Apologies written February 5th, 2014

I always think about the fact that I'm single. Looking back I realize, that it's been a long time since I’ve been single this long. I don't even know how to date. I don't think I've ever dated. I just jumped headfirst into every relationship I've ever been in. In the past, I had such a disregard for my own safety and the healthiness of my choice that I allowed myself to love someone without even really knowing them. After a relationship ends, I strongly believe that every person should be single for at least half the time that they were in that relationship. I'll probably need longer than that.

This time last year I had myself convinced that if I treated my dogs as though they were humans that maybe they would actually understand me. Perhaps you think you can relate to that or you can empathize with how I was thinking, but I assure you it was simpler than what you might be thinking. You see, there are parts my mind that no longer work the way that other people's minds work. I find myself thinking like a child, perceiving like a child, and yet I'm in an adult body. I honestly had myself convinced that I was some sort of dog whisperer. Needless to say after a few months I realized how wrong I was. My dogs were more misbehaved than ever. Sorry dad. Glad to report that I’m treating my dogs like dogs again. I’ve already seen a major improvement.

I don't know why my perception about some things is so much different than my perception about others. I'm not always so naïve; I can distinguish fantasy from reality most of the time. Now more so than ever before. I’m at the point in my life where I am finally capable of being more realistic about my reality. I always believed I was going to die young. I lived my life as though it was going to end soon. I could never see a future for myself. Having this mindset meant that every decision I made had to be for the present time. I had to get everything done as fast as possible. Everything was a means to an end.

Imagine growing up thinking you only had 20 years to get everything right. Being just out of high school and thinking you had to be married and to have children within the next 10 years or it’ll be too late. I was so focused on what I thought I should be doing that I was blind to the failing marriages and single mothers and fathers happening all around me. Instead of focusing on reality, I focused on my own failures. Most of which I had been the cause of, but was too ignorant or selfish to recognize.

I don't know why I was so convinced that I only had a short period of time to live. I never really understood that I lived like that or thought like that until this very moment. It's possible it's because so many of my friends died while I was growing up. Or perhaps it's because I didn't grow up with my mother so I never saw what it was like to grow up as a woman. Even when I was around my friends mothers I still couldn't picture myself at that age. I've never been able to picture myself as an adult. Perhaps that's why I've been acting like a child my whole life. Maybe that's the difference now I have already died and now's the afterlife. For the first time in my life, I'm ready to be an adult. I'm sure my family is very excited to hear me say that. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I want to be an adult. I'm just saying that I'm ready to be an adult. I'm ready to take responsibility for my life.

I imagine you can understand what it's like to feel like this. I'm embarrassed by my past behavior. I'm smarter than the person I was. I knew what I was doing every time I made a mistake. I made those mistakes anyways. I know that I can never take those mistakes back. The only thing I can focus on now is proving that I'm not that person anymore. However, I still find myself disappointing people and it hurts more than it has ever hurt before. I still feel like there are a lot of expectations of me. I'm pretty sure I'm the person that expects the most. I know I talk a lot about my near-death experience. The truth is I hardly remember any of it. I was so out of it because of all the medication I was on and the time it took for my brain having to heal itself. Honestly, it all seems like a dream to me. The only reason I talk about how bad it was or how bad I was, is because my family tells me about it. It's almost embarrassing for me to talk about. I know that something happened to me. I remember how horrible it was being in the hospital but I feel like I should be doing better now than I am. My father assures me that I was far worse off than I realize, and that I've come a long way. It's hard for me to believe him.

The truth is I had over thousand strokes and the the potential neurological damage is far greater than I'd like to believe. If I believe that I was as bad off as they claim that I was then that means that I might not recover. I like to believe that I'm already recovered. The truth is that if I were recovered then why would I still have dreams of using drugs. I don't know if it's because they're still in my life in some way some distant way but somehow I end up using them in my dreams. Not even the drugs that nearly ruined my life. Usually other drugs, ones I had used in years prior to my recovery. If my subconscious can dream about using drugs all the while knowing that I'm risking my life, because I do know this in my dreams and I choose use them anyways, am I really recovered? Because what really matters is what will happen after I have my heart surgery. I think about that all the time. I'm now at the point in my life where I want to live my life but I still have this underlying heart condition that is threatening my life. I pretend it doesn't concern me. I look healthy on the outside so I feel like I should represent how I look. The truth is I do worry; I worry that I won't get fixed in time. That I'll be this close to changing my whole life and I will die anyways. So if I spend my time with you, no matter how little or how much just know that I am trying to use my time wisely. You must be very important to me to be part of my life. I won't waste another second on somebody that doesn't care about me.

Don't worry, I'm going to go back to my previous question about what will happen after having heart surgery. I don't want you to think that I'm even considering the possibility that I'll go back to doing drugs. God gave me a second chance and I will not fail him just as I will not fail you, not again. My concern isn't that I will go back to using drugs after I have heart surgery. My concern is that it will be harder for me to resist than it is today. I will resist, but as it is today, resisting is easy because I know will kill me if I do not. Right now staying clean is about survival. The truth is, somehow I've got in my mind that occasional drug use or recreational drug use is acceptable. I don't know when that happened. If you asked my mother I used to be so anti-drug back in junior high. I lost so many friends to drugs so many friends of mine had ended up dying or killing themselves because of drugs that I promised that I would never do that to myself or my family or other friends.

A few years later, something in me changed completely. I decided to try ecstasy for the first time. I had never done drugs quite like ecstasy before. My entire mindset about drugs changed that day. It was the worst mistake of my life. I ditched most of my old friends and started hanging out with all new “friends”, ones that tolerated and accepted recreational drug use. Of course, there were some few friends that I kept that I didn't tell about my drug use. I kept those friends separate from my new lifestyle. I kept those friends separate from my new life altogether. Thank God I did, otherwise I wouldn't have any friends today. I made a lot of terrible choices in my lifetime. I'm really sorry to all the people that I hurt. Words can never describe how I feel about what I did. I was a coward and I was selfish and I was a horrible friend to a lot of you.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “you are what you eat.”? My dad used to say it to me all the time when referring to my friends and it infuriated me. You have to understand, I am fiercely loyal. It's one of my biggest faults. I will defend a person that I care about till the ends of the earth whether they deserve it or not. I'm getting better at that now, but growing up I loved everyone unconditionally (ironically enough, I was not one of those people. Somehow I never believed that I deserved my own love). The truth is, when you surround yourself with negative, self-centered, filth, like I did, it becomes the norm for you and it slowly begins to mold your perceptions, thereby changing your reality. This happens no matter how strong you are. Believe me, I didn’t change who I was outwardly but instead and more dangerously I changed what I was on the inside. I allowed myself to become a person that I didn't even recognize anymore. I made excuses about my own choices. I make choices because of my excuses. No matter who you are the people you surround yourself with are your inspiration for who you will become. If you hang out with a bunch of workaholics you will most likely work more because all of your friends are at work all the time so why shouldn't you be?

Well, I’ve run out of time today. We’ll talk more, later. Feel free to email me or message me if you have any questions or just want to talk.

24 hour drug addiction hotline: 800.447.9081

© 2013, Courtney Prichard. “Except as provided by the Copyright Act [11-24-2013, etc.] no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher."