It was an 8-year struggle.
Growing up, I’d always thought of myself as happy enough in my own skin. Sure, I compared myself to others at times, but what girl doesn’t?
I knew my strengths and I knew my weaknesses, and I was happy being the person I was.
Upon becoming addicted to opioids, I went through severe depression for the first time in my life. I started questioning everything about me, from why I look the way I do, to why I was drawn to certain things – and were they good enough for someone else?
Was I good enough for someone else?
I’d been told all my life to stay away from dangerous substances.
I’d been warned of the damage they could do to my body, but that had nothing on what they did to my mind.
It didn’t matter that I was addicted unwillingly; I felt like a complete and total failure. I should have been stronger, should have known what I was getting into.
There were so many things I told myself I should’ve done differently, but in hindsight, how could I have known?
I was just doing the best I could with the circumstances I’d been given.
After fighting my addiction for 2 1/2 years, I thought once I was done — that was it. I could go back to life as I once knew it, and all the depression, all the self-loathing, would just be a thing of the past.
Something that happened to me once.
I didn’t realize how fundamentally opioid addiction would change me — forever.
After getting clean, I still felt like a failure. I still felt like I was worthless and had lost my chance in life, all because things turned out differently than I’d always planned.
Things had happened that others didn’t approve of, and as much as I tried to be okay, I struggled for years. I told myself things were different now, but I was stuck inside my head.
My addiction told me I would never amount to anything; that my life would be one big round of going through the motions.
I was so terrified to put myself out there and try again, because what if I let people down? What if I let myself down, and never amounted to anything more than what I was?
Did I really want to put myself through that again?
Before becoming addicted to opioids, I had been walking the path expected of me. I was crossing every t and dotting every i, and I thought I had everything figured out.
That’s how life was supposed to be, how things were supposed to go.
Being told I needed spine surgery wasn’t too huge of a roadblock. I thought I’d have the surgery and move on. Keep continuing life as I knew it, keep on the path that would lead to happiness.
But that wasn’t what happened.
Being addicted to opioids meant I failed — it meant I screwed things up. I thought overcoming opioid addiction would be the hardest thing I’d ever have to face, but it wasn’t.
Learning to let go and find happiness in circumstances out of my control was.
When I think back on the years after recovering from opioid addiction, I see a girl who couldn’t get past the fact that her life had been upset.
I see a girl who couldn’t recover from knowing she didn’t do things the way they were expected of her, a girl who chose to let being a recovered addict define her.
That girl was scared. She thought she’d lost her chance to be the person she’d always wanted to be. She didn’t realize her experiences were making her into someone better than what she’d planned for herself — if she could only learn to let go of the past.
I realize now that opioid addiction didn’t make me into someone who failed — it made me into someone who’s stronger than she could have ever hoped to be.
Someone who has empathy for others struggling; someone who knows what it’s like to struggle herself.
Surprisingly, that fact has given me more self-confidence than anything else.
Opioid addiction doesn’t define me. What defines me is what I choose to do with what I’ve been given.
And I no longer choose to let my circumstances affect how I feel about myself.
