So I'm a callous, heartless, bitch.

Maybe I hold onto my view so desperately because to break away from it is to admit that my father DID love me, just not enough and that would break me. I'm clutching to the idea that he didn't care with both hands, knuckles white, like it's the ledge between myself and death.

And really, it kind of is.

Could I handle knowing that while my father loved me, he loved drugs and alcohol more? That while he looked at me the same way my husband looks at our children, it didn't matter? That even though he cradled me in his arms and cried with happiness he STILL thought only about his next fix?

So I cling to my beliefs. I wear them like a well loved jacket and never take them off because the cold would cut through my insides.

He didn't try.

If he had maybe I would feel differently. You can't say that someone has tried to get clean or stay with his family when he walks away from it, when he hasn't been to rehab or counseling, when his every "attempt" is met with more drugs and a stop at the bar on the way home because it was "calling" to him.

Do I sound callous?

Yes, I fucking do.

Because I've been there. I was scraping meth off a public bathroom floor to shove up my nose bad. I was so high I peeled the "skin" from my eyeballs until they swelled so much I couldn't shut my eyelids bad. I was dealing to survive bad. I was pouring beer into soda cans to drink at church bad. I was snorting in the high school bathroom bad. I was so far gone nothing even registered anymore.

And then my child registered.

It was like spending my entire life in a wasteland full of heat and dry staleness then being given a sink full of water. My life literally began and ended in that moment. There was a choice between continuing and finding a new life.

So I turned away.

I lost every friend I currently had. I just stopped going where we used to go and stopped calling. I didn't answer them. I detoxed and stayed clean alone because I was terrified of telling someone like a doctor and having them decide I was an unfit mother and taking my life saving child away. I spent my entire pregnancy getting ready for college and sitting on my grandparents couch reading so many books I can't even remember the authors trying to escape the pain.

The calling.


And that's the thing. I know what the calling is like. Drugs still call my name. My entire family had to move 6 hours away from my home town because the calling was too much. It's this voice in your head that tells you everything will be alright and better if you just go with what you know. Go with the drugs. Go with your friends.

Do you know how much you could accomplish if you just got ONE tiny bowls worth of meth? And how much weight you'd lose. If you were pretty enough you could even get it free. You could clean your entire house. Your husband would love it. You could play with your kids without pain. You won't cry everyday. You won't be tempted to cut because you'll finally be HAPPY.

Lies. So many fucking lies that have to be acknowledged and fought or simply believed.

I chose to fight.

I used every trick I had in me to win this constant battle against using and giving in. Does that make me strong? I don't know. Maybe. To me it just means that I survived. That this bullshit I let control me for so long didn't actually win.

But that's the thing.

Giving "weak" people the excuse of being weak is just that. An excuse. There is no weak and strong when it comes to a child. There is just doing everything within you to give them the life they deserve. It's loving them enough to realize that you're totally fucking up and need to become an adult.
It does no good to let people believe they're weak. To give them excuses. They don't need anymore excuses, they have a trillion on their own!

I need this to function. I'm not actually that bad. I still pay my bills. I see my child, on the weekends, one day, for a few hours. No one knows I'm on drugs because I don't act any different. I look incredibly sexy, I have no side effects related to drugs at all. I'll quite before I become like him.

Fucking news flash.

You ARE like him.
Everyone knows.
You don't pay your bills.
And you look terrible.

I would much prefer my husband, friend, even a random fricken stranger to say "I have to walk this bar everyday when I go to work and everyday it calls to me. It's getting harder and harder to walk past it without wandering in for jut a second... Can you please walk with me?" Than to tell me he couldn't help it because the drugs and alcohol just kept pushing at him until he had no choice but to succumb.

THAT'S true weakness. Giving in without actually fighting.

Strength is giving everything to the fight until you're breathless and shaking but still standing.

Everyone has that option some just choose not to take it because it's easier to do what they've always done. I take offense to people that live in a bubble of weak people vs strong ones. It's like saying my battle wasn't as bad as there's because I just don't understand. I'm tired of hearing that its just "easier" fir some people.

No it fucking wasn't, but I did it anyway.

Someone recently likened it to sweets. "If someone told you to stop having candy and soda and sweets or you'd never see your kids again, you couldn't."

Yes. Oh yes I would. I would walk away again, in a heartbeat. Because nothing is worth more than my children.