#actuallyrecovery

[girlbrutalist]

via @ghosted1996 on instagram. hard truths

[re-co-ver-blog]

Moving Forward

2018 was ruthless and knocked me down more times than I can count. I’ve lost family, friendships, and for a bit, my sense of self. I allowed myself to become reliant on other people for happiness, instead of finding it in myself. I let myself fall back into old behaviours and thinking patterns. For the first time in my academic career, I failed a class. I had days and weeks where getting out of bed was so daunting it gave me panic attacks. I relapsed into my eating disorder and self-injury, for a brief period. 

But I also grew a lot in 2018. I got back into therapy, I’ve made new friends and let go of those that only made toxicity fester. I let go of a love that I never thought I’d be able to. I’m connecting more with family, discovered new interests while reconnecting with old ones, and I managed to get an A in every other class this term. I’ve finally figured out what I want my future to look like, and now I can start working towards it.

2019 is going to be continuing that growth. Working harder in therapy, using the aids that are given to me instead of stubbornly insisting I can do it on my own. Communicating more with those I love, and learning to love my body and myself, stopping the habit I have of trying to make myself fit into moulds of what other people want me to be. I’m going to do my best to be my best, and I’m excited for it.

[apricitic]

this is gonna be kind of a longer post but i think an important one so here goes

the thing about recovery sort of regardless what stage you’re at: you probably feel some pressure to be a concept before a person, but you’re a person, and that’s okay.

what i mean is i remember when i first became a huge outspoken activist who had ‘recovered’ from rape and abuse, and for months i felt like i wasnt allowed to have bad days or bad thoughts or even imperfect reactions because i suddenly felt like my job was to be... recovery personified. i blinked and suddenly i had a few thousand people staring at me needing me to prove a happy ending and it was terrifying in a way i hadnt considered, and then a friend of mine looked me in the eyes when i was talking about not feeling like i could breathe and said, “you know you’re a human being right?” and as stupid as it sounds i just said “oh” and fell silent for a while because honestly no id forgotten i was more than just what people wanted me to be or even saw me as

and i remember at my all-time lowest low, before id even tried recovery and when everything was at its worst, even then i felt like i wasnt allowed to be a person but instead brokenness personified. it was sort of the flip, where i couldnt have good days or good thoughts or react to things well because then i wasnt doing as badly as i thought people needed to think of me doing

i remember this feeling cropping up randomly through recovery of having to have a consistent X Y or Z because i was meant to be something not someone, when in reality i was just a person

i suppose what im trying to say is sort of a duh moment but: you’re a person. whatever you’re doing, however many bad days or good days, regardless of how erratic or uniform your progress/feelings/journey are/is, it’s okay. you dont have to be doing something different to be what you are. 

whoever you are and whatever stage youre at, its not your job to prove to yourself or anyone else that you are at that stage. you dont have to embody what you think that stage means, either to you or society, because you are much more than that stage and youre going to live beyond it just like how you lived before it

[unstablemotions]

life is slowly sprouting inside of me

i’m gonna live again

[bpdfaker]

[drumshoww]

please, even when you feel like giving up, hold on.

[recoversuggestions]

You're beautiful. Even though you can't see it now, people around you do.  

You have no reason to compare yourself to other people because you're just as perfect.

[messy-beautiful-grace]

when you’re depressed but determined to enjoy your vacation anyway

source: theswimreaper insta