Brighton streets.

Clubs will continue to churn out turned up tunes into the blackness of night.
Milk madness that pours thick.
Crowds will continue to chew their gums
and hum, and swallow sickly, sweet, bitter, regret.
At first, among the groups of gurning gangs I stand with awkward feet
that don't seem to want to move with the beat.
But flicker with my sober anxiety.
People push and pierce ear drums with screams and repetitive monotony.
They have forgotten their ability to be.
Smoking I meet new faces who offer me drinks.
With twists of shame and smile I shake my head.
I laugh with the people who remind me of a life I once lead.
Bitter sweet.
The ones less wasted become new friends.
Inside I waste apologies with excuse me.
All elbows and bones shoving the soul.
But in my sobriety I dance and laugh with friends who surround me. Normality.
My ears still ring as I begin the journey home.
But we sing.
My room does not spin as I hit soft sheets.
Waking next morning with memories of a night to store in my head,
flick back to when the thoughts of drinks and drugs take up space in my brain. It's getting easier.
My eyes are wide and I am tipping on pride as I play the previous day in my mind,
with a smile.
And I do not ache or feel shame.
I do not cringe with pain as I check my funds of my phone.
I don't mean this to sound like puffed up pride. Stuffy superiority.
I'm just finding how this space of 23 fits with me. Where I can feel at peace.
Sober nights aren't always easy. They are often edging to impossible.
Making early tearful nights probable. Empty sleep eyes.
But I'm finding the line.
Knowing when it's time to say not tonight.
But on Brighton streets I get it right.

fix

I had let my sadness from losing someone I loved define me. Then I let my mistakes pile up. My mistakes held hands with my using. My brain melting in to a smoke filled mess. A damp mold behind my skull. It stank. Toxic. Feeling rotten to my core. So damaged, so destroyed that the chaos was my comfort. The sadness was my blanket and I was wrapped up in all of it. Forgetting everything else around me. There is a sense of loss when I think back. A sadness that I am no longer in that. I know how strange that might sound. There was just a certain freedom in not caring at all for my life. Not caring because I felt I was totally beyond repair. The person who I was, no matter how dark and twisted, that was me. I was the girl who fucked up. The one who caused chaos with white dust and angry intoxication. The one who didn’t care. Not one little bit. Inside, of course, I cared deeply about the people around me. Loved with all my internal organs, but what is the point of love if it is only felt on the inside and never shared, not even with myself. I stuffed that love so far down to the ground it barely touched my toes.

Being in recovery has forced me to recreate myself. At first putting the blocks of my life back together was exciting, interesting. Searching and discovering the things that I like. Listening to music again. Reading books. Finding things. Reconnecting. But all of a sudden I feel like I’m searching in the dark. Like I’m totally lost. I can’t tell you who I am now. I feel like I’m blindly grasping at the air. Trying to feed my soul but only clutching my own empty hands. I’m trying on outfits and none of them seem to fit. Everything I try feels like that itchy jumper you get for Christmas; spiky, sharp. My skin doesn’t fit. I would like to fit again in my own skin.  Everything frightens me and leaves me lonely. And loneliness is so ugly. It’s bare and cold and no matter who stands ready to fight it, it doesn’t seem to leave till IT wants to. Each morning it clings to my shoulders, stuck to me. I must drag this gut retching maggot around with me. The maggot and my beast and all my sickening memories seem to thrive together. Like a virus. And my regrets are piled high. So much fuel. From the drunken stories that past my lips without a stop and think to friends who only deserved kindness. To walking away when I should have stayed. The people I’ve hurt.

Somewhere in this piece there is a realization. That to recreate myself, to be in comfort once again I must repair. So now recovery welcomes a new mission, a new fight. I must fix what I have broken outside of me to mend my insides. A battle I guess I knew I would always have to face.

six.

When I was six I danced in a white tutu. The vest part stained from my clumsy joy of food. My little round belly stretched out around my middle like a balloon. I wasn’t the most agile dancer but nothing would deter me from spreading my arms wide, stretching my chubby little legs, pointing my toes and bounding around the house haphazardly. To a classical CD that I’d plucked from my dad’s collection. I would dance just because it was exactly what I wanted to do and it made bubbles of joy tickle up my spine.

