Dear, Anit, Jahrin, Amanda and Helena..

I can’t thank you enough for all the kind replies you posted for me. It’s been 8 months since I made this post. I haven’t had any relapse ever since. After the lowest point of my life in February, I took some time to come home to my Mom for 3 months. Sober up and read read and read a lot of books just to distract my mind from craving. I also work out at the gym and this turns out to be the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. Knowing it took a lot of hard work to shape up, I was thinking to myself back then, I will not let any substance abuse break me down again. As my body feels great, I feel my soul also being fed. I become better.

I got a job offer from other town in the country, so I moved in May to this town, Bali. I worked and slowly, I was on my way getting my life back. Everything is great. I paid off all of my debts and begin to have savings, again. I met a new girl and although at first I was afraid and thought it might be too soon to start a new relationship, I ended up dating her and I was happy. She’s a great companion.

But I guess, that’s just the way life works. One of the biggest project I’m handling suddenly terminated for no reason by my client. The project involved some people, including one of my good friend. She was a young mother who recently trying to brand herself as a travelblogger. She thinks, with the project being canceled, as one of the buzzers, her name will be totally ruined. She blamed me for this.

Suddenly, I was where I was a year ago. I could feel the failures, disappointments, and embarrassments. Although people keep saying she’s just being dramatic and panic , I can’t help but to blame myself. Even though our friends said someday she will understands, I can’t help but thinking that, again, I’ve disappointed my friend, ones I love. Not to mention that my Mom and brother have been counting on me to give them money as they know I’m starting to work again. With the project being canceled, I lost one of my biggest income. I have enough money to live for myself but not to send money to them again. I feel powerless.

Now, here I am. It’s been almost a month and I feel zero motivation. I bail out on every project I’m doing. I ignore several great job offers. I’ve been doing nothing since then. I haven’t really go out from my room for 2 weeks now. I did go out yesterday to have a meeting and go to the cinema with my gf but that’s just it. I don’t think I really enjoy it anyway. I’m not living in the moment.

I realized several days ago that I might be having PTSD. Talked to a friend of mine who’s also struggling with PTSD for more than 3 years, she agreed that I might be having an episode now. Although she’s not a psychiatrist but what she said somewhat makes sense to me. I was always afraid of failures since a little kid. When the meth chaos ruined my life, I have a very hard time making a peace with myself, as you can see on my very first post. And when I try to fix my life up and I face failure again, this kinda throw me back to those years where bad things happened. She thinks I haven’t been able to forgive myself. That might be just right.

Another problem is that my gf is very uncommon with this psychological things. She has no idea what I’m dealing with. She’s been really understanding tho. I can see she’s also struggling with my mood swings and ultra sensitivity. She might be feeling clueless but I can’t seem to find away to talk it out to her. I’m so afraid of being judged. I feel like, since she only knew me for couple months, she might be thinking that I’m this lazy bstrd who just doesn’t want to work. Of course, I don’t know for certain whether she’s thinking like that or not, but that always stopped me from being open to her.

But today, since I already know what state I am, I’m confident I’ll be back on my feet in no time. I’ve been through the worse and I survived. So to everyone out there who’s struggling right now, I just want to say that, please don’t give up. Life would test you, would punch you, would kick you but it would also give you much reasons to be grateful and not giving up the fight. The reason could be as simple as sincerity of the strangers in this site that I and everyone else could get. Although it’s hard to believe this, but it’s true, you are not alone. I am not alone. So, thank you, Fam.

Now,  I could really help some advice on how to forgive myself for things I did in the past and how to learn to open up with my partner or shouldn’t I?

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Dee Dee.

Dear, Anita..

When I said, Demon, I was referring to so many things. You could say one of them is Fear, yes. It could also be Ego, Pride, Depression, and many other things that usually be the root of many negative acts.

And please do, keep communicating with me. I might be lost now, but I was and will always be a good student of life. I just forgot how and where to start learn again. Your all good intentions won’t gone to waste as I will try my best to take all the positive advice anyone gave me.

Dee.

Dear, XenopusTex..

In Indonesia, where I lived, this is a very dangerous time for the youth. You can find meth as easy as if you were looking for a mint gum. You can get it delivered to your door with just a simple text. No need to go and hide in the dark alley to meet a dealer for transaction, everybody is doing it out in public nowadays. If it were 5 years ago, where to find meth need so much efforts, I doubt that my addiction could be this bad. But now it’s almost as common as buying cigarette. So if I have to point out someone, yes, the drugs dealer are ones to blame.

Dee.

Dear, Staceyroyce..

When you point out that from my story, I can’t help but to feel sad. Yes, I did that once to a good friend of mine. But what I did after the meth addiction took the best of me were series of unforgivable mistakes.

I lied dozens times. I manipulate my friends just to gain or borrow some cash to buy more meth. I know they love me, even until this very moment. But maybe they feel very tired of dealing with my addiction problems, they start to leave me one by one. I can’t really blame them, who would cope up with such disappointment over and over again?

So this value you said, it kinda washed away by all the bad things I did. And when you said remember who am I in my core, I can’t help but thinking maybe I am such a manipulative addict to the very core. If I wasn’t, how come I have the hearts to do all those things to my friends and family?

How I wish the light in me goes brighter each day.. Unfortunately, in this very dark moment, I can only sense that I’ve been feeding the demons inside me with my meth addiction. It gets bigger and now I can’t contain it anymore. Sometimes it’s even hard to tell the difference between the real me and that demon inside.

How can you tell? How can you keep the demon in line when he had become as big as mine?

Dee.

Dear, Anita..

Taking your wise advice, I am now trying to see and learn what’s the truth behind everything. Right now, I am at this phase where I can slowly begin to tell the difference between two voices in my head.

The one is the depressed mind talking and keeping me down all the time. Achieving paradoxical effect everytime, it asks me to do something right away, do some works, pay my debts. Then suddenly, in the middle of a project it told me to stop any of my efforts for it’ll never washed away the disappointment I caused to those who loved me.

And the other one is probably the real me, who asks me to take it slow. Give myself some time, a break from all of this chaos I have cause. This one is actually asking me to wait for the right moment before getting back to work and fix things. This one is actually telling me that it’s okay to wait, don’t worry about the age as it is only numbers. It says that when all the disappointment and shame washed away, eventually, I will find myself again before I realize.

What do you think about the things I started learn to see, Anita? Do you think I’m on the right track this time?

Dee.

Dear, Regina..

Please know that your kind and sincere response to my post, gives me such a warm feeling I haven’t felt for some time.

Yes, I believe that addiction, in any form, is torturing. I can understand your addiction towards your bf is also killing you. But the thing with my meth addiction is it changed me to the worst version of myself. I lied to many people, especially thoae who loved me. I hurt them to feed my addiction. I am so ashamed of myself to the point I can’t even look in the mirror and not wanting to kill myself.

I don’t know how my story will end, but I sincerely wisj that yours will turn out to be a happy ending. Keep the light of love fire up in you, Regina. But the most important thing is, don’t forget to love yourself.

Dee.