Substance Use Disorders

It’s easy to get wrapped up in other people’s shit,
to let them drain you
like a vampire sinking its fangs in,
emptying whatever space you had left
without ever asking if you needed it to live.

Sometimes empathy becomes a magnet
for other people’s emotional chaos.
They want.
They spiral.
They vent.

And we listen.
And listen.
Feeling everything—
often before we are ready
to feel ourselves.

Within seconds we are underwater.
An emotional tsunami—
their emotions, then ours, then theirs again,
back and forth
until we can’t tell
what belongs to who.

We forget to come up for air.
Forget how to breathe,
how to detach,
how to swim instead of sink,
how to regulate instead of disappear.

We stay under
until the body demands oxygen.

Sometimes that takes minutes.
Sometimes days.
Sometimes years.
Sometimes decades.
Sometimes never.

So many of us were made into caregivers,
protectors,
containers—
by family, by circumstance, by survival.
We learned early
that love meant holding everything,
that saying yes kept us safe,
that collapse could wait.

Until it couldn’t.

Until the chest tightens.
Until the rage shows up—not cruel, not violent—
but precise.
Sharp.
A signal flare from the nervous system saying:
this is too much.

That’s the moment recovery actually starts.
Not with softness,
but with restraint.

With the hand on the edge of the pool.
With the pause before jumping in.
With the question no one taught us to ask:

Do I have the capacity for this
right now?

Sometimes the answer is no.
And no is not abandonment.
No is oxygen.

No, no, no—
I will not.
I cannot.
I cannot sit with this
until I have learned
how to sit with myself.

Recovery is not a straight line.
It is the push and pull
between wanting to help
and refusing to disappear.
Between old reflex
and new boundary.
Between love
and self-erasure.

I don’t always have the space.
I don’t always have the air.
And that is not a failure.

But sometimes—
with the right people,
the ones who notice when I’m holding my breath,
the ones who stay when I take the mask off—
I can give.

Not endlessly.
Not at my own expense.
But in rhythm.
In reciprocity.

I am learning to save my oxygen
for those who return it.
To offer space
only where space is shared.

And that—
finally—
is what it means
to come up for air.

#MightyPoets #Depression #PTSD #Anxiety #Grief #NarcissisticPersonalityDisorder #MentalHealth #SubstanceUseDisorders

What is a home—
four walls,
or the people inside them?

A place you grew up,
or the place you stayed the longest?

They say home is where the heart is,
but what if your heart
has been shattered
and the pieces never came back?

Some of mine are still at Grandma and Papa’s.
Where Alzheimer’s locked the doors.
Where Grandma forgot my name,
forgot her voice,
forgot us.

I watch Papa grieve
sixty-five years of marriage
to a woman who no longer remembers the life they built.

Christmas trees.
Breakfast tables.
Couches stacked with cousins.
Love.
Care.
Home.

I watch him drink himself into rage,
angry at a world
men like him helped create.

Some pieces were buried with Annie—
my first best friend,
my person.

She missed my graduation.
Or maybe I missed her.
I still don’t know why she’s gone.

Home is a collection of people
lost to time,
to overdose,
to silence.

My father.
My mother.
My sister.
My brother.

They seem at peace—
so why can’t I be?

Do they have more tools?
More resilience?
Are they stronger?

How—
when I have known more danger,
more trauma,
more loss,
again and again?

Hopeless.
Helpless.

Help.
Help.
Help.

Please—
just let me fall apart
then help me put the pieces back together.

Without judgements
Without advice
Without presenting options.

I care for unseen souls
because I know what it means
when home is grandparents,
aunts,
cousins—
but never parents,
never mine.

So what do you do with that?
Where do you put it
when home was never established
and everyone else keeps moving forward?

I don’t know.

But I am trying to learn.

#MentalHealth #SubstanceUseDisorders #Grief #MightyPoets #PTSD #Addiction #Anxiety #Depression

Community.
It’s funny—to step into one
and feel like you should already know how to lead it.
To feel like a mentor by instinct.
A brother, a sister, an auntie.
Someone steady for those searching for family,
for the brokenhearted.

To feel half empty,
spread thin like butter across too much bread,
yet still able to offer more than words—
advice,
a simple meal,
companionship,
love.

