Without my support team, I would be lost

I’ve been told in the past that I don’t get what it’s like, because I have a family, I have supporters. This is true. My biggest motivator in my life right now (and there’s a handful that are golden, beautiful people who don’t doubt me) is my child. My son sees the best in me. I feel like a rock star, and invincible in his eyes. My husband is another one, and he makes me feel like a queen. Both my parents support my recovery. My best friend and I are like two Leslie Knope’s and we just constantly build each other up. I have a great group of friends. So yes, right now, I have a great support team, and without them, I would be lost.

But this wasn’t always the case. A few years ago, before my husband, before I met these wonderful friends, before my beautiful son, I was nobody, alone in the world. I was a waste of space. I was human garbage. I was in a soul eating relationship, I alienated myself from my family, and I was alone.

For a while I was okay with being alone. There was nobody there to be disappointed when I screwed up, which was a huge plus to me, because I screwed up a lot. There was nobody looking down on me. I could mess up as much as I wanted (or as much as I did, I had time to make up for it, to show everyone I was okay later). I was fine with being alone. I was okay with isolation; or so I thought.

I was alone on and off for three years; from when I was 17 to when I was 20. Although the loneliness was frightening and made me sad at times. Every chance I had to rejoin the world, I shoot my friends and family down. I didn’t give myself a chance to be loved, because I didn’t love myself. I allowed myself to be trapped. There is a comfort to being lonely; knowing nobody is counting or relying on you makes it easier to get through the day. However, this isn’t the case. It doesn’t matter if you don’t associate with a single soul; there is always someone, out there who will care if you’re there or not. Alienating yourself isn’t healthy.

The day I stopped alienating myself was the day I woke up alone, from a suicide attempt. It was almost 24 hours after an overdose. Nobody showed up to my door to check on me, I had no missed calls or texts. No one knew I was in severe danger. Somehow I miraculously lived; only to discover I had severed relationships in my life enough to disappear and not be noticed. After that I started to cut out people who didn’t care about me, and rebuilt relationships with my family. I made new friends who treated me with respect, and fell in love with someone who didn’t abuse me, or encourage isolation.

Nobody is ever alone in a world of over 7 billion people; we just need to search for our people. We may not find them right away, but it’s part of the human experience, and a key to survival to communicate, live, love, and sometimes even lose with others. Life isn’t about fairy tale romances with Prince Charmings; it’s about the crazy stories you can someday look back on and say, I lived.