Make Google your friend…
**Trigger warning
Those first few weeks after my husband tried to take his life and addiction had rudely barged into our life, google became both a source of comfort and a provider of unimaginable pain and disappointment.
I desperately wanted to read about someone who was going through what I was going through!
I wanted to read about their story and feel like they were reaching out their hand to me to help guide me through this craziness.
I wanted to read about their journey, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.
I didn’t need things sugar coated, I needed truth, transparency, honesty but most of all I was yearning for connection. I felt so alone my bones were aching. I felt like I was treading water in the darkest, deepest part of the ocean and being alone in it was terrifying.
I searched and I searched and I found nothing. Yes, there was heaps on addiction - not all helpful, but there was heaps - but where were all the courageous souls fighting alongside their loved ones? Where was their support? Where were their stories? I couldn’t hear their voices; all I could hear was silence and it was deafening.
The silence just felt like a heavy blanket of shame that fell heavily on my shoulders. It felt like it was there to remind me that I too should be silent - don’t reach out for you’ll be judged. Don’t share what is going on or you will be abandoned. Don’t talk about it, you will make others uncomfortable, they won’t know what to say, they will see you differently, you are now cloaked in stigma, wrapped in the shame of addiction……
I admit, it took me some time but here I am now. I am passionate about being that person I was desperately seeking all those years ago when I sat alone, wrapped in my heavy blanket of shame, desperately looking for that hand reaching out. I am shining a light on what addiction really is and shame has no place here. I can think of many words to describe this journey - heartbreaking, lonely, isolated, scary, confusing, debilitating, but when we find that hand reaching out, hopefully HOPE creeps in, maybe also COMPASSION and eventually LOVE.
If you are reading this, welcome, I am so glad you are here xx