winning!?

Seriously though these are good ones, I don't care how many cliches there are - I'll have an assistant someday to go through and read all these and do things like UPDATE THE TRUE CLICHES POST! link it here maybe too... whatever, you get the idea future assistant. If not, you're fired. Here we go:

rehab said I'm only as sick as my secrets

...and now I have none. Bizarre, I know, but seriously: after putting myself through mental hell for so long, how many fucks do I have left for "what other people think of me"? NONE! I've eliminated the majority of my friends, pissed off plenty of others just for the hell of it, lost my mind a time or 12 (I don't trust anyone who hasn't gone nuts at least once), felt miserable as shit for a year non-stop, found my own group to overcome adversity together with* More on that, but ya know, #endthhestigma and all. Maybe I should break these thoughts out...

Insert Title of List When I Think of One

1. MALFY, romanticizing mental illness is actually the best compliment you could ever get. Therefore obviously I want to help, but for now keep doing you babe because you're crushing life.
2. If the folks of AA are right about the fact you're only as sick as your secrets, then this has been the moment I've been waiting for without even knowing it (some would say I actively resisted it, but no need to split hairs here) - I officially gave up my biggest baddest secret to the people I respect the most and therefore didn't want to tell.
3. Clearly since I did not have enough trauma or adversity in my life, I decided to embark on a brave mission to seek some out on my own - can't learn to overcome adversity in a charmed/blessed life! The result? Addiction: The almost too distant relative of Mental Illness, like the friend half-motivated to stay part of the crew and half stuck on being rebelliously independent. Is it a disease? An illness like generalized anxiety disorder or bipolar or all the others? Or are aliens on other planets rolling their eyes at how far behind we are on Earth compared to modern medicine on other planets - like we can't hardly imagine homosexuality being listed as a mental illness 100 years ago, but apparently it happened (or did it... no sammi, stop the inception nonsense).

Anyways, that got rambly, but my thought process that I needed to capture was that there's a point in life where you need to sit back and appreciate the fact you've made it to where you are - and I've finally fucking reached one. Only took me 30 years, but they say "it's all about the climb" and whatnot so I guess I did it right. Did what right? I need to back up and remember my thoughts from before writing don't automatically get picked up by the computer - okay, backing up: I navigated my path through rocky waters to ensure that I didn't end up banged up by life and instead am still on path to burn out never fade away (Kurt Cobain, RIP <3). Enough metaphors you psychopath!

So in reality, obviously I didn't plan things this way. But, for purposes of celebrating ... and because while I didn't plan the things of course the universe did (hear that universe? I may be slacking on my prayers, but I'm not totally off the mark!).. let's say my life history went like so:

1. Born white middle class female
2. Not super into the whole feminism movement - I can hear my disappointed friends already, get off me bitches, it's because we already fucking run the world! keep yelling and soon even some stupid guy will realize it and get pissed! anyways....
3. Tried liking girls but didn't make it further than the thoughts (although having a threesome is absolutely still on my bucket list).
4. Rebellion was the clear path to adversity for me... but I am a nerd, therefore I love learning so why squash a good thing?
5. Problem with rebellion was, I'm a reforming people-pleaser... and by reforming I mean recently reforming, so there was no chance I ever disappointed my parents before recently. Then, I realized rebellion doesn't have to mean anarchy or being the first kid with a piercing/to run away from home/etc. etc.
6. Solution? Obviously sex drugs rock&roll! Not quite as cool as it was in the 80's, but I'd like to think that still applies. A quick summary of how this was my solution to ensure enough adversity in my younger days: get drunk and stay over friends houses where parents think you're on a sleepover, escalate to sneaking out, keep up the drinking but realize that you're still destined to be the somewhat responsible one even as you develop amongst the 'party girl' crew, go to college and actively seek out the drug-lovers, try enough "feel good" potions and pills until you're actively addicted to opiates (and/or the perfect combination of a billion times the prescribed dose of adderall and xanax together), assume the problem will magically go away upon starting work in the 'real world', find a nice boyfriend to keep you company while going nuts, move to the other side of the country with him (if you're going to lose your shit, I highly recommend doing it somewhere as gorgeous as the coast of California - San Diego/Orange County, I don't regret a single penny or second spent on the year 2015), adopt a dog/sign an extra lease/quit your well paying job for a sketchy one/stop all pills/have a debateable seizure (I still debate if it was one, but no one else is on my side so whatever...) cut your losses and move home.
7. Okay, take a breath .... there's 2007-2016, not bad for a single paragraph. Continuing the solution: stay clean for awhile to prove to yourself you can do it, but then realize that playing happy family in Brookline with a nice boyfriend and dog isn't where you want to be - so cut back to the feeling numbing drugs until you're right back in full on active addiction: this time with opiates more readily available, more doctor attempts to get help under my belt (this is all about trying, don't forget that - if you're not trying to be better, what's the point? self destruction for no reason? no thanks), until finally hitting an anti-climactic version of 'rock bottom' thanks to a viral pandemic and my amazing boss.
8. Even with all that, true absolution from the sins of my past hasn't been anywhere near obtainable until this week - and even then it's taken me until now to realize it (I shudder to think I could have let this joyful feeling go by as I continue my mission to get off all the meds therefore keeping myself in a permanent chemical crisis in my mind) so this is BIG NEWS.

I AM FREE! Free to do what? FUCKING ANYTHING I WANT! Free from myself mostly, since clearly I'm the obvious cause and effect of my own problems... but while I know I'll come to blows with myself again sooner or later (probably in an hour), I just wanted to get this all written down to make sure I remember something oh so important:

As long as you stay honest - especially with yourself, aka here - then there's no way to fail at life completely.

So yeah, like AA says: you're only as sick as your secrets! Or Miley Cyrus in that song about the climb...  you get it, future sammi - don't fret, no matter how miz you are, there will be moments where for a brief second everything makes sense. Why? Because you remember the most important things about life:

1. Honesty always
2. Loyalty to family (my chosen family - because blood may be thicker than water, but there's fire running through our veins so it doesn't fucking matter who's related to who by birth)
3. No one's opinions about you exist - and if they do, they're so fucking irrelevant, because that idiot has time to think about your life.
4. As my baby al showed me from ZB: FEELINGS CAN'T KILL YOU!