Natalie L.

   

     I've been there. I've been a teenager that didn't have the typical high school experience. I know what it feels like to not want to live anymore. I know what it's like to hate yourself. I'm also here to tell you it gets better, it's never perfect but it gets better.

     High school was a rough time to say the least. I started as a shy wall flower, terrified because I was being thrown into a school of hundreds of kids. I ended high school as a recovering drug addict. It definitely wasn't the four years I planned for. I always imagined going to football games with my friends, instead I was partying across the street from the stadium. I dreamed of going to prom and dancing with my date, instead I was getting high with my friends.

     No one decides to be a drug addict. I never thought that I would end up in rehab by the age of sixteen. My life looked completely different than I imagined. I was angry and lost. I was struggling with mental illness and spinning completely out of control. By the time I landed myself in lockup I was close to dying and to be honest I really didn't care. The days were I wasn't on something or coming down off of something were few and far between. I was a self mutilator with a strong hatred for myself. I thought about killing myself every day and I have no idea what kept me from doing it.

     Even after I got out of lockup (the place I was in was a lockup but it focused on therapy/behavioral issues) I wasn't "cured". There's this idea that when you go to an inpatient therapy or rehab that you magically get your life together. There is a lot of guilt based conversations that happen in places like the one I was in. This idea that all the issues in your life center around your decision to be a drug addict. They force you to look at what you have done to your family and friends. It continues this train of thought that your addiction is the only real issue and if you get rid of that your life will be better. So that's what I came out thinking, I thought that my choices in life were what led me where I was. Which in part was true, but there were so many other issues that weren't being addressed. Mental illnesses that no matter how much I tried to be better were out of my control. I got to a point that I really believed that I was fine and that any negative feelings were solely based off of my behavior and that I brought them on myself.

     If you've been through getting clean and sober than you know it usually doesn't stick the first time. Again, guilt based sobriety only holds for so long. When you get clean it has to be for you, I 1000% believe this and I'm a living example. Sure getting your life together benefits those around you but that is secondary to repairing yourself. Getting sober for someone else is temporary bandaid and it hinders you from getting to the root of the actual issues.

     When I decided to get sober I was high. I got high for absolutely no reason. I didn't want it, I didn't crave it, I don't know why I did it. But I got high and I finally realized that this wasn't my life anymore, I didn't want to feel like that one more day. When I hear people talk about getting sober and it's like some kind of divine intervention and the pieces of their lives suddenly come together I have to shake my head. Sure, in that moment, for the first time in years I was thinking about how this thing was affecting my life but there was so much work to be done. I'll let you in on a little secret, that work is still ongoing, a decade later.

     As I sit here with my three year old waiting for Christmas cookies to come out of the oven I can't help but think about my sixteen year old self. That girl who didn't care about herself, the girl that I have spent so long trying to repair. The girl that I admittedly have beat up in my head for decisions and people that have brought negative things into my life. The teenager that almost didn't make it. I forget sometimes that she was a kid and under all the anger she was afraid. I forget to thank her. I forget to thank her for holding on, for making the decision every day to live even when it seemed pointless. She deserves a huge amount of praise for giving me the chance to have a life that I scraped and clawed for. For the chance to meet my daughter, because without her courage and strength I wouldn't know what it feels like to love a part of myself unconditionally.

     Believe me when I say it gets better. It is never perfect but life puts you where you need to be when you need to be there. Sometimes it doesn't make sense and it feels completely hopeless. Sometimes it's beautiful and you're so glad you hung on to see it. You're life can completely change, you just have to allow it.