality.

    Gaslighting is insidious in that it can begin subtly, then, as the victim’s confidence is chipped away, can lead to further forms of abuse, where the victim is coerced into submission of the wants of the abuser.

    I was in my twenties when I met Chris* (*name changed). He was charming, he complemented me, he made me laugh, and the chemistry between us made us virtually inseparable. I was in love, my life was perfect, and there was nothing that could bring me down from the loving high I felt.

    It did, though. Things came down, crashing down, and only three years later I was in the midst of a breakdown and contemplating suicide.

    I can’t exactly pinpoint when the gaslighting started; I had what I thought were misunderstandings—me just being “stupid,” forgetting things or making a “big deal” out of nothing. Chris was always the “brains” of the relationship, and I was “fortunate” that he corrected me when I made these errors. I had no clue this was only the beginning of what was to come.

    Then one day I was about to confront Chris for cheating on me, after finding evidence on a phone of mine he had used, when he uttered the words that were my undoing: “You do know that imagining things is the first sign of craziness, right?”

    Staring at me was a man with a cold stare. “You’re crazy, I don’t know how I can be with someone who makes up lies about me like that.” I looked at the phone, which was empty, no evidence of messages showing he had been unfaithful. They had definitely been there, and I had seen them, or at least I thought I had?

    I no longer lived with the Chris I loved; instead, he was replaced with a Jekyll and Hyde, who on some days was loving and on other days was calculated and manipulative.

    These changes in character were another form of ammunition in the mind games of gaslighting, allowing the gaslighting to go undetected. By granting me good days, it lured me into thinking things weren’t as bad as they were, a form of control to avoid me leaving the relationship.

    It also gave Chris further power by accusing me of being “ungrateful” when I attempted to protest later unacceptable behavior. “After what I did for you the other day, you accuse me of this?” How could I think negatively about him after all he was doing for me? And so the abuse continued.

    Each day I walked on eggshells not knowing what I would do wrong by Chris, and as a result I became a shadow of my former self, losing all confidence. With my loss in confidence I lost my ability to defend myself, and as a result was subjected to other forms of cruel abuse.

    Despite feeling my life was falling apart, I rarely considered leaving; instead, I clung onto the relationship, attempting to repair the damage I was made to believe I had done.

    Even if I had decided to leave, I felt I had no one, or nowhere to go. For over two years he told me I was crazy, so I had started to believe that was my truth. I thought if I tried to turn to someone for support, they would only reinforce that I was crazy or not believe me.

    It still brings a tear to my eye that I couldn’t open up to my sister, one of the closest people in my life. After seeing the dark circles under my eyes and weight loss, she asked if I was okay. The only response I could utter was “I’m fine.” The sad truth was that I wasn’t fine, I was far from it; my life was in chaos and I was starting to feel I couldn’t cope much longer.

    The strain of living in fear finally took its toll, so I hit my rock bottom. I felt that if I didn’t leave, there was no other option than to take my own life.

    Somewhere inside I took the last ounce of strength I had to leave. I was faced with a barrage of message from Chris, which switched from messages of promising to change, to messages of hate, having lost his control. How, I don’t know, but I managed to maintain no contact, blocking him out of my life forever, and for the strength I had during that time, I am forever grateful.

    Despite how low I had gotten I still was unable to identify that the relationship had been abusive, whether out of denial or lack of knowledge, and so did not reach out for support. Instead, in the years that followed I’d experience panic attacks, never felt safe, and had a gut-wrenching fear of certain people.

    I’d been so manipulated that I assumed these behaviors were just further evidence that I was “crazy”, and so I lived in this shame for another ten years.

    Finally, two years ago I did one of the bravest things I could have done: I listened to the small voice inside of me, the small voice that for the past twelve years had told me things weren’t right. The small voice that had been silenced by my abuser, that had been my apparent “crazy.” The small voice that knew I should have left, but that I didn’t have the confidence to listen to.

    I now realized that small voice was my gut instinct, and it was telling me that my life could improve, but I needed to open up and seek professional support.

    It takes an enormous amount of courage to open up and engage in important healing work after abuse. In asking for support we are opening ourselves up to be vulnerable, when it was our vulnerabilities which have been exploited.

    We are putting our trust into people, after having put trust in people who have hurt us.

    We are allowing opportunities to feel emotions and have a voice when our emotions and voice were ignored or silenced.

    Without support, though, we risk remaining in abusive relationships, or repeating patterns of attracting toxic people into our lives.

    This is by no means an exhaustive list, but these are some of the things I have learned and done as part of my recovery, which has allowed me to begin to love and trust in myself again.

    I’d like to note that I refer to “abuse” in this section, because that is what gaslighting is, a form of emotional abuse. I’d also like to note that in realizing we have experienced abuse, it is important that we don’t state this to the abuser. Accusing a person of abuse can put us at increased risk of negative consequences. Instead, seek support from those who are trusted/professional support.

    I’ve acknowledged the abuse.

    Acknowledging the abuse has been a long, and at times difficult but necessary process.

    Due to the manipulation I experienced I’ve been challenged with frequent questioning if what I remember was correct. I’ve also spent many a sleepless night trying to rationalize what happened, making excuses for Chris.

    These rationalizations and questioning were a coping mechanism, to avoid the pain of admitting someone I loved could hurt me. Being patient with myself and being willing to trust the process together with my therapist, I’ve slowly come to terms that I have been subjected to abuse.

    Frequently I would utter the words “but he wasn’t like that all of the time.” I’m learning that regardless of the amount of the time, even it’s only 20%, abuse is abuse. As we begin to heal, we find a newfound respect for ourselves and become unwilling to accept any form of abuse in our lives.

    Throughout the process of acknowledging I’ve experienced abuse I’ve been gentle with myself. I had to allow myself time to grieve the relationship with the person I had loved and who at times I still love.

    I’ve given myself permission to feel any emotion I’ve needed to feel; I’ve cried, felt immense sadness, fear, and I’ve felt anger. While raw, each emotion has been necessary, and now that I’m coming out of the other side, I have a newfound love and acceptance of myself without the shame and guilt I had once lived in.

    If we want healthy relationships, we need boundaries.

    “Boundaries” is another term that entered my vocabulary shortly after I began therapy. A boundary sets a personal limit on what behavior is acceptable or unacceptable with us. Boundaries can represent our emotional, physical, or spiritual needs; they may be different for various people in our lives, e.g. family, friends, partners, colleagues, and can be adapted according to the trust we develop in a person.

    Before I learned about boundaries, I had felt selfish for having my own needs. What I hadn’t realized is that setting boundaries is in no way selfish, and instead come from a place of self-love, self-respect, and self-worth.

    I also feared that setting boundaries would lead me to be abandoned and rejected, not realizing that people who respect our boundaries are the ones we should keep in our lives, and those who don’t we should remove.

    With a better understanding of boundaries, I have been able to understand the role I have played in relationships; by not being clear about how I wish to be treated. As an example, I would say to Chris I needed space when he would shout and swear at me, yet I never followed through. Unintendedly I was communicating to him that I had low self-worth, and so made me a target for abuse.

    To set a boundary we need to communicate our needs and if necessary, implement consequences when they are not respected. This can be hard, particularly if we have experienced any form of abuse that has led us to lose our voice, but with time and practice it gets easier.

    To assist in communicating my boundaries, I have spoken to trusted friends and my therapist about things going on in my life and what I needed from a person. By listening to me these people have given me the opportunity to practice what I would I like to say.

    In time I’ve begun to communicate things that are important to me and my well-being; I’m no longer feeling forced to do things I don’t want.

    Boundaries are of course two-way, and my ability to respect other people’s boundaries instead of feeling abandoned has also improved. I’m not perfect at it, but it is empowering to honor my needs, and in doing so my relationships have also improved.

    I’m learning to have fun again.

    How ironic is it that you leave an abusive relationship only for your life to still feel controlled; only this time it is by an inner bully, the internalization of all the abuse you have experienced?!

    For years my internal voice was relentless: “You’re worthless, you’re dumb, you’re so stupid.” At times it was as bad, if not worse than the abuse. I also had an incessant fear that “something would go wrong,” and as a result was hypervigilant constantly scanning for threats and risks. As a result of the inner critic and hypervigilance I lost the ability to have fun, not being able to let my guard down.

    Realizing these inner attacks were flashbacks and emotional scars from years of constantly being belittled and gaslighted gave me relief.

    I’ve learned that while they can be scary, they are just thoughts, they are not true and cannot hurt me.

    Mindfulness has been a powerful tool in overcoming these attacks; when an attack has been brought on, I’ve noticed it happening, not reacting, just noticing. I’ve then been able to introduce thought-stopping, where I have been able to interrupt the toxic thoughts at their first sign with a counter thought such as “stop,” or “I’m safe now.”

    Learning to have fun again is one of the hardest parts of my recovery; there are times when it is harder, particularly when I have a lot of stress going on in my life. It is a journey and takes time, but my inner bully has decreased, and I am allowing more fun into my life.

