traceyh415

Every morning, I wake up with an existential crisis of sorts, wondering why am I here. But there are a few levels to this why. There is the why of how did I survive an addiction that killed so many others. Why did I make it through ten years of hard living when my friend relapsed and could barely make it through a month without tapping out/ nearly losing his leg.  Why am I here as in what is my purpose.  Growing up firmly entrenched in codependency, I like to have a reason for my being. I am uncomfortable when I am choosing my own path, my own way. I like to have that decided for me because I’m needed. The kids aren’t little, my work life is fairly stable. The years of crisis management have settled into a place where my free time is nearly exclusively my me time. I fucking hate it. I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s hard to admit this but it’s a deep dark truth that I’ve lost faith in my own ability to navigate this ship. Anxiety manifests itself in “what am I goin...

As the depression season slowly comes to an unceremonial end, I can’t help but reflect on what a long January it truly was for me. I tend to have ebbs and tides with my mental health. Things will hum away like a well oiled machine one moment. Then, a sputter then things grind to a halt.  I spent the better part of ten years of my life homeless in three different states. That isn’t me feeling sorry for myself. It just is stating the facts. In those years, my drug addiction wore me down to the point that I was willing to part ways with the great love of my life. Not a man. Not a woman. Just heroin. Heroin was there for me when no one else could reach me. It kept me alive on many a lonely night. Learning to live a fairly productive, happy life without heroin has challenged me beyond measure. I had put all my faith into this thing and that thing stopped working for me. The last bit of surgical tape is still stuck to my arm from my last trip to the ER three weeks ago. I’ve had pa...