I carry myself differently now, the only words strung together that I have to those in recovery to describe my stride on a journey that I have only just started. If you pick that apart in every possible way, then like me your brain tends to do way too much, and trying to put on paper what is in my spastic brain is as easy as finding a needle in a haystack…. After I organize each strand by size and colour. So more importantly, I will add that I won’t carry myself like I once did.

Pause for dramatic effect ……

The perspectives of myself I had etched in stone started as repeated whispers in front of a mirror. Things like Addict, Useless, and Disappointment stained my personality and were then molded into a measurement of my worth that I believed defined me. I carried these labels like aggressive guard dogs at my side that I convinced myself were protecting me. Threw scenarios and situations that would make Stephen King grip the pages I found myself on a Monday evening sitting at a table avoiding the eye contact of a room of strangers determined to prove I couldn’t belong.

Fast forwarding threw dozens of tear-jerking moments and realizations, a community of neighbors unknowingly challenged my obscured view of myself. Words like empathy, and understanding wore away the stone-etched conviction that I carried, my excessively high defensive walls that only reflected what little value I decided I could have were finally something that I could analyze. This was an extremely important step, shedding light on the purpose they held deflated them taking the power they held, and opened a view I’d never had before.

Connection, connection, connection

A word heard a thousand times in the recovery life, but only understood as something detrimental when felt.

And with that, I don’t believe everything, I think anymore, and every time I remember I can forgive again.

Felicia is a person in recovery that has been welcomed into the Highlands Community and has become a beloved friend of At Home in Highlands. She is now a valued member of the core group that guides the work of At Home in Highlands.