Feeling worthless is something most addicts are familiar with.
For years after taking my last dose of Vicodin, I felt like I’d lost my chance at life. That, while I was clean and had a lot to look forward to, I couldn’t go back and change the past.
I couldn’t go back and go to college. I couldn’t go back and have another chance at the opportunities I missed while I was addicted to opioids.
I couldn’t go back and feel like I made something of myself.
You might think this sounds ridiculous. You might think it’s absurd that any 25-year-old would feel this way, especially when they have so much of life ahead of them. Why couldn’t I go to college? And why couldn’t I take other opportunities? They may not be the same ones I missed, sure, but new ones always come.
I agree. It was absurd that I felt that way, but try as I might, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t worth anything anymore. That because I went through that period in my life where I struggled with opioid addiction, I didn’t deserve the same things I might’ve felt entitled to before.
This feeling went on for years.
It didn’t go away with therapy or with other treatment methods, and no amount of positive self-talk seemed to make a difference.
You know what the only thing that did was? Time.
As time passed, I continued going through life and realized that I don’t have to feel resigned to a life filled with isolation and fear. Just because I felt like I failed, it didn’t mean I was a failure.
Time made me realize that believing I was worthless did nothing but cause harm. It kept me from reaching my full potential, and it kept me from feeling truly happy.
I started to make myself do things and put myself out there – something I wasn’t capable of before. I started to try again, and not just take life as it came.
After years of feeling worthless and like I’d never amount to anything, I started to believe that I could change my life. That I had the power to create the exact life I wanted, even if it did look different from the life I always thought I’d have.
I thought I overcame that feeling – that I’d never feel worthless again.
Yet, as it always does, life has continued to throw hurdles in my path. One in particular has tested my confidence so thoroughly that I’ve began to feel those same old feelings again – that I just can’t do it; that because of the past, I’m no better than worthless.
Even now, I fight these feelings that continue to creep in, the ones that tell me it would be easier to give up than continue fighting as hard as I am.
But I’ve walked this road before. I know there are good things at the end of it, no matter how hard it is to get there. I know that giving in to the way I feel will do nothing but make that journey much longer and harder than it needs to be.
What do you do when the feelings come back then?
So, in my experience, the only way to overcome feeling worthless is by fighting. By giving yourself time to heal and time to see your full potential and worth.
It’s not going to happen overnight, and it’s not going to be easy. But, when those good times do come, and when you find yourself feeling happy and hopeful again, it’s going to be worth it.
It always is.
