Recovery Stories

The light within
The light inside me

When I think about my life I feel like I have been living in the dark. My life had gotten so put out of hand. For the past 20 years, I have been slowly losing the light that used to be inside of me. I had been battling not only #MentalHealth issues but a personality disorder and a substance #Addiction. This battle began back when I was an adolescent. As long as I can remember I have always looked for a way to escape from the pain and suffering I was going through. The pattern became abuse and more abuse. If it wasn’t mental abuse from men it was physical and on top of it, I had a problem of more. More drugs more spending or more problems. I got so lost that all I could see was dark. I had been from one treatment program to another trying to get the help that I didn’t want. Natural the help did not help but only fueled my addiction to want to escape. Now addiction is a hard battle on its own but PTSD and #Depression and #Anxiety disorder in my life were what I was escaping from. My past would be the downfall of my health and my life. Getting help meant facing my trauma and I didn’t want any part of that. I already constantly thought about it and didn’t want to think about any of that stuff anymore. So I turned to a substance to help which I thought was but little did I know that it wasn’t helping me at all. So now u were lost more than ever. So about two years ago I really hit rock bottom. I had reached the point where I was going to be in a position where I was going in and out of the hospital and being treated horribly. I had to fight for my life and lost the capability to do this for myself. I had lost the light inside me and became very angry and isolated from the world. I had no will to do anything but disappear. It got so bad that I was acting out and trying to find a solution for my situation by taking things to the level of mind-blowing extremes that didn’t help at all. I finally decided to go back into treatment for one last time. This of course was not by choice but I did it anyway. I found a treatment center that would specialize in trauma which I was not looking forward to but was definitely what I needed. I got to the center with the mentality that I was going to do my time and get out and go back to what I knew how to do best .. use and hide away from the world but at some point while in residential that all changed. I went from no how no way was I going to deal with my trauma and mental health issues to becoming OPEN minded and mentally challenged to make a difference in myself. I meet some of the most amazing people who helped me become a better me. Now I feel like that light that was so dark has now been reignited. I now am ready to continue to work on myself and changing my life for the FIRST time. I feel like I have a passion and drive that I missed more than I thought I did.

So as I embrace the most amazing part of life and my love for my self has been working on I write this message to share my thoughts with you all. I want everyone to know that no matter how lost you may become and how broken you may feel there’s always time to change that. We all have a light that is within us and as dark as things might be we can always reignite the light within

Love yourself and love your life and the sky’s the limit. Reach out and know you are worth everything!

swach123@gmail.com
@stephaniewachman1