    Above all, I’ve treated myself with love and compassion for what happened.

    My therapist has repeatedly reminded me “You did the best you could in the situation with the resources you had available to you.” Prior to hearing this I judged myself incessantly for not leaving the relationship sooner, and for waiting so long to seek support. I felt I had wasted years of my life and felt like a failure.

    By judging myself, I realized I was continuing to hurt myself. As I’ve begun to heal, I have been able to reframe my experience from self-criticism to self-compassion.

    Emotional abuse is destructive both in the short term and long term, evoking feelings of fear, confusion, hopelessness, and shame. It comes as no surprise that during the abuse I had been unable to look after myself. Again, as with anything there are harder days than others, on days where I am unable to provide myself with kindness, I ask myself how a loved one would respond to me in the circumstances?

    Each person’s experience will be different, with mine being only one example. In writing this article my desire is to raise awareness of the devastating impacts of gaslighting and to share a message of hope.

    To anyone reading who is experiencing, or who has experienced abuse, we can have a better life where we no longer live in fear. While our trauma begins in relationships, having access to trusted and healthy relationships can also help us heal.

    It isn’t a quick process, but with each day things can and will get better. Having been forced to the deepest lows of my life, and made it to where I am now, I am living proof that we can have a better life.

    You are beautiful, you are loved, and you are a survivor. Be kind to yourself.

  • Growing Up with a Narcissist: How I’m Healing from the Abuse

    Growing Up with a Narcissist: How I’m Healing from the Abuse

    “You could have grown cold, but you grew courageous instead. You could have given up, but you kept on going. You could have seen obstacles, but you called them adventures. You could have called them weeds, but instead you called them wildflower. You could have died a caterpillar, but you fought on to be a butterfly. You could have denied yourself goodness, but instead you chose to show yourself some self-love. You could have defined yourself by the dark days, but instead through them you realized your light.” ~S.C. Lourie

    As the memories of my childhood flash within my mind, I am brought back to a place in which I did not know if I was ever going to be happy. Happiness, stability, and love seemed so far away and out of reach that I met each day with overwhelming sadness. I longed for peace, I longed for someone to understand, and I longed for someone to save me.

    No one really knew what was going on behind closed doors with my mom. She was a tyrant who emotionally demolished anyone who got in her path. My siblings and I were her constant targets. Due to her nature, she isolated us from family and friends and only brought us around to make her look good and build up her ego. The classic case of a narcissist.

    You see, it was not until many years later during my adult life that my mom was officially diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder.

    If you are unfamiliar with this diagnosis, it is someone who lacks empathy and is unable to show love. They appear to have a superficial life, and they are always concerned with how things look to others.

    She was incapable of being loving and nurturing, things we look for mothers to provide. While I was a child, I was always grasping for answers to the constant emotional, verbal, and physical abuse that plagued my household.

    I learned very early on that I was to be seen, not heard, and that any challenge or inquiry of fun would be met with a tongue-lashing and/or strike to my body. When you are the daughter of a narcissistic mother, you internalize every strike and every word laid upon you. You feel dismissed and discounted. You never feel good enough.

    I remember moments in which I wished for the mother-daughter bond that my friends experienced. I would cry whenever I would read about it in books or see it on television.

    When you are a victim of abuse, you always feel as if what you desire is out of reach because you believe you don’t deserve it. How could someone who gave birth to me inflict so much pain? This question flooded my brain on a daily basis.

    Motherhood is a sacred act of love that was not provided to me, and therefore, I suffered. I suffered with lack of confidence, limited beliefs, fear of failure, anxiety, perfectionism, and lack of emotional closeness with romantic relationships and friendships.

    It was at the age of nineteen that I decided that I no longer wanted to be a part of this life. I made up my mind that this cloak of darkness would no longer plague me. I left.

    I left with all my belongings in a laundry bag as well as what little light I had within me and moved in with my now-spouse’s family. I was grateful that they welcomed me with open arms and that I was safe. Little did I know that the real healing began once I decided to step into it.

    Trauma leaves not only emotional scars but also tiny imprints that influence your thoughts and decisions. I was an adult who knew nothing about adulting and lacked the guidance from a parental figure: I was terrified.

    But I realized that sometimes you must mother yourself. In the chaos you learn how to give yourself the love and affection you longed for in your most powerless moments. 

    I needed to show up for myself and the little girl within me that didn’t have a chance to enjoy life. It was time for me to take my power back and ignite my inner being.

    I started becoming increasingly curious and hopeful about this transition I was beginning to step into, so there were a few steps that I began to implement on this journey of transformation. I hope you may find them useful when you are ready.

    Distance yourself from the toxic behavior.

    Sometimes distance and time help heal and give clarity as well as peace.

    I’ve had to take myself out of situations where I knew I had to protect myself. This allowed me to take time out to really focus on what I wanted and the direction I desired to go in.

    At times this meant limited communication, geographic distance, or emotional distance. This is not always easy, but it will help keep you on track if you constantly remind yourself that it is for the development of your highest good and your healing.

    Surround yourself with people who can lift you up and pour into you.

    Coming from a household where love and warmth were not present can leave you feeling empty. Surround yourself with friends or other family that can lift you up while you are sorting things out. Being around people who were able to showcase this for me provided me with the motivation to continue creating it within myself.

    Develop and nurture a spiritual practice.

    Faith and hope were the two driving forces behind my motivation to leave. I just knew deep down that this was not the direction that I wanted my life to go in, and there were better things out there for me.

    Developing a spiritual practice helped me to gain inner peace when moments of fear, anxiety, and doubt heavily crept in. It comforted me when I had no idea if taking a leap would work out, but the valuable lesson that I learned was that when you take a leap, the net will appear. Meditation, prayer, and connecting to a higher power can create stillness within the chaos.

    Start with unconditional love toward yourself.

    Surviving verbal and physical abuse is no easy feat and can tarnish what little confidence you may have had, which is why beginning to develop that within yourself is super important.

    I had to learn that if I loved myself, I could feel more confident in my abilities and continue pushing forward.

    Give yourself those motivational pep talks, read dozens of books, work with a professional, listen to uplifting music or podcasts. Pour into yourself and become your own best friend. No one can take that away from you.

    Give yourself time.

    There is no one-size-fits-all solution to healing. It is a journey that loops and curves, but it all leads to a transformation.

    It can take time to unravel all that you experienced, but be compassionate with yourself as you figure it all out. Set the intention of working toward a positive transformation and gather the tools necessary to facilitate the change.

    It took me years of trial and error to get to the place that I am in right now, but my intention was always to become better than I was yesterday. Nurture your healing; there is a breakthrough on the other side.

    Continue to make that conscious choice every day to grow, heal, and reach transformation. Don’t shy away from the healing necessary to set yourself free and live the life you deserve to live. You have to shed the old in order to let in the new and no longer allow fear to have a strong hold on you.

    There is beauty in discovering a life of inward and outward victory. Throughout my transformation my breakthrough consisted of this one powerful mantra:

    I am not a victim of my circumstance. I am victorious.

    You are too.

  • My Life with an Alcoholic Parent (and 6 Addiction Myths)

    My Life with an Alcoholic Parent (and 6 Addiction Myths)

    “Be the person who breaks the cycle. If you were judged, choose understanding. If you were rejected, choose acceptance. If you were shamed, choose compassion. Be the person you needed when you were hurting, not the person who hurt you. Vow to be better than what broke you—to heal instead of becoming bitter so you can act from your heart, not your pain.” ~Lori Deschene

    Take a moment to look around where you are right now. Look at the people surrounding you, whether you’re in your office, a waiting room, or the line at the post office.

    Statistically, one out of every eight American adults in your space is suffering with a substance abuse disorder.

    This person could be your next-door neighbor, your family doctor, your teacher, or a co-worker.

    Out of more than 15 million people struggling, less than 8% reportedly have received treatment, according to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

    Television shows and movies often lead us to believe that the people who suffer from addiction are the homeless, jobless people on the street who beg for money to feed their habit.

    In some circumstances, this unfortunately is true, but I’ve learned that addiction can also be found in the people around you in your day-to-day life. Addiction doesn’t care which zip code you live in or what skin color you have. It doesn’t matter how much money you have in your bank account or what kind of position you hold within a company.

    I was around five or six years old when I first recognized that my dad had a problem. I didn’t know what the word “addiction” meant; however, I knew his actions made me feel that our family was different than others.

    It would be summertime and I would see neighbors sitting outside laughing together and barbecuing, and being that it was starting to get late in the day, my dad had already drank a few too many and would be inside for the night.

    The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that a quarter of children in the U.S. grow up in households where there is substance abuse.

    Growing up with a parent who has an addiction isn’t easy. You see them transform into a different person before your eyes. Within hours. You wonder why they choose to spend time with the addiction instead of with you.

    You can cry, scream, and slam your bedroom door to try to make a point of how much it hurts you, but it never seems to be enough. And it doesn’t mean this person doesn’t love or care about you, although it can make you feel that way.