When I was six I would sneak outside and fight through jungles, ride horses through the Highlands of Scotland, make camp fires. Discover places where the creatures of dreams would tell me tales of worlds beyond my own. Digg with sticks to try and find the heat of Australia in rainy Bristol. Turn clouds into wales and dragons. Ride my bike across American highways.

 When I was six I wanted to unravel all the mystery’s in the world. Play every part. Fierce red head full of question and sharp determination. 

When I was six I would spin around in circles with my best friend. Laughter would pour from our lungs. The world would roll in circles so much faster than it had ever done before. With dizzy happiness. Adventures. That zest for life. That something you have when you're so brand new in the world.  

When I was six I’d climbed upstairs with sleep in my eyes but of course I did not want to sleep. My sisters and I caused chaos with cold feet and peppermint breath. Letting our world be our game, as all children do. When I was six I didn’t want to sleep for fear of wasting time. For fear of missing the grown up hours. For fear of not seeing what the world looked like when it turned black. I peeked through the banisters and drank in the sound of my parent’s whispers. Breathed in the almost silent ache of the house that had been so alive in the light. Crawled to the warmth of my bed with disappointed surrender at the end of it all. Tired and full.

Six months ago today a suitcase was put in my sister’s cars. We drove. To the place where I would spend a month healing. Where I would learn how pull apart the rattling poison behind my skull. Suck it out like a snake bite and spit it into the gutter. Where I would find my calm. Where I would meet some of the most wonderful people.  

I wanted to travel back to a different six to celebrate this one. A six that reminds me that I wasn't always an addict. I wasn't always troubled. By that reminding I have hope. I'm not sure how much sense that makes to you, but it helps me to see that there are a million different parts that make me who I am and being an addict is just a slice of that.  

Before rehab I never wanted to be clean and sober. I'd found a pattern in my life that almost felt comfortable. But it wasn't. I was slowly killing myself. I was forgetting the people around me. I was forgetting who I was. I was forgetting me at six.

three.

A story.

Some years ago she walked with the swagger of youth towards her local pub. She sat and drank pints of lager, then rum and ginger. She did this when the mood hit her. She sat with people who talked about things that didn’t really matter. That was okay. Some years ago, on a night like this she met him. He leant on the bar, foot tucked behind ankle. He sat with her and everyone else disappeared. Because something like joy or peace or understanding sat between them. They talked and listened. Little smoke stories that could have only been caught by each other. Sucked in. Breathed in. Turning into one of those memories that you know you must remember. Around them the chaos of the world turned into black ink. Time moved on. Like time does. She sped through country lanes to wrap herself around him. He passed her his story and she held it close. He played her music that turned her skin into velvet. They breathed in the sun. They danced in the rain. She drove him and her sister to Devon. They sang as they poured through shallow sun roads. She handed him a slice of her. And on. They picked up the keys to their flat. He told her ‘forever and a day’. She told it back. They ate Chinese food on the floor. He kissed her on the forehead. They rushed home after their days. They held each other. They kept their demons in a little black box. They drove to the Lake District and danced on water. They came home to their flat. And on. Their demons escaped and the chaos that had turned black melted into mud. Their feet got stuck. Together they tried to drag themselves out of fear. He couldn’t get out. They had swallowed him whole. Out of her lungs poured screams of ‘no.’ Her heart broke. She sat alone on a bench in that park by that flat. Alone she asked him to hold her hand. Alone she told him to take her home. In the cold she missed him. She asked him where he was. She wanted to burn the world.

Three years on. She wants to throw chairs through windows. She lets red hot breaths beat under her skin. It hurts her. Because everyday she misses him. Today she misses him. She wishes for a different ending to her story. 

Time does not take away the pain. It just teaches you how to live with it. The same angry. The same missing. The same questions. The same doubt. It's just locked away. In that girl, that was me. 

And I miss you.

And I love you. 

being

I am on medication for depression.

I have been on and off. 