To recognize the lost in children and adults alike,
each just trying to isolate a little less,
to be seen without being stared at.
To go from decades of solitude
to dozens of new faces in weeks,
learning how to share pieces of myself
without bleeding out—
pouring carefully, not emptying,
offering warmth without erasure.

To have worn so many masks
that my face forgot its own shape.
To have built personalities like scaffolding—
temporary, necessary, exhausting—
only to realize
that being myself
was the only thing anyone needed.

What I have to give
is love, understanding, patience, kindness.
They cost nothing.
They are renewable.
They fill my cup instead of draining it.

So I ask myself:
Is this people-pleasing or relationship-building?
Is it hypervigilance or empathy,
or simply the recognition
that I carry light
and can set it down beside someone else
without losing my own?

Vulnerability is the birthplace of change.
And I am ready.

Ready to unmask.
To unburden.
To unravel
and stitch myself back together
with intention.

I am learning and unlearning—
again and again—
that I didn’t have to do it alone,
that I don’t have to do it alone now.

To find the missing pieces.
To melt the gold.
To fill the fractures with love,
therapy,
medication,
with men and women
who see the real me
and do not flinch.

Who watch me stumble and fall
and offer hands, not ultimatums.
Kind words, not commands.

To do what my father could not.
To be who he cannot.
To repair what he did not break—
but broke in me.

To unhear and unlearn and unremember
the voice that became my inner weather:

You’re weak.
You hit like a girl.

"This is what I am paying for?"

If five thousand dollars fell from the sky—
would you catch it?
If it saved you?
If it saved your family?

That question became an argument.
An argument sharp enough
for him to regret my education,
to throw it back at me,
to call it worthless—
while I hold a master’s,
while I have built more with less,
gone further on thinner ground.

I have done more with less help.
I have survived without a net.

Emotions are chaotic and messy
when numbness finally cracks.
They arrive loud,
uninvited,
terrifying.

Feel.
Feel.
Feel.
Stay.

Sit with it.
Breathe with it.
Write it down
before it writes you.

Change what you can.
Accept what you cannot.
Learn the difference.
Find the wisdom.
Find the courage.
Find the serenity
that comes from staying.

Face the future—
whether real or imagined,
whether prophecy or trauma
wearing a disguise.

Let the other voice sink back underground—
the one dripping venom,
fed by years of abuse,
by inherited self-loathing
soaked into skin,
into muscle,
into memory.

This body learned survival early.
This brain hardened where it had to.
Scarred—
emotionally, financially, physically—
but still standing.

This mind is done running.
Done pretending
that who I am
is something to escape.

I am a helper.
I help others
and I am learning to help myself.

I do not have to empty my cup
to fill someone else’s.
There is room here—
enough space
to hold others
because I am finally holding myself.

Look for the helpers.
Be a helper.

I am a helper
who asks for help.

And I want to stay angry
because anger feels safer
than grief—
safer than the pain,
the sadness,
the loss
of what cannot be repaired
by the one who broke it.

But I am learning
to brave the depths of my own soul,
to descend instead of recoil,
to name and process the trauma
rather than keep it caged at the surface—

so the pain doesn’t live
one breath away from eruption,
so it doesn’t stay coiled
just beneath my skin,
waiting to spill.

So it can move.
So it can settle.
So it can finally loosen its grip
and make room
for something quieter than survival.

#MentalHealth #CheerMeOn #Grief #Depression #Anxiety #Addiction #MajorDepressiveDisorder #MoodDisorders #SubstanceUseDisorders

Community.
It’s funny—to step into one
and feel like you should already know how to lead it.
To feel like a mentor by instinct.
A brother, a sister, an auntie.
Someone steady for those searching for family,
for the brokenhearted.

To feel half empty,
spread thin like butter across too much bread,
yet still able to offer more than words—
advice,
a simple meal,
companionship,
love.

To recognize the lost in children and adults alike,
each just trying to isolate a little less,
to be seen without being stared at.
To go from decades of solitude
to dozens of new faces in weeks,
learning how to share pieces of myself
without bleeding out—
pouring carefully, not emptying,
offering warmth without erasure.

---

To have worn so many masks
that my face forgot its own shape.
To have built personalities like scaffolding—
temporary, necessary, exhausting—
only to realize
that being myself
was the only thing anyone needed.

What I have to give
is love, understanding, patience, kindness.
They cost nothing.
They are renewable.
They fill my cup instead of draining it.