    At a young age, I remember experiencing the ups and downs of a parent with an addiction. Each day would be different than the last. Some days he would joke and laugh, and others, we would do anything to avoid him because we knew he’d take out on us the weight of whatever he had been carrying that day.

    My dad was considered a “functioning alcoholic.” I don’t recall him ever missing one day of work, even when he had the flu or after spraining his ankle.

    By trade, he was a carpenter and scaffolder, and to this day, he is the hardest working man I’ve ever known. He’d wake up before the sun to get to work so he could provide for us. He went above and beyond to care, love, and protect us, but after a certain time of day, we knew that would all come to an end.

    The classic picture of an alcoholic is someone who drinks too much and whose life is falling apart because of it. But that’s not always reality.

    A functioning alcoholic might not act the way you would expect them to act. They might be responsible and productive. They could even be a high achiever and in a position of power. In fact, their success might lead people to overlook their drinking.

    Alcohol and drugs steal away the person you love. They rob you of time you should be spending with them. They turn them into someone else—a person who says and does hurtful things. And in turn, you might say hurtful things back. Not because you want to, but because you simply don’t know what else to do. You begin thinking of what you can do to turn this person around. What will make them stop?

    I grew up with a parent who had an addiction to numbing his feelings.

    There were times when he would open up briefly about the hardships he had experienced growing up and how hurt and angry they made him feel. Rather than forgiving those who’d caused him pain, to free himself of what he kept bottled up inside, he would drink to relieve it.

    It hurts to see someone you love hurting. It hurts to not know what to do to help them.

    My dad never admitted to having a problem. Not once. Not even when we poured the cans of beer we’d found down the sink and he became excessively angry.

    Admitting to having a problem is the first step, and the next would be to make a change. And it wasn’t something he believed he could do.

    Sometimes it feels easier to stay the same than do what’s needed to rid yourself of the addiction. You feel ‘safe’ where you are, and you can easily justify maintaining the status quo. My dad had a job, a family, a nice home. In his mind, why would he need to change? That wasn’t what rock bottom looks like. So everything must have been fine how it was.

    I recently heard a story by Kirk Franklin:

    “Two twin boys were raised by an alcoholic father. One grew up to be an alcoholic and when asked what happened he said, ‘I watched my father.’ The other grew up and never drank in his life. When he asked what happened he said, ‘I watched my father.’ Two boys, same dad, two different perspectives. Your perspective in life will determine your destination.”

    I was a young girl when I realized that I had two choices when it came to my dad’s addiction: to forgive or to hold onto the hurt, as I saw him do. I saw what it looked like to hold on to anger and resentment, so I decided that no matter what my dad might say or do, I would show forgiveness. 

    This wasn’t easy because at the end of the day, you just want that person to stop, but I chose to focus on the dad I had when he wasn’t under the influence of alcohol. The dad who would shoot hoops with me in the backyard, who would fill the oil up in my car without asking if I needed it, who would keep letters I wrote to him in the pocket of his jeans years after I had given them to him.

    I’ve learned that it is our decision to create the life we want to live and the mindset we want to have. I could have held on to the hurtful things my dad said or how he refused to get help. But I believe we have the power to overcome any circumstance by focusing on what lifts us up rather than what pulls us down.

    “I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” ~Carl Jung

    Today I am choosing to share my story with you as a way to honor my dad, who kept himself in a cage for his entire life. Was it out of fear of judgment or discomfort? I’m not sure. But I do know for the last twenty-nine years, I’ve been conditioned to do the same.

    The stigma related to addiction causes us to feel shame. And I have felt shame for having a parent who had this disease. We keep our stories inside because we are afraid of how people will view us or our loved one. But in reality, it’s sharing that sets us free—free to make a difference in the life of someone else who is struggling.

    Today is the day I open the door to my own cage, after nearly thirty years, to set myself free and break the cycle. I hope that my story will connect with someone who needs it—a person who, like me, has buried their past deep inside and pushes forward, not realizing the power and strength found in release.

    I also hope to shed some light on what it’s like to struggle with addiction, based on my observations of my father, because I believe we’re better able to help the people we love when we let go of these common myths:

    Addicts can stop if they want to.

    Research shows that long-term substance use alters brain chemistry. These changes can cause intense cravings, impulse control issues, and the compulsion to continue to use. Due to these chemical changes, it is very difficult for a true addict to quit solely by willpower and determination.

    Addiction only affects those who are weak, uneducated, or have low morals.

    Addiction does not discriminate. It affects people of all ages, ethnicities, cultures, religions, communities, and socioeconomic statuses. Addiction is not a result of low morals, though often addicts behave in ways that violate their personal beliefs and values. Addiction is an equal opportunity disease.

    Addiction is a disease, so there is nothing you can do about it.

    If your doctor told you that you had cancer, would you not begin the necessary treatment and make the necessary lifestyle changes? Addiction isn’t much different if you believe in the research that suggests that addiction is a disease of the brain.

    Just because you have the disease of addiction doesn’t mean you throw in the towel. Research shows that the brain damage resulting from substance use can sometimes be reversed through abstinence, therapy, and other forms of treatment.

    Addicts who relapse are hopeless.

    Addiction is a chronic disorder. Addicts are most prone to relapse in the first few months of being clean and sober. A relapse does not constitute failure.Processing the events surrounding a relapse can be healthy and aid in preventing future relapses.

    Alcohol and drug use cause addiction.

    There are several factors that contribute to a person becoming addicted. While alcohol and drugs may trigger a substance use problem for some, there are those who can drink alcohol and experiment with drug use and never become addicted. Factors that contribute include environment, emotional health, mental health, and genetic predisposition.

    Addicts should be excused from negative behaviors.

    Some may believe since addiction is a disease, addicts should not be held accountable for their actions. This is not true. An addict may not be responsible for their disease, but they are responsible for their choices and their recovery.

    —

    It’s easy to judge and criticize what we don’t understand. You don’t have to walk a mile in an addict’s shoes to understand addiction and addictive behaviors. You just have to educate yourself and want to help so you can break the cycle of pain. And remember: whether you’re an addict or you love one, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, and you are not alone.

  • 7 Ways Running Helps Me Live My Best Life

    7 Ways Running Helps Me Live My Best Life

    “I don’t run to add days to my life, I run to add life to my days.” ~Ronald Rook

    Growing up, I was always a bit on the tubby side, or, as my mum would say, “stocky.”

    Old and grainy camcorder footage from the early nineties shows me at four years old, waddling sassily around the garden naked on a summer’s day. Watching the nostalgic home footage recently, I thought to myself, “Wow, I had a beer belly long before I began drinking beer.”

    Apart from a couple of years playing football in my teens, competitive sports and exercise were not a huge part of my life—unless we count the frequent visits to the Chinese buffets with friends, when things got competitive as we shovelled down plate after plate to see who could eat the most.

    Last year, however, after an inspiring conversation with a keen runner, my sedentary days were over.

    The man was in his forties and an ultra-runner—meaning he ran distances greater than a regular marathon (26.2 miles). I became curious as he told me about a recent 100-mile running event, and wondered to myself, why would you put yourself through that, by choice? What does one get out of this running malarkey?

    Having well and truly caught the running bug, I can now say I get it.

    It’s well known that running is beneficial to our health and fitness, but I get so much more from the experience. Here are seven ways running helps me live my best life.

    1. Through running, I take control from my mind.

    Wouldn’t you rather stay at home and watch Netflix?

    You’re not built for running!

    Who do you think you are, Forrest Gump?

    Ah, the mind.

    On days I normally run, I can guarantee thoughts like these will surface, luring me to stay in my comfort zone so they can try and shame me later on for not running.

    Don’t get me wrong, there are days where the kind thing to do is to cancel a run—if I’m hurting physically or it’s too hot—but that’s not usually why I encounter internal resistance before and while running.

    C’mon, that’s fair enough for today, my mind whispers.

    “No, we’re digging deeper and going further,” I reply.

    Our minds will always try to hold us back, but we don’t have to act on every thought. We can become more aware of when our mind is attempting to limit us, and, if we want to, dig deep and keep moving forward.

    2. Running reminds me that the hardest part of any worthy pursuit is just starting.

    Once I’m outside and running, the initial resistance disappears, and I just get on with it. I’ve never, after two minutes of running, turned around and headed home.

    This speaks to an interesting truth—so often in life, the hardest part of any worthy pursuit is just starting. If you want to write a book, the hardest part is sitting down to capture those first few words. If you need to initiate a difficult conversation, the hardest part is finding the courage to say, “Hey, we need to talk.”

    On days when my mind creates resistance and begins a battle, I gently remind myself the hardest part is putting my running shoes on and heading out the door. Once I’m through the door, I’ve won the battle—and I almost always enjoy myself.

    3. Running reminds me to keep my head up and keep moving forward.

    A few weeks ago while on a run, exhaustion suddenly hit me. My head dropped. My pace slowed, and my legs felt like they were stuffed full of lead. A feeling of dread slowly sunk through my body as I imagined the distance I was yet to cover.

