Ramblings of an Inquisitive Mind

Today I celebrate 35 years of recovery. The journey has been filled with 12,784 days. Some of those days have been broken down into trying to make it to the next second. I am grateful for this journey and know I have been carried through numerous days by the love, support, and guidance of many of you. 

It is hard for me to understand why even on a day like today, I feel like a failure. I know it is because I carry around this deep darkness that dwells in the pit of my heart and soul. It tries to block the light and the joy, and sometimes it succeeds. It lurks in my brain and rushes in with thoughts that are hard to escape. 

I hear it whisper in my ear: Look at you—what have you done with your life? No children, no grandchildren. No great works of art or literature. No relationship—in debt—nothing to offer. 

These are the things my darkness tells me, determined to drag me to the bottom again. Some days my self-loathing is so great I cannot escape my own wishes to die. On these days I battle just to stay here to face the next day, hoping for some glimmer of light to break open the darkness. To invite me to stay—to wait—to see—to survive. Until the darkness shrinks away again and I am blessed with a little quiet in my brain. 

On these days it actually feels like cogs are turning in my brain, as though areas of my brain are connected by cogs, and I feel them. They are not spinning, because that would be too fast. But my thoughts, my demons, are slowly grinding through grit and sand. 

I don’t tell you these things to ask for your sympathy or for you to pray for me. I tell you because your knowing helps splinter the darkness, allowing some light to begin to trickle back in. The darkness likes secrets. It likes hiding things, tormenting my brain with the fear that if you know you will not like me or, worse yet, you’ll start to feel about me the way I feel about myself. It makes me fear that you will discover the truth and understand that I am nothing but a fake, a loser, a fraud. 

These are my darkest thoughts, my unlovable thoughts, my feelings of separation and despair. These are my feelings of just wanting the noise, hurt, and pain to stop. So I write. I write to stay here. I write as my way of battling the darkness. I write to set myself free.

My writing is my armor. It allows me to face the darkness, self-loathing, and self-hatred. It gives me hope—that I can survive, that I can live to battle another day. Hope that I can find love and light. Hope that I will remember what freedom from fear feels like, and what joy feels like. 

I struggle—I do. But I battle each and every day to stay here. That battle sometimes includes sharing my darkness with you. Not to drag you down with me, but because your listening helps crack open the darkness and in doing so, helps me to survive. 

So thank you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for helping me want to stay here. I love you.