So I ask myself:
Is this people-pleasing or relationship-building?
Is it hypervigilance or empathy,
or simply the recognition
that I carry light
and can set it down beside someone else
without losing my own?

Vulnerability is the birthplace of change.
And I am ready.

---

Ready to unmask.
To unburden.
To unravel
and stitch myself back together
with intention.

I am learning and unlearning—
again and again—
that I didn’t have to do it alone,
that I don’t have to do it alone now.

To find the missing pieces.
To melt the gold.
To fill the fractures with love,
therapy,
medication,
with men and women
who see the real me
and do not flinch.

Who watch me stumble and fall
and offer hands, not ultimatums.
Kind words, not commands.

---

To do what my father could not.
To be who he cannot.
To repair what he did not break—
but broke in me.

To unhear and unlearn and unremember
the voice that became my inner weather:

You’re weak.
You’re a pussy.
You hit like a girl.
You’re a retard.

This is what I am paying to excavate
while debating ethics and legality.
If five thousand dollars fell from the sky—
would you catch it?
If it saved you?
If it saved your family?

That question became an argument.
An argument sharp enough
for him to regret my education,
to throw it back at me,
to call it worthless—
while I hold a master’s,
while I have built more with less,
gone further on thinner ground.

I have done more with less help.
I have survived without a net.

---

Emotions are chaotic and messy
when numbness finally cracks.
They arrive loud,
uninvited,
terrifying.

Feel.
Feel.
Feel.
Stay.

Sit with it.
Breathe with it.
Write it down
before it writes you.

Change what you can.
Accept what you cannot.
Learn the difference.
Find the wisdom.
Find the courage.
Find the serenity
that comes from staying.

---

Face the future—
whether real or imagined,
whether prophecy or trauma
wearing a disguise.

Let the other voice sink back underground—
the one dripping venom,
fed by years of abuse,
by inherited self-loathing
soaked into skin,
into muscle,
into memory.

This body learned survival early.
This brain hardened where it had to.
Scarred—
emotionally, financially, physically—
but still standing.

This mind is done running.
Done pretending
that who I am
is something to escape.

---

I am a helper.
I help others
and I am learning to help myself.

I do not have to empty my cup
to fill someone else’s.
There is room here—
enough space
to hold others
because I am finally holding myself.

Look for the helpers.
Be a helper.

I am a helper
who asks for help.

And I want to stay angry
because anger feels safer
than grief—
safer than the pain,
the sadness,
the loss
of what cannot be repaired
by the one who broke it.

But I am learning
to brave the depths of my own soul,
to descend instead of recoil,
to name and process the trauma
rather than keep it caged at the surface—

so the pain doesn’t live
one breath away from eruption,
so it doesn’t stay coiled
just beneath my skin,
waiting to spill.

So it can move.
So it can settle.
So it can finally loosen its grip
and make room
for something quieter than survival.

#MentalHealth #Grief #Abuse #PTSD #Depression #Addiction #SubstanceUseDisorders #MajorDepressiveDisorder

All About The TIPS

The mental health acronym TIPS is short for Treatment Improvement Protocols. It focuses on the three CS which are connection, co- regulation, and calm and is a series of best-practice guidelines that includes exercises and strategies like therapeutic anchor points, giving positive praise, and focusing on a person’s internal world and survival skills. Last but not least, most people consider TIPS to be very effective and it was developed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as a way to help assist with the prevention and treatment of mental and substance use disorders.

Hi, my name is Cornflowercollie13. I'm looking for
Community and support. I’m currently living with an active addiction and in an abusive marriage. Mental, emotional, verbal and at times physical but not for a while. I work as an adult entertainer from home and live in a city where I have no close friends. The only people I talk to are my online clients and my dogs and various animals that I care for. I feel myself disappearing and it scares me. I feel like I used to be a vibrant, outspoken, artistic woman and now I’m an empty shell. I would love to find people who are either in the same industry as myself. Or people who are also actively choosing to stay in an abusive relationship. Animal lovers a plus. #MightyTogether #Depression #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #SubstanceUseDisorders #Trauma #PersonalityDisorders #MightyPets

Hi, my name is RecreatedByGravity. I'm here because I want to live this life to the best of my ability.

#MightyTogether #Dysautonomia #FunctionalMovementDisorder #SubstanceUseDisorders #ChiariMalformation