LETTING GO

I have had a very hard time learning to let go. I’ve been hanging onto the hand of the girl I used to be. A girl that was abused, addicted, and scared. I believed that I would be judged on the life I used to live if anyone found out about it. I felt like I had a secret and that no one would understand and that they wouldn’t want to even try.

There was a time when I lived off of the avails of crime. I used every drug under the sun to try to forget the pain of multiple sexual assaults as a young girl, to forget the failures and the love that I didn’t have. I let others lead me around because I didn’t trust myself, I never believed that I could be ok alone. I lived in survival mode and the only way I could get by was to keep believing that what I was doing was ok. I was a high functioning addict, living in the suburbs, playing house with a major drug dealer. This man was extremely abusive, especially verbally, though physically sometimes too. We spent 7 years together. The first time he punched me in the stomach I should have left. I was only 17, he was 20. I didn’t know that I deserved better and I believed he would change but he didn’t. I made excuses for him every single time. I can’t count the number of times I hid behind the bathroom door terrified he would find a way in or possibly rip it right off of the wall. I wish I could tell you that I finally found the courage to leave him. He left me. I hated him but I was still crushed. My tender 23-year-old ego couldn’t stand the rejection. I begged him to come back but he had already moved on with another woman. Maybe this woman was one of my guardian angels, come to sweep him off his feet and out of my life. Looking back, I remember how devastated I was and now I see this as one of the best things that ever happened to me. I was never going to fly under that oppression. It feels like a lifetime ago now, but I’ve still been attached to the feelings of low self-worth from it all.

I came to realize that you need to sit in the fire of your own feelings in order to heal your heart’s wounds

I tried to hide the pain and suffering from all those years. I buried them deep down inside of me, figuring it was a safe place to hide them. Hiding secrets makes you sick. That’s exactly what happened. Mental illness developed as I was trying to live my new sober straight-line life and I couldn’t function. I would break down into tears multiple times per day and had anxiety 24/7. I had to go on medication to help control the panic attacks and deep depression. This was also one of the best things that ever happened to me. The medication gave me the opportunity to function and get through one of the hardest times in my life. I really wanted to start moving forward but I always feared my past life would catch up with me. One way or another, I knew these skeletons were going to tumble out of my closet, I just didn’t think it would be voluntarily.

Thankfully, I came to realize that you need to sit in the fire of your own feelings in order to heal your heart’s wounds. Slowing down to allow these feelings to surface is crucial to emotional growth. I sat in so much pain during this healing process. I spent a year and a half feeling all of the horrors that have ever happened to me in order to crack my heart wide open. It made me believe that a heart must break in order to be whole.

The woman I am today carried herself out of a street life and into the life of her dreams. I believe I have hung onto my past up until now because it’s been a transition that was completed together; the old me into the new. We held each other’s hands to have enough strength to rise up. Now that I stand tall and confident in the person that I am, I can let her slip away. I can believe that I’m truly worthy of the life I have today because I have worked so hard for it. It is time to let go.

The woman I am today carried herself out of a street life and into the life of her dreams

Be Well Friends.