    I knew, though, I was hitting “runner’s wall,” and remembered the Navy SEAL’s 40% rule—that even though I briefly felt exhausted, I’d only reached 40% of my potential.

    I took a deep breath before slowly raising my head up so my eyes were no longer looking at the ground. I was now looking straight ahead, my eyes fixed on where I wanted to go, the path ahead. Inside my head I repeated, “Left, right, left, right,” over and over again, commanding my feet. And then I ran.

    When life hits us hard, it’s normal for our heads to drop down, but we can’t let them stay down. Moving forward may seem impossible, but eventually there comes a day when we have to dig deep and find the courage to take a step forward, no matter how small.

    As Winston Churchill said, “When you’re going through hell, keep on going.”

    4. Running helps me appreciate my body.

    Sadly, the media pushes down our throats what a “perfect” body looks like, and most of us don’t have it. As a result, many people view exercise as a punishment. A punishment for being out of shape or for eating overeating the day before.

    Exercise of any form needn’t be a punishment. In fact, we can view it as a celebration of our body as it is.

    When I finish a run, I thank my body for a job well done. I’m fortunate enough to have good health and a functional body, a blessing not everyone has.

    A friend of mine suffers from a chronic health condition, and although his body is extremely limited compared to most, he’s chooses to live life being appreciative of what his body does enable him to do. For example, he can’t finish long hikes, but he’s grateful that he can walk at all—and that he has friends who’ll carry him the rest of the way when he has to stop.

    5. Running emphasizes the importance of rest and recovery.

    Since running, I’ve become kinder to myself and more accepting of my need to take time to rest and recover. Once home from a run, I normally do some light stretches before taking it easy for the rest of the day, because I’ve learned that I need to give my body a break or it will eventually break down.

    I used to believe rest and recovery made we weak and it was in someway honorable to keep myself busy all day, every day. I now believe there’s a time to push ourselves while in doing mode and a time for simply being, and both are equally important to our overall well-being.

    6. Running has taught me that what I consume makes a difference.

    Since starting to run, I’m now far more aware of what I’m consuming, both physically and mentally.

    I feel the difference when I’ve been eating well and am hydrated versus when I run on a belly full of junk food and dehydrated. What we put into our mouth really matters.

    I believe it also matters what we put into our heads—the types of media we consume. I once spent an entire forest run on high alert, looking over my shoulder ever second step. Why? Before leaving home, I’d read a local news item about a Puma that had escaped from a zoo 100 miles away. Although logically I knew it was highly unlikely I’d cross paths with this runaway Puma, it didn’t stop my mind from freaking out at every rustle in the bushes.

    On the hand, when I read or watch an inspiring story before leaving home, I notice a spring in my step and feel empowered as I run.

    If the media I consume affects my life (either positively or negatively) in the short-term, just imagine the affect is has in the long-term. What we consume matters.

    7. Running reminds me of what’s possible.

    Perhaps the biggest way running helps me to live my best life is through showing me what is possible. I can now run farther than I ever thought I could, way further than my doubtful inner critic would have predicted.

    I’ve gone from being someone who would rarely (and barely) run to someone who runs several times per week. Most of all, I’ve gone from being someone who hated even the thought of running to someone who looks forward to and, dare I say, loves, running. And if I can transform into a runner, just imagine what else I can do.

    Do I think running is for everyone? No.

    However, I do believe that everyone can benefit from my lessons. Don’t let your mind control you. If there’s something you want to do, just get started, even if you only take a tiny step. When things get tough, keep going. Appreciate what you can do instead of focusing on what you can’t. Take time to rest; it’s not lazy, it’s necessary. Be mindful of what you consume and how it affects you. And remember, you can do so much more than you think.

  • Why Speaking My Truth Is the Cornerstone of My Recovery

    Why Speaking My Truth Is the Cornerstone of My Recovery

    “When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits—anything that kept me small. My judgment called it disloyal. Now I see it as self-loving.” ~Kim McMillen

    I like to think of my inner self as a curly-haired stick figure who lives inside my chest cavity. Like most inner selves, mine has a simple, childlike quality. She smiles when she’s happy and cries when she’s sad. She has an intuitive sense of what is right and wrong. She speaks her needs simply, the way a young girl might.

    My inner self and I are on good terms nowadays, but it hasn’t always been this way. When I was addicted to booze, food, and relationships, I treated my inner self like a prisoner.

    For years, I dazed her with whiskey and wine and snuck away to make rash decisions under the light of the moon. Through a groggy haze she would slur warnings: “Don’t drive! Don’t sleep with him! It’s dangerous!” But I had abandoned her, lost in the sweet abyss of another blackout, and left her alone to handle the consequences that met the body I’d left behind.

    As I got older, I sought love in the way the women of my family had for generations: by getting thin. I fed my inner self rations and scraps, barely enough to get by. Her hungry cries were met with six almonds, a tall glass of water, one slice of bread.

    As my eating disorder progressed, I purged after most meals, eyes watery and kneecaps bruising against the linoleum floor. I monitored my inner self with scornful eyes. She shrunk under my gaze.

    As you might imagine, playing captor to my inner self got very tiring. I felt a wave of relief when I became romantically involved with a partner and could focus my attention on him instead.

    Finally, a respite! I was no longer trapped alone with my inner self and her incessant whining, her needs, her uncontrollable feelings! By contrast, he seemed uncomplicated. Unbroken. Better than I could ever be.

    Over the next two years, my visits to my inner self became more and more infrequent. She gathered dust like a china doll.

    Sometimes—after particularly debilitating hangovers, tortured binges, or grueling arguments with my partner—I would recognize, with a sharp burst of clarity, the unmanageability of my predicament.

    Remorsefully, I would vow to do better. I would rush back to my inner self and pant, out of breath, “This is the last time. I won’t treat you so badly again.” But those promises quickly collapsed under the weight of my shame.

    To alleviate my self-loathing, I cracked the whip above my inner self, desperate to improve. “Work harder!” I shouted. ”Do more!” “Be better!” “Fix yourself!”

    Around the addiction carousel I went, stumbling from drinking to eating disorder to codependency to perfectionism. My inner self bore the brunt of my cruelty. Eventually, she stopped trusting me entirely.

    Years of therapy and self-reflection later, I reached an impasse.

    By most definitions of the word, I was utterly free; I made my own work schedule, enjoyed financial security, and could travel any time, anywhere. In the presence of friends, I radiated enthusiasm and laughed straight from my belly. But in my own company, when the afternoon sunlight cast shadows across my carpet and the muted sounds of the city came through my open window, I felt utterly alone.

    I couldn’t deny the truth: I was trapped in a life dictated by vicious, anxious cycles. The life I wanted—the liberated, peaceful, inspired life—would be unattainable until I confronted my addictions. Not just one of them, but all of them. I had to tug the weed from the soil at the very root.

    And so I took a deep breath and stepped off of the addiction carousel. Squinting and dizzied beneath the carnival lights, I took a hard and honest look at my inner self—the first I’d taken in years.

    She had become unrecognizable. Emaciated, exhausted, fearful. Anxiety ran through her veins, rich and red as blood. She was afraid of me. And her voice—the voice that had called out:

    “I’m overwhelmed. Can we slow down for a second?”
    “I’m tired. Can we go home and sleep?”
    “I’m so fucking sad today.”
    “Don’t sleep with him! You don’t even know him!”
    “I’m doing the best that I can.”
    “Can you hear me?”

    That voice had disappeared entirely. Like newborn babies whose cries go unanswered, my inner self’s voice had died. My heart broke as I reflected on the years of neglect I’d shown her.

    I realized then that my newfound sobriety was much more than a refusal to pick up the bottle. It was an uncompromising commitment to rebuild trust with my inner self. After years of neglect, I had to show her, with my words and actions, that I would care for her

    Since then, I’ve come to learn that each of us enters recovery with a traumatized inner self. Every time we acted addictively by taking that drink, or eating all three pints, or spending our savings, or losing ourselves entirely in our lovers, we neglected that quiet voice that was always there, that knew we were harming ourselves, that begged to be treated with love.

    I have been untangling my myriad addictions for almost three years, and this conception of my inner self has been my greatest tool in my recovery. Every time my inner self speaks up, I am presented with a choice. I can listen and act accordingly. Or I can disregard her wishes and begin another cycle of neglect.

    In recovery, my work is to rebuild trust with my inner self by feeling and speaking her truth by:

    • Naming and feeling my feelings instead of numbing them
    • Prioritizing my reality over others’ perceptions
    • Setting boundaries with others

    Naming and Feeling My Feelings

    During my addictions, I became an expert at self-medicating my anxiety, shame, fear, and sadness. A hearty glass of cabernet, I believed, was the respite I deserved after a long, weary day of trying not to feel my feelings.

    When I woke up the next morning with a headache and drinker’s remorse, anxiety was the only emotion accessible to me. Grief, loss, anger, and sadness were buried under layers of shame that hardened over time. I effectively exiled my full spectrum of human emotion.

