Trust Me

I lost my parent’s trust for a while, when I was going through my mental health struggles. Every time I attempted, I lied to them as to where I was going before I did it. My first attempt, the car crash, I kept it a secret that it was intentional for almost a year. All of my overdoses I always said I was going for a drive or that I had to go to the store; and then I just never came back. I felt guilty at the time, knowing what I was doing and what I was about to do to my parents. However, I also wasn’t in the proper mindset to think about their feelings at the time. What I didn’t realize at the time of my attempts, was that every time I did that behavior, I lost their trust each time. And their trust wasn’t lost in little bits and pieces, chunks of their faith and trust in me were lost each time until there was none left.

It took many years to gain that trust in me back, and even now I know they trust me, but I also know there is a small piece of fear for them that I will try to hurt myself again. And it hurts me, tremendously to think about what I did to them and the fact that I lied to them. I know I have said this before, but lying to them and hurting them goes against so many of my values, and my mental health struggles made me stray so far from who I was as a person, I turned into someone I didn’t know anymore. I am sure my parents felt the same way, and had so many questions. The helpless feelings they most likely had, still hurts. And usually it doesn’t hurt me to talk about my experiences anymore because I have overcome them, however, the feelings that are arising from writing this, is harder than I thought.

But I have, and still do, work on the guilt and shame I feel because of the hurt I did to my parents, and it does get easier to work through and deal with. But, like everything else, it is an ongoing process and may need to be readdressed from time to time when the feelings come back. I think it is important to talk about how recovery is not linear. It isn’t always positive experiences all the time, but the periods of joy and content do stretch out for longer amounts of time. Also, the symptoms and the struggles and the setbacks, they get easier and lighter. They don’t drag me down as far as they used to, and therefore they have less power over me and I am able to regain control over myself.