Of all the steps back, I have taken in my life, none of them would have prepared me for what was ahead in life. I have faced jails, institutions, and certain death through addiction and mental illness, that I never thought I would be where I am at today. Failure is the catalyst that drives us forward; it’s almost religious in a way – the way I’ve seen God is to be shown the Devil. If I hadn’t fallen down as hard as I did, I would have not been able to find my way forward.
In November of last year, I suffered a really bad manic episode. It was totally my fault; I had stopped taking a crucial medication at the advice of my doctor because I was feeling better. This led to three trips to the hospital, back-to-back, where I ended up losing my boyfriend, my job, and my self respect. I was mourning the loss of these things for months, when I realized that it was God who was testing me, it was needed to push me to propel me forward. I am still mourning my relationship – I miss my boyfriend terribly, but God has allowed us to stay in communication helping me build what was broken. I managed to keep my apartment, and my car is still working beautifully, and even though my savings became depleted, I have been able to slowly build back what was lost.
I had another setback with that manic episode where I had called my ex-mother-in-law and told her some not so nice things. She turned around and threatened to have me investigated for the time I was a payee for her son. I loved her son so much, and I kept his money safe and did whatever he asked me to do with it, but it still scared me because no one has gone after me that way before – again another failure in a relationship that I am mourning, but the success is I won’t let her put fear in my heart. Her son destroyed my life – putting the crack pipe in my mouth, stealing my car, and getting us both in jail – I did so much for him and gave my all to him, it’s almost a slap in the face to be honest.
But through all these mishaps and failures, I have found success. I am almost 4 years sober; I am still living the best life I could possibly live, and I have friends and family in my life I never had. Nothing could have prepared me for the setbacks in life, but that’s what life is isn’t it? Life is a series of ups and downs and unexpected events that can derail even the most secured plan – and even though I was flying high in November and on top of the world, something, some force, deemed to knock me off that high pedestal with a lesson in mind. The adventure now, is finding out what that lesson is and learning from it.
Stay Tuned.
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