    Recovery, especially early recovery, has been a process of reclaiming the sensitivities that make me human. Without the vices that numbed my heart like Novocain, my feelings arise swiftly, uncensored and colorful. Not just the painful ones, but the happy and beautiful ones, too. I cry most days with equal parts sadness and joy.

    At times, I feel like there must be something wrong with me, as if someone cranked the volume dial on my emotions to the max and left it there.

    My work in recovery is learning to sit with, and work with, those feelings. What makes this challenging work possible—enjoyable, even—is the relief my inner self feels when, for the first time in ages, her simple truth travels from her heart to my lips without interruption. With every potent emotion comes an opportunity to make her feel seen and heard.

    Prioritizing My Reality Over Others’ Perceptions

    When I was in the throes of my addictions, I became an expert at keeping up appearances. Nightly, my inner monologue went something like this:

    Can I get away with sneaking another drink? I wonder if Joe saw me pour the last two… Probably better to put this one in my water bottle…

    I wonder if this bathroom has a fan to hide the sounds of my purging… I better turn the water on. And fake a sneeze or two to explain my watery eyes…

    Did they notice that I blacked out at the party last night? God, I hope not… How can I find out what I said without seeming suspicious?

    Managing appearances became my part-time job. I cared more about others’ perceptions of my reality than my own reality. White lies and half-truths flooded my conversations, even when I had nobody to impress and nothing to prove. Every time I distorted my story, I became more distant from my inner self.

    In recovery, I uncompromisingly follow my inner self’s judgment. I am accountable to her first and foremost. My friends’, family, and colleagues’ opinions of me are secondary because, at 1AM when I’m sleeplessly staring at the ceiling, my inner self is the one I’m stuck with.

    In recovery, when I’m swept away by the cacophony of others’ needs and wishes –

    “Will you sign up for this?”
    “Want to go back to my place?”
    “Can you help?”
    “Call me back”
    “I need—”
    “Will you—”
    “I want—”

    I get quiet. I listen. And I whisper, “What do you really need right now?”

    And this time, I really listen.

    Setting Boundaries With Others

    As a recovering people-pleaser, I hate disappointing others. I spent most of my life avoiding it as much as possible. As a result, my calendar was packed with tedious obligations and my relationships were all give and no take. I left social interactions to massage the corners of my mouth, which ached from forcing a smile. I hooked up with people I didn’t even like. Basically, I felt like a shadow of myself.

    In recovery, the reason why I say no to that beer is the same reason I don’t go to the party, or don’t sleep with that stranger, or don’t call during my lunch break. The same reason I say “No thanks, I don’t drink” is the same reason why I say “I felt hurt when you said that” or “No, I won’t.”

    Boundaries are honesty in action. Every time I set one, I teach my inner self that she can trust me.

    When I get nervous to set a particular boundary, I remember that my inner self is gaining strength under my protection and care. In this delicate stage of early recovery, she is fragile, like a seedling. She requires a safe, secure, reliable environment in which to grow. If I’m committed to bringing her to life, it’s my responsibility to shape that environment—even if that means erecting a fence to keep the pests out.

    —

    My addiction was characterized by living out of alignment with my inner self. My recovery, by extension, must be characterized by the opposite. For me, recovery and speaking my truth are inseparable.

    I’ve heard folks describe addiction as one’s isolation from others. I think that first and foremost, addiction is one’s isolation from one’s self.

    The more we treat our inner selves with compassion, the less important it becomes to please others and manage appearances. Our emotions thicken, arise, and depart. When we break the cycle of abusing our inner selves, our own company becomes bearable. And when our own company becomes bearable, sobriety becomes possible.

  • The Importance of Finding and Standing in Our Truth

    The Importance of Finding and Standing in Our Truth

    “What I know for sure is that you feel real joy in direct proportion to how connected you are to living your truth.” ~Oprah Winfrey

    If we cannot live in and from our truth, then we cannot be authentic. The process of self- actualization is not striving to become the person we are supposed to be. It is removing what is not true for or about us so that we can be the person that we already are.

    The hardest part of living in my truth was coming to understand and accept that it didn’t matter how anyone else experienced my childhood and my life but myself. That includes my father, mother, and three siblings. It also didn’t matter how others were affected or not. For our recovery only our truth matters

    Why is standing in our truth so important? It is impossible to build a solid life on a foundation of untruths, lies, denial, fabrications, and misinterpretations.

    Many of us have built our lives according to what we were taught and what we gleaned from a childhood spent in dysfunctional homes. We were asked to play a role that served our dysfunctional family system and not ourselves. We learned not to question the status quo, to follow unwritten rules, to live in denial and fantasy.

    Growing up I thought my family was fine; everyone else was messed up. I thought everyone’s mother drank themselves into a stupor on a daily basis and everyone’s father had become a ghost. Neither of my parents was available for support or counsel.

    I was no good, according to my father’s constant criticism, and would never amount to anything. I was a good football player and I would come off the field feeling I’d played a good game. That was until I reached my father and all he wanted to do was to talk about the block I missed or the tackle I didn’t make.

    Slowly, I stopped to try to impress my father, and eventually I stopped trying anything at all. Then I found drugs and alcohol during the summer between ninth and tenth grade. 

    I fell in love with partying and cared little for anything else. I quit football immediately and later quit school altogether. I was a sixteen-year-old boy making life decisions by himself due to his parents’ dysfunction.

    Little did I know that no one looks favorably at partying skills, and they get you nowhere in life. It took me thirteen years to figure that out, after which I went to rehab and have been clean ever since.

    I don’t think that I lost myself; it’s more like I never had myself. I was just pieces of those around me. I had tried so hard to be who everyone wanted me to be that I left myself behind.

    “…human beings universally abandon themselves for five major reasons: for someone’s love, for someone’s acceptance and approval, to keep the peace, to maintain balance, or to stay in the state of harmony. When we abandon ourselves for someone’s love, pretending to be other than who we are in order to get someone’s love, acceptance, or approval, it is a form of self-abandonment.”  Angeles Arrien Ph.D., The Four-Fold Way 

    I had spent my life being who others wanted me to be—who I had to be to get by, to be safe, to fit in, to not make waves. I no longer knew who I was, who I wanted to be, what I liked, and what I believed. I had been a chameleon for so long and had shape-shifted so many times that I didn’t know who I was.

    This never hit me as hard as when I was a new member of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic therapy group. One of the older members confronted me during our check-ins. He said, “I don’t care what your sponsor or father thinks or what anyone else thinks; I want to know what you think.”

    In working with that statement I came to realize that I didn’t have many original thoughts or beliefs. That I had let other people and events decide who I was for me.

    “What you live with you learn, what you learn you practice, what you practice you become, and what you become has consequences.” ~Earnie Larson, a pioneer in the field of recovery from addictive behaviors 

    It is devastating when you realize that you are inauthentic. That in some ways who you are and what you present to the people and the world around you is a lie. On the other hand, this awareness is also a blessing, because without awareness there can be no change.

    I realized that I would not be able to find my truth while being subjected to the influence of my family. That I had to spend time away from them to do the work needed. That doesn’t mean that I had nothing to do with them. I just kept my time with family members short and superficial.

    I also began to spend time with myself contemplating and writing in my journal. I began to question my beliefs, understandings, and positions.

    John Bradshaw talks about coming to realize that the thoughts we are thinking aren’t our own. That it is someone else’s voice in our head and we need to determine whose. For me, I came to realize that so much of the self-critical thoughts were actually criticisms my father had of me that I had chosen to own.

    In recovery, we say that “everything that we know is up for revision, especially what we know to be true.” In my own search I was so confused and uncertain of my truth that I had to start with discarding what I knew was not true—the things my father had told me, for example. The things that I was unsure of, I had to try on and drive around the block for a while.

    Today I am aware that my search for the truth is a spiritual endeavor, which includes prayer, meditation, and contemplation. My hope and prayers are that all who read this will strive to find and live in and from their truth.

  • Healing from Depression: It Begins With Asking for Help

    Healing from Depression: It Begins With Asking for Help

    Adult Man Crying

    “I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse.” ~Leonard Cohen

    Right before my eighteenth birthday, when I was about to go to university, I was hit by a car and sustained multiple fractures to my right leg. This led to a couple of operations and the best part of ten months with me unable to walk.

    While all of my school friends and peers were having the time of their lives in school, I was silently suffering with depression and anxiety, both of which continued to increase.

    Whether it was the weed I smoked, the bottles of whiskey I drank, or the junk food I ate, I could not find comfort or relief from anywhere. Things just got worse, and I felt absorbed and consumed by the victim mentality that I had let penetrate my identity.

    I dropped out of university after re-doing my first year. Despite passing, I just couldn’t go back. I was so ashamed to be me. I didn’t even tell my future housemates that I wouldn’t be returning.

    About this time I realized there was a problem. In retrospect, it should have been glaringly obvious to me, with the self-medicating that was going on, but of course it’s harder to spot problems in ourselves.

    In two years I had gone from one of the most outgoing people I knew, someone who always liked to do things like play sports or party, to a recluse who needed some sort of alternate state of consciousness to function. I started working and going out again on the weekends with some of my old friends and people I had met through work.

