Recovery

Some say recovery is learning to live life again, but I disagree. It is learning to live for the first time. Chances are your life has been this dark cloud of shame for as long as you can remember. Everything before your suffering seems to not exist or you find ways to say that you were always suffering. So it isn't learning to live again, if it was you would have some idea of what life was like before you started suffering. But you never do, everything seems so dark and sad. Your entire life just seems to be this dark cloud following you wherever you go. But recovery is starting from scratch, it's like being a baby again. Everything seems new and foreign to you. The idea of waking up and not cutting seems as difficult as saying "hi" for the first time. Not faking a smile is as difficult as walking for the first time. You just have to go through life and not pretend for the first time in years. But you just have to do it. Because you know everyone is counting on you because, for the first time, people actually know and they want to help you. So instead of doing all this on your own, you at least have people around you. But in some ways, that's worse. Before, the only person you could disappoint was yourself, but now, there are people around you who want the best for you. And if you relapse, you are disappointing all of them. So again, you want to do everything on your own and you start hiding things and get back to your old habits. But then when they find out, you have all those looks of shame again. So recovering isn't even about your happiness. It's learning to not be so selfish and to start thinking of the other people around you who want you to get better.