“Who am I ,really?”

“Who am I really?” seems to be a common question to the majority of the human race, especially with people living with Mental Illness and or Addiction. I spent years asking myself this same question, I searched for myself or where I thought I was. I would do things that I thought people wanted me to do in search of who I really was. Acceptance is something we as human beings strive for it is what our minds, soul and heart need to feel alive. Without any sort of validation we feel empty inside if we feel empty then we simply just stop searching. That is where addiction comes in to fill that void of belonging, sure when you are rocked off your ass on booze your frame of mind gets so twisted you really do not care what any one thinks. As this poses many problems I will focus on just one, not caring what people think is dangerous because that is not how we are wired as humans. We do care what people think, we do need to be accepted in many ways, we need love and nurturing from others. People can say all day they do not care deep down in their heart they do. They are just afraid of showing they care from fear of rejection, which we all display from time to time. Think of it this way if you went to a social get together and there was only one person there you knew, you would just go mingle with everyone or find that one person and glam onto them like a leech. I am thinking you would most likely be the leech in fact %98 of us would be. Why is that? well that one person we know gives us a guarantee of what we need in order to feel safe at this gathering, that is a sense of  validation and acceptance meeting new people we do not have that guarantee. Which brings me back to the “Who am I really” I have work very hard on this for the last seven months during my journey, I finally got to know a really cool person who I actually like, myself. I no longer feel the need to get the false gratification from the booze, the false sense of validation I now know and understand who I really am. Why I think the way I do, what makes me happy, sad, angry. It was not until I re-learned who I am deep deep inside did I finally come to the terms of feeling accepted b y others. For so long I have always felt I did not fit in anywhere or with anyone. I felt as I needed to be drunk or high in order to fit in be the “true” me truth is that was not me, being drunk is not who I am its what I used to do. I still have moments to where I do not feel comfortable and =feel the need to glam onto that one friend at a gathering the only difference now is I am able to venture out and unhook myself from that friend to meet other people. Sure I will always worry about being accepted I just do not feel I have to prove anything anymore I am confidant in who I am as a person. I have to come to terms with my faults and learned to embrace my strengths. So many people spend their lives living for the sake of others approval, when the most important person that we need approval from is also the hardest to get is our own. Society as a whole is very judgmental on so many levels so why make it that much more difficult, well that would be the fault of what we learn in our early years. Self-esteem is not given to you it is something that is learn and manifest itself in the brain it can either make you or brake you in your adult life. Some cases in the teenage years, that is why so many kids these days turn to the aide of narcotics and alcohol to numb that pain of not feeling wanted. Such a fragile thing self-esteem and it plays such a crucial role in our lives, it can go from high to low in a matter of seconds. Fear of this is what stops many people from doing the things they want to in life, the fear of rejection which will damage the self-esteem. In my early recovery I learned that I still have a little boy inside so I became a fierce protector of him. I know what my weak points are so I protect them. It is so easy to write about this but to actually apply it to your own life is the up hill battle, I can only speak on my personal experience but to me it is worth the climb. I truly feel I am a better person than i was seven months ago, I know I still have work ahead of me just now it is easier for me since I no longer feel I have to be accepted by anyone aside from myself. Self validation is very powerful and can take you a long way in life, next time you walk past a mirror stop say”Hi, How are you today?” sounds silly but seriously. The stigma that many of us grew up with is that if you talk to yourself then you need a rubber room and a one size fits all jacket. Think about it like this you have to live with you 24/7 no breaks right? So why not get to know you say “hi” give yourself that positive affirmation after all we only get one chance at life, mine as well be happy for the better part of it.

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