    Naively I thought the problems were dissipating and I was returning to who I used to be. Now I look back on it and I know that the younger me had no idea who I was. Things leveled out for a few years until one day I had a breakdown on the way to work.

    There was now no denying the extent of the problem, but hell, if you are in denial you can dig your heels in pretty firmly, and that’s what I did.

    After a few more years of self-medicating, something happened, and to this day I can’t put my finger on the trigger, but something changed that made me realize enough was enough. A good friend recommended a therapist to me, and I was keen to see him and work through the issues that had been building up for seven years.

    So I met with Peter and it seemed like an expensive chat with a nice guy for the first five or six sessions. Around this time I also had had a regular meditation practice. One day whilst meditating I felt like I gave myself permission to open up at the next session with Peter, but I have no idea from where or by whom this permission had been granted.

    I was finally able to approach the issues with candor and rank honesty. I was able to bare my soul and describe how I had felt.

    It’s weird to think that at the age of twenty-five this was perhaps one of the first times I’d done this, but I’d been so suffocated by depression and anxiety, and numbed by my self-medicating, that I had not once looked under the surface to see what things were really like inside. 

    Therapy began to get in to the nitty gritty of what was causing me to feel how I felt.

    I had a fortunate and mostly happy childhood. My parents always did their best for my brothers and me. I could never doubt that. Interestingly, though, there were some wounds from my formative years that may well have contributed to me making some less than ideal choices in my teenage years.

    Add to this the massive fear of missing out and jealously of my peers when I began university, and it’s a perfect recipe for some kind of psychological disorder, which in my case manifested as depression and anxiety.

    I want to take a moment to describe the feeling of depression and anxiety as I experienced it, because I think too often in many parts of our society they are not described in their full ugliness.

    Imagine waking up and feeling sick. Sometimes you throw up, sometimes you don’t. You then have to think about going to work. These thoughts mainly contain a deep sense of dread—not dread of anything in particular, but dread at the overall sense of having to interact with the world.

    It’s so hard to describe because I wasn’t scared of interacting with people and I had friends, I just didn’t want anybody to know me.

    After the dread comes self-loathing. I wasn’t worth knowing. I wasn’t worthy of any attention or any of the good things in life. How could anybody want to be around me? I didn’t feel deserving of anything really, and I projected this on to my work life, where I never tried anywhere near as hard as I could.

    If it were the weekend, I’d do the only thing I knew that would help me: smoke weed or get drunk. It seems ridiculous now, and it probably is, that despite me being anxious and paranoid about going out, I would smoke weed, which only served to exacerbate this reluctance to leave the house. But it was my crutch; it held me up. (It didn’t, it made things worse.)

    I’m aware of the futility of describing feelings in explicit terms. Nobody else but me will know exactly how I felt.

    It’s like having a weighted vest on your chest that makes doing anything difficult. It’s like having the most negative person you could think of on your shoulder constantly nagging you, deeply instilling a sense of not being good enough and destroying any modicum of self-worth and self-respect that remained.

    Despite this being my personal experience, I now know that I was not alone. Nearly a fifth of people in the UK, where I live, suffer with depression or anxiety at some stage in their lives. This I am okay with, it’s natural. Life has its downs, bad stuff happens, and it is our psyche’s way of dealing with it.

    What I am not okay with is that it’s estimated that 50-80% of people suffering with depression do not receive treatment. 

    The stigma surrounding mental health issues in functional human beings is astounding. Because of our society’s attitude toward mental health, many people suffer in silence, and suffer much longer than they might need to.

    I want people to know that you can talk to people. You can get help. There are support structures in place through healthcare providers that can give you a light at the end of the tunnel.

    I was one of the lucky ones who, through a stroke of luck, found a way to ask for the help I needed. I’m still not sure how that happened, but I know I am forever grateful for it.

    Through therapy, learning to accept myself, and my meditation practice, I am fortunate enough to say I don’t think I will head down that road again. And I know that the people around me will help me. If not, then I can pay to see qualified professionals who will be able to give me the help I need.

    I know we have weeks and campaigns to raise awareness of these issues, but this is something we should always be aware of.

    If you are the one who is suffering, know that there are people out there who can help. If you’re suffering in silence and carrying on, then you have already shown you are brave enough to ask for help.

    If you know somebody who is suffering, remind them that you are there for them, and that there are people who can help.

    With the rate of diagnoses of these types of illnesses increasing over the last half a century or so, it’s more important than ever that we are able to help each other in anyway we can, especially with something as quintessentially human as our feelings.

    There are a few links below to free online resources that can provide support in dealing with your feelings. Of course, you can also discuss how you feel with a trusted friend or family member, or a professional. However you do it, know that taking the first step and asking for help is how it starts to get better.

    Anxiety Forum – Recommendations and a forum to discuss anxiety

    The American Psychological Association – Site includes research on anxiety, getting help, psychology news, and helpful books pertaining to the illness.

    Depression Forums – Offers a caring, safe environment for members to talk to their peers about depression, anxiety, mood disorders, medications, therapy, and recovery.

    Mental Health Forum – Loads of information and a friendly place to discuss mental health issues.

    British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy – Find a UK therapist.

    For further resources see the Tiny Buddha Helpful Free Resources page

  • Healing Is a Journey, Not a Destination (and You’re Not Broken)

    Healing Is a Journey, Not a Destination (and You’re Not Broken)

    Man on a Journey

    “Healing requires from us to stop struggling, but to enjoy life more and endure it less.” ~Darina Stoyanova

    At the age of twenty-seven I was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis, chronic inflammation of the bladder that causes UTI like symptoms. I am now twenty-nine and still experiencing symptoms, but I have improved greatly.

    I have spent that time searching for the answers to this medical enigma, for which doctors claim there is no cure. At first my research led me on a path of frustration and hopelessness, until I realized that my mindset was what was holding me back from healing.

    I then decided to change my expectation of healing from “I must be cured to be happy” to “I am enjoying my healing journey and look for happiness in any moment I can.”

    As a fellow chronic condition sufferer, I understand how overwhelming that statement can be. It is difficult to accept that we are in pain. However, just making that mindset a part of your routine will help open your mind to finding healing modalities that will work for you and help take the pressure off.

    Feeling like you need to find a cure is a lot of pressure to put on one person dealing with a chronic illness, and most people who develop these illnesses usually are characterized as perfectionists. I know I am.

    But what we don’t realize is that pressure is an obstacle to our healing. Acceptance is what will help us move forward in our healing journey.

    I will share with you what I have learned about healing through my countless hours exploring the Internet and personal experience. Here are five things I have taken away from my search:

    Be mindful of what you put in your body.

    I believe chronic illnesses are created when a perfect storm occurs in our bodies. When you pair emotional upset with a breach in your body’s immunity, you are vulnerable to that final straw that causes your body to go into attack mode.

    For me, I believe it was when I started a new birth control pill. With a history of chronic back pain, overuse of antibiotics, bad diet, unbelievable stress levels, and hormonal imbalances, the new birth control pill was the final straw that caused my body to attack my bladder and cause a vicious cycle that would lead me on my healing journey.

    There was a time when my life was consumed with searching the Internet for the magical answers to healing. It gave me a sense of control during a time when I felt like a helpless victim to my IC.

    But I realized this led to feeling completely overwhelmed by the large amount of contradictory information I found. For every article that said being paleo was the way to combat chronic illnesses, I found two more saying vegan was the only way.

    Everyone is different, and it is important to find the foods that work best for you, not to try to eat foods that fit into a box of a specific diet.

    I also find that when you start off being extremely restrictive with your diet it sets you up for failure. Starting slowly when introducing new ways of eating is the key to success. Don’t listen to every hot new diet trend, cleanse, or superfood out on the market no matter what kind of amazing results they boast.

    For me, plant-based diets free of processed foods and sugar make the most sense. Any other restrictions with food you decide to make should be based on your body. Use your common sense, and question doctors and healers about the pills and herbs they recommend. Not everyone has our best interests at heart or is well informed.

    You are not broken.

    When we deal with chronic illness we tend to blame ourselves, and it leaves us feeling broken and searching for a way to fix ourselves. We think if we could just handle the stress better or deal with our unresolved feelings, we would not have the illness to begin with.

    I have spent years reading self-help books hoping to find the secret to happiness. While self-help books often provide useful coping techniques and good advice, it infers that we need to be fixed in order to be happy. That is a belief that I feel to be limiting and self-sabotaging.

    Practicing self-acceptance of all parts of our self, including our health ailments, is more productive for our healing journey.

    That is not to say that we cannot try things to improve our self or change negative habits or thought patterns. But the more we try to hide or banish parts of yourself that you do not like, the more they will rear their ugly heads. You do not need to be healed of your chronic illness in order to deserve love and acceptance.

    Be your own advocate.

    Unfortunately, we can no longer take the word of every doctor when it comes to our health, medications, and foods we put into our bodies. It is important to educate yourself the best you can before deciding to take a new medication or try a new treatment.