Tried so many types.

Different variations. 

Cocktails. 

A pick-a-mix of anti depressants, sleeping pills, anti anxiety, and so on. 

Meds that dull the senses. That stop tears in their tracks. That hold me. That let me sleep. My medication lets me 'be'. It takes the racing heart and sweaty palms out of ordering coffee. It lets my head creep up from staring at the floor. It takes some of my pain away. On the darkest of days it gives me a slice of light. It gives me the ability to be. This medication helps me and many others turn days of despair into days where getting out of bed is a possibility. 

However there is a foggy stigma when it comes my little tablets. It rears it's ugly head whenever this subject is mentioned. And I am angry. I am angry that mental illness can sometimes hold hands with shame. I have felt that shame. I have clasped my mouth closed with quivering hands when I should have shouted the loudest. I have whispered when I should have screamed. I have said those words 'no, I doing fine' hoping someone would hear the hidden meaning, that had sunk so deep I didn't even know how to breathe. This stigma scares me. This stigma must leave. 

No one smuggles in a secret Lemsip when they have a cold. No one asks a patient in a coma if they've tried 'getting up.' No one tells someone with a broken leg 'to go running.' So why do we do this with mental illness? Why do people tell me to 'cheer up' when there is something damaged in my brain? Just because it's not visible does not mean it's not there. And the stark reality is that people die. These illnesses are vicious. They kill. If a little pill can stop that, if medication can save a life, or even just make a life livable. Then it must be okay. It has to be. 

It might not be the only answer. Medication is not the one and only. There are therapies. There are other answers. It just so happens that it helps me. And that is okay. 

we will not forget who we are. 

five.

As the days turn into weeks and tumble into months. The person I once was moves further and further away. The person that had only one thing on their mind. I have waved good bye. And the person I’m becoming is turning scars into thicker skin. I want to say that it gets easier. That it stops being so hard. Maybe in some ways it does. In some ways I learn a little more each day about how to live in recovery. 

It would be a lie to say 'I don't miss it'. Because I do. I write excuses in my brain. Wait for a bad day to push the 'fuck it' button. It's a little like there's a conflict in my mind. Between the old me and the new. But for the last five months the new me has been winning and I hope it will continue to. I don't ever what to let her lose. 

But the waves of aches and pains that once drove me to put chemicals in my brain still arrive in tidal storm. The crave is sketched so deep into my bones that I don’t think it will ever leave. It pulls me out when I’m in peace. When the cravings click their ugly battle cries I shut my eyes. I remember that I almost died. I silence the lies that whisper in my mind 'you need this.' Because the life I have now I am living, and I am loving.

Five months and I am okay. And I’d like to thank you all for every inch of your love and support.

and it's over.

One more sober mile stone. It can be done. 

The festive season was something I was dreading with all of my being. I was terrified I wouldn't make it through clean and sober. In reality I feel like it's made me stronger. Made me heal that little bit more. Helped me put together a few more of the pieces of myself that I lost. With the help of my small army of loved ones, I made it through. 

Over Christmas I locked the doors of my family home and only snuck out to see some fierce and loyal friends when things weren’t too dark. My family once again stood guard around me when I dipped further into that bone aching fog of depression. They dragged me out of it by never leaving my side. Christmas day; calm arrived just in time. We ate too much food and watched shit TV, in perfect tradition. And when that beast addiction tapping at the back of my skull became too fucking loud I reached out to the people around me and of course they were, as always, ready to fight. I am forever thankful. 

For once, on New Years Eve I wasn't a teeth grinding, staggering, mess. I didn't wake up on the very first day of the year with black ink in my brain rather than memories, a nose full of chalky cocaine, or a sadness clutching my shoulders, digging it's claws into my neck. Instead, I waved good bye to 2015 with the biggest smile. With tummy turning happiness, surrounded by friends who never left my side. I held up my middle finger to last year. And oh so gladly waved it the fuck good bye. I had a well and truly wonderful night and woke up with memories to remember. So I enter this year feeling hopeful. Feeling ready to move on. Ready for an adventure. And I can’t bloody wait.