SADNESS AND DARKNESS

I am greatful today. Don't get me wrong. I have my amazing son and my ever so loving and faithful fiancé. What more could I ask for? We're all fairly healthy. We have a roof, food, heat and water. The family unit is very important to me. Which is not how I was brought up. Now, I'm not trying to throw my mom under the bus  it's just how I remember it....

My childhood came to a screeching hault when my father passed. I was 8 and I couldn't handle the fact that I would never see my father again. My mother did the best she could.  I know that. But she couldn't handle it either. My dad had only been 29 and no one thought he'd die before her, at least not at age 29. She was 10 years older than him. After he died, my mother went into a deep depression. My sister, the only sibling that I knew I had at the time, was 16 years older than me with her own 3 year old child. She didn't live with us and it wasn't like we had a whole lot in common. My brother (who at this time thought was my uncle) was 18 years older than me, again....nothing in common. And lastly, my youngest sister, who I only knew existed when I turned 16. So it's just me and mom. And wait, her ex-husband, my oldest sister's father would come over time to time and try to help us out financially. He is a good man. He stayed friends with my mom and was there for my father's funeral. My nephew (the 3 year old child) became the closest to me. Out of all my family, we're still the closest. We're the only ones each of us has, that we can really be honest with. But, how can I, an 8 year old, talk to him, a 3 year old, about my feeling of sadness and darkness that consumed me. This was definitely, the icing on the cake, that sealed my fate to turn to mind and mood altering substances.

Take for today as an example. A light went on in my head. I use because I don't want to feel. Feel stress, feel sadness, feel anxious, anything negative....I was not given the tools to learn how to cope.

"Using IS my coping mechanism. I'm not trying to hurt ANYONE! I just don't know how to feel."

I don't want to be deceitful and lie. I don't want my son to be embarrassed of me. I don't want my fiancé to leave. I dont want to hurt the ones I love. But, like I say, "You have to Learn to Love Yourself before you can love others." Which is exactly what I am trying to do with these blogs. Stay clean long enough to truly love myself. Otherwise, I'll never show my amazing family how much I do love them.

And so, like I started with, I don't mean throw my mother under the bus, but we weren't a "nuclear" family at all. Not that that's a bad thing. But I missed that, growing up with a mother and father, and throw a couple of siblings in my own age. Don't get me wrong:

 I love All My Siblings and wouldn't trade them in for the world!