    Weigh the pros and cons and make the best choice you can. Take the time to find a doctor who is best fit for your healing journey.

    Don’t let others make you feel like your illness is your fault.

    Chronic illnesses for which it’s difficult to identify the cause can be difficult for people to accept because the thought of having an illness that we cannot predict or fix is scary, even if you do not have the illness yourself.

    This causes people to just blame the sufferer because they are frustrated themselves that their loved ones are not getting better.

    No one understands your battle better than you. Do not take it personally when someone makes an ignorant comment.

    Those comments come from a place of fear inside themselves. It is still important to take accountability for your health and make the best choices possible, but sometimes we develop illness even when we are doing our best.

    Some of the answers to healing are already inside you.

    Everyone has some sort of healing power inside them. Do not underestimate your body’s ability to heal given the right circumstances. It may be only one piece of your puzzle, but it’s there.

    Society teaches us that all we have to do is take a pill and we’ll feel better. This way of thinking takes the power away from us and keeps us in the victim role.

    Medications and herbs can be helpful and an important key to your healing, but they are not the be-all and end-all. The mental component to healing is just as important as whatever we choose to put inside our bodies to promote healing.

    Let go of what doesn’t serve you. Meditating, yoga, and practicing gratitude will help you connect to your inner self and prepare your mind and body for healing.

    —

    Your healing journey may be different from mine, and some of this information you may not agree with. You may also not be in a place where you are willing to change. That is fine. I am still learning new things about what is best for my health every day.

    Honor where you are now and know that every day is a new opportunity to take care of you one small step at a time. Happy healing!

    Man on a journey image via Shutterstock

  • The 3 Pieces of Recovery from Addiction or Depression

    The 3 Pieces of Recovery from Addiction or Depression

    Mind Body Spirit

    “I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.” ~Brené Brown

    When I started graduate school, it was safe to say that I was running away from things. I’d recently ended a nine-year relationship and I wasn’t planning on dealing with it.

    Upon the birth of my nephew, my father, a long-term addict, had begun rekindling his relationships with his three daughters. I didn’t recognize, though I should have, that this needed dealing with too.

    I began school so that I’d have something to pour my energy and feelings into wholeheartedly. And I did. It worked, at least for a while. I soon began to notice that I was increasingly unhappy in my new student position.

    While I had things I looked forward to, like teaching and program events, I spent my time alone watching television in bed and wishing I could be anywhere else, though I didn’t know where that might be.

    It was the closest I could ever remember feeling to depressed, a word that had long been whispered, though never addressed, in my family.

    There are few perks to being a graduate student, at least on paper, but one of them, for me, was school-funded student health insurance that included mental health care.

    I should mention that, although my family history certainly warrants mental health care, no one had ever sought it. If ongoing drug and alcohol addictions, divorce, and teenage pregnancy apparently didn’t warrant it, perhaps nothing would. But I was feeling pretty bad, and it was free.

    On the day I walked into the counselor’s office, I found two people from my very small program sitting in there.

    It was at first awkward and then comforting—each of us had found ourselves in a similar situation, and something about that Tuesday had summoned us to the office.

    Inside, I met with Krishna, a soft-spoken therapist who identified my family immediately as co-dependent and prone to addiction.

    I felt better already. She recommended that I be around animals and begin practicing yoga. I committed to both and began seeing Krishna every other week.

    Since I was a busy student and unable to commit to a pet, I decided to volunteer at a local animal shelter. Every Friday, I woke up at 6am to walk dogs for an hour before I went to teach. It was inspiring for a few reasons—one, it reminded me that things could be worse, and two, puppies.

    The animal capacity for cuteness and kindness is extraordinary, and I certainly felt better for having been around them.

    It is often said that volunteer work is a selfish task, designed to make the volunteer feel better for having done it. I don’t object to this, nor do I see anything wrong with it. Those dogs got me through graduate school.

    Next, I set out to learn to practice yoga. This was a scary goal because it seemed to showcase many of my fears and insecurities.

    I was self-conscious about my body and asked to put on body hugging clothes. I was uncomfortable being watched, and the eyes of the class would often be on me. Also, I’d never done yoga before and the thought of all of those skinny, stretchy people terrified me.

    With one of the girls I’d run into at the counselor’s office, I searched for a nonthreatening yoga class that I thought would meet my needs.

    Upon the recommendation of a friend, I joined a group with a focus on restorative yoga, mostly stretching, snacks at the end.

    I found a community of like-minded men and women interested in finding a mind/body/spirit balance to treat the various issues we were all dealing with. Is there anything that hurts today, our teacher would ask, mind or body?

    Because I come from a family of somewhat functional alcoholics going back as far as I can remember, I know that these parts of me may just be hidden, dormant for now.

    Yoga has allowed me to channel these possible proclivities into an activity that promotes physical and mental health, an activity that is no longer scary. It’s also my way of acknowledging that there is something outside of me, something larger than me, at work in the universe.

    Yoga is, for me, the acknowledgment of spirit.

    Recovery (from anything, addiction, depression, physical illness) requires the addressing of a triangle in its entirety—mind, body, and spirit. While counseling began to address the mind, yoga and puppies addressed both body and spirit. Learning this felt like my whole body sighing.

    While I’m not an addict, I can see how yoga would be useful there, too. A positive community, a refocus on the body, an attention to self-restraint and awareness that is hard to replicate.

    For me, breaking down the barriers and walls my family had tried so long create was no small feat. In acknowledging my own capacity for mental illness, I was able to begin a road to recovery that improved my health in many ways. That recognition and verbalization of ill feelings was, for me, essential to the healing process.

    In my professional life, I deal with this all the time—men and women struggling with mental disease, often accompanied by addiction, that lack the approval of families to move forward with treatment.

    For me, it was easier to say then to do. Eventually, though, it became a part of myself (this history of mental illness) that I was happy to disclose because it meant that I had begun recovery.

    Then, I suspected that I was alone. Now, I realize that it’s common to fear that acknowledging there’s a problem is failure.

    Be vocal, be active, be spiritual in any way that you find productive. Be alive.

    I have a triangle tattooed on my left foot to remind me that everything that goes to pieces also happens in pieces, even recovery. One, two, three: mind, body, spirit.

    Photo by HartwigHKD

  • Don’t Let Anyone or Anything Dim Your Inner Light

    Don’t Let Anyone or Anything Dim Your Inner Light

    Find Your Inner Light

    “The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be.” ~Shakti Gawain

    I was born with it. I know I was. There was a light within me that showed in my smile, my dancing around the house, my love for life, for friends, for family, and my bright future.

    I don’t remember the exact day it happened, I don’t remember the last event that did it, but my inner light went out. I was no longer the happy-go-lucky girl I once was; I became lost in an abyss of darkness and sadness. Happiness and joy were thing of the past.

    Was it heartbreak over the guy I was supposed to marry who broke my heart? Was it the fact that my parents got divorced and I was suddenly in the middle of it? Was it because I never stuck up for myself or spoke my truth? Did I do anything so horrible that my “karma” was kicking in?

    I couldn’t figure it out. I was suddenly paralyzed in fear and my world became a place where I no longer wanted to be; I wanted out.

    I was diagnosed with stage three melanoma at the age of twenty-one. The doctor who performed the biopsy called the house to let me know the results and left a message. I deleted the message.

    About an hour later my parents asked me if the doctor had called. I told them yes and that I had deleted the message. They immediately called the doctor’s office in the other room.

    A few minutes later they came into my room crying and told me I had stage three melanoma and needed to have it removed immediately. I wasn’t scared. In fact, I was relieved in a sense that there may be something that removed me from this world of pain I now lived in. I was numb.

    I no longer had the ability to form friendships; I lost that knack which used to come so easily to me. I didn’t allow anyone to get close to me. My walls came up so high and I swore no one would ever get in.

    The shame, the guilt, the embarrassment of the girl I had become began to eat me up alive. Why was I even here anymore? What was the point?

    From the tender age of eighteen I suffered daily with pain and fear, and constantly had to tell myself out loud, “I can do this, I can do this,” whether it was showing up for work or any other area in my life.

    In order to deal with all this emptiness and fear, I felt the only way out was to drink, do drugs, and self-destruct in any way I could.

    I drank to the point where I would black out because that is where I found peace, a total escape from my reality. It didn’t matter to me if I was putting myself in harm’s way or ruining the relationships with those close to me, I had to do it. I didn’t care anymore.

    The last straw was on New Year’s Eve 2001 when I went out and went into my usual blacked out state. I ended up telling my friend I wanted to kill myself. The next morning, my mom, who I had a strained relationship with because of her inability to watch me self-destruct, called me and was in tears.

    She told me my friend called her and told her I said I wanted to take my life. My mom pleaded with me to get help as soon as possible.

    I thought about it for a minute and pondered what she said. Live this miserable life of self-hatred and addiction, or get help. The decision I made was to get help because I had reached my bottom emotionally, physically, and spiritually and had a tiny grain of hope that I had a chance.

