Emotions

It made me understand so much more about myself. It provided me more of a direction to go as I move forward with life.

The den had couches that likely had never been cleaned and were probably covered in all sorts of disgusting human secretions.

Remember the session with Evy regarding her anger towards anyone in recovery (refer to Part II)? I was in the same area as her in the building when she came to me and in a very excited voice said, “I have a present for you, do you have some time?” I was heading into a meeting, so I told her I would come find her after. She told me, if I missed her and she had already left to go out of state, she would leave it with the front desk. When the meeting was over, I was on a mission

When I was a child, I knew for certain I was going to be a veterinarian and live on a farm. When I was an adolescent, I thoroughly intended on being the first female president of the United States (or when feeling less grandiose, a social worker). When I was a teenager, I had no aspirations to be much of anything for longer than 10 minutes. The way I saw it, I was lucky to still be alive. In retrospect, I often think that I was too afraid of failure to really carve out what I

I think peace looks really different when you have to fight so hard for it. I’m currently experiencing the most peaceful crash out ever. Like everything is falling apart a little. I’m #stressed, #overwhelmed, and slightly losing it .. but also #relaxing, #vibing, and weirdly at peace at the same time. The first time I really understood “finding peace” was in rehab. I had been running hard my whole life – always doing something, always trying to prove my usefulness, always bei

... but the weight is just too heavy to carry and prepare to drop right now.

I graduated from High School in 2005. I went out west to Arizona State University, as far away as I could get from the town I grew up in, and the only house I ever lived in, to obtain my Bachelors. Needless to say, I’m pretty certain my focus wasn’t “obtaining my Bachelors” but instead to party as much as humanly possible until I “became an adult”. I “became” an adult a lot earlier than expected, with the most handsome surprise ever. My oldest son made his debut into society

For as long as I can remember, anger has always been the easiest emotion for me to express, and the first one that comes to the surface - far more than any other. For the longest time, I felt as though it was the only emotion I had. About halfway through my past career, my boss began referring to the timeframe from 2015-2016 as my "angry years". It just so happened that this was the time when my addictions had come to a head in my adult life. I was doing everything I never th

He used to ask where we would've been if we began US those years ago when we met, and I assured him we would have only crashed and burned then, we both needed to mature.

Imagine being on a roller coaster – up and down, left and right, fast and slow, fun and outright petrifying. Now imagine being on the same rollercoaster, but instead of a quick 3 minute trip … it’s decades long. That’s the best analogy for my life. I wanted to get off, to walk on solid ground, to not be flipped upside down, to not feel debilitating fear when things move too fast, and complete anxiety when they moved too slow. I wanted to be able to connect with people, not ju