    Attending my first rehab at the age of twenty-seven was the beginning of my road to recovery and freedom. I wish I could say I got it my first time around, but that’s not my story. Two rehabs, countless relapses and lost relationships, and continuous fear and anxiety consumed me until the age of thirty-eight, when I finally surrendered and saw that I could not do this life thing on my own.

    Fear ruled my life. It was the gripping anxiety I felt on a daily basis in my stomach and in my heart. I have heard the acronym for fear, which is “Future Events Already Ruined.” I expected the worst to happen in any situation of my life.

    It wasn’t until I realized I wasn’t in charge and my self-will had taken me to these dark places that I felt a load off of my jaded soul.

    I began to see spirituality as a solace to my pain. I had hope (“hang on, pain ends”) that there was a light beyond my darkness.

    I heard you gain strength through trials and emotional bottoms. The fact that I saw others who had suffered and found a way out made me feel like I could do it too. I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t able to cope with life.

    I started to see meditation as a way to find the answers to life’s challenges and struggles. This came as such a relief, because I used to think I had to come up with the answers in my head, which was a dangerous place to be since it had led me to this place where I no longer wanted to live.

    I began attending twelve-step meetings specific to my struggles, which helped me learn skills on how to live my life in a healthy way. I related to people and their pain, and was able to share mine.

    Finally my pain was paying off. It allowed me to help others so that maybe they would not have to suffer as long as I did. I was no longer a victim of my life. I had appreciation and gratitude for my dark past.

    I began to pray to a higher power. I learned for the first time in my life to let go. Let go of the outcomes, the fear, reactions or actions of other people, my career, my job, and my relationships—all of it.

    Am I practicing letting go on a daily basis? No, but the key thing is that I have a willingness to try. Just knowing I have the option to try to let go gives me a peace of mind that I have not had for a very long time.

    I had allowed people and situations that hurt me to burn out my inner light. No one turned off my light; I did. Knowing this gave me the freedom to find it again.

    Everyone is born with an inner light. Some of us can hold on to it and others lose it and have to work extremely hard to get it back. My road back to my light has been painful, scary, exciting, and fulfilling. I would not change any of it. I am a stronger woman because of it and for that I am eternally grateful.

    Photo by Stacy Kathryn Holst

  • What You Need to Do If You’re Struggling with an Eating Disorder

    What You Need to Do If You’re Struggling with an Eating Disorder

    “The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.” ~C. C. Scott

    It starts accidentally.

    Addicts don’t plan to become addicted to a substance or behavior. It’s an invisible progression, a newly discovered way to feel peace, trust, and control.

    You don’t remember the day you became addicted—the day your addiction became your identity.

    You do, however, remember the relief of the first time your addiction helped you cope.

    Many bulimics remember in vivid detail the day their eating disorders started. Up until that moment, they suffered with chaotic home environments, low self-esteem, the inability to accept themselves, pressure, and feelings of powerlessness, confusion, and distrust.

    And then one day they throw up, without any intention of becoming eating disordered, or losing weight. They just did it.

    The instant after the purge is complete, a sense of peace and wholeness overcomes you. You feel powerful and in control. It results in a perverse but intense high and satisfaction.

    You decide maybe you’ll do it again. What’s one more time? It was so easy the first time anyway.

    And that’s how your addiction begins to infiltrate your mind, body, and spirit.

    Low self-esteem, suffering, and the inability to cope effectively are at the heart of all addictions.

    People with eating disorders also struggle with their identity—with establishing who they are and how that relates to what they want and the world outside.

    The addiction is an effective way to cope with life when you don’t understand your emotions; you have only a limited capacity for self-respect, and you don’t have healthy relationships with people.

    I was fourteen years old when I threw up on purpose for the first time. It was so easy. Too easy.

    It continued to be easy for a while. I lost thirty pounds in two months. I finally felt like I was popular, and I could eat anything I wanted and not get fat. I felt powerful. Stopping was out of the question.

    It was something predictable and comforting. It was dependable. It was my friend. (more…)

  • There is No End Worse Than the End of Hope

    There is No End Worse Than the End of Hope

    “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” ~Winston Churchill

    We all fall down. And you’ve probably heard that getting back up is the key to moving forward.

    But what do you do when disaster strikes? When a loved one is so injured, so debilitated, that hope seems to have vanished? What then?

    This is a true story. It may be hard to believe and beyond what you may think is possible, but it actually happened.

    It took place nearly thirty years ago.

    Disaster

    I picked up the blue referral sheet in the physical therapy office at Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, Texas one morning, like I always did.

    Scribbled on the top of the page was a patient’s name and a room number in the Intensive Care Unit along with instructions: “Physical therapy – range of motion twice daily.” I was supposed to manually move the patient’s limbs and joints to maintain mobility.

    As I walked into the room, I noticed that the patient was a young woman in her early twenties. I assumed that the people seated at her beside were her mother and father. The only sounds in the room were the pulsations of the ventilator, the intermittent beep from the IVs.

    The young woman, I learned later from her medical file, had been strangled and left for dead. She suffered from anoxic encephalopathy—severe loss of oxygen to the brain.

    She had few signs of life. Eyes shut. Body rigid. Non-responsive to touch. The family wanted my opinion and all I could say was that I would do everything I could to help. (more…)

  • Realizing You Have Everything You Need

    Realizing You Have Everything You Need

    “He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope has everything.” ~Thomas Carlyle

    I grew up in a small town, Maysville, Kentucky, where I led the perfect, sheltered life. After graduating from high school, I pursued higher education at a local community college, and from there transferred to The University of Kentucky in Lexington.

    I had an interest in art, music, and media, pursuing a double major in journalism and communications. I dreamed about either working behind the scenes of a television studio, or becoming a certified systems engineer and working for my father’s employer.

    Then a week and one day after graduating from college, fate stepped in.

    Back home in Maysville, my loving parents thought it would be wise for me to live with my father, who lived in Cincinnati during the week, and work with his company in Information Technology. With my education I could quickly rise up the ranks to management.

    Driving back to Lexington, I felt a certain peace come over me, feeling happy with my decision. After my journey, I decided to nap on my couch to relax and prepare for my interviews and this next big adventure.

    I started to get a headache that was like none other I’d had before. The pain became excruciating, like an intense sinus headache, but in the back of my head. I got up and ran to the bathroom, got sick, and passed out. My brother who shared the apartment with me came home, found me, and called 911.

    An ambulance rushed to my apartment, picked me up, and drove me to the hospital. I was in a coma for three days.

    What happened was something called an Arterio-Venous Malformation. In laymen terms, a blood vessel ruptured in my brain, destroying the life I once knew.

    Doctors predicted that I would never be able to drive or be independent, and that I would probably never be able to walk again. I was in for the biggest challenge of my life.

    What happens after a storm? It’s time to rebuild. I had to rebuild my life.

    Three months after my accident, I was released to try to live a normal life. I couldn’t really talk. I didn’t have a job. Doctors recommended that I not pursue work in the field that I chose in college, Broadcast Journalism, to keep my stress levels down.

    There was a lot I couldn’t do, but I could focus on my fitness.  (more…)

  • How to Open Yourself to Love When You Didn’t Grow Up with It

    How to Open Yourself to Love When You Didn’t Grow Up with It

    “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

    I was always someone who craved love and attention. This is not to say that I accepted love willingly—quite the opposite, in fact.

    If someone decided to like or even love me they would have to pass through a path of obstacles, being pushed, pulled, and tested at every corner. Only then, upon arrival at the finish line, would they gain my acceptance.

    As you can imagine, this eliminated a number of potential friends and partners, and I often found myself lonely and disappointed.

    The root of my inability to accept love easily stems back to my childhood.

    My mother was unable to connect with me. She got pregnant during the height of her modeling career. After she gave birth, her career dried up. She resented the attention that a baby attracted and, in addition to this, she was highly addicted to narcotics.

    Growing up with my mother telling me that she felt no love and was ashamed of me made me desperate to be the perfect daughter. I would go to any length to prove myself worthy, even taking drugs with her as a way of connecting.

    When I was fifteen years old, she upped and left with no goodbye, leaving me with my stepdad and an overwhelming sense of failure.

    If my own mother could not love me, how and why would anyone else?

    After my mother left, I disguised my pain through drugs and control. Drugs provided an instant, closely-bonded social network. I tried to take control through self-harm. My life continued like this for ten years. I hated myself, and I was terrified of letting anyone in.

    Throughout these years, I did several stints in rehabilitation centers, where nurses and psychiatrists worked hard on me.

    I would almost give in and build connections with these people; however, when the time came to leave these institutions, I would find myself alone all over again.

    I was desperate for a loving relationship and a career. My battles were hindering me from achieving either.

    Luckily, I had a fantastic education under my belt, through a childhood spent at top boarding schools. It was just a matter of escaping this vicious cycle that I had spent the majority of my life spinning around in.

    I had stopped the drugs but was addicted to self-pity. Therapy had taught me that I needed to let go and learn to trust. This sounds quite easy now, but back then the very idea was not only terrifying but also impossible. (more…)