Crazy bad and broken just like me

Current favorite Facebook Meme: If you never heal from what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.”

The rest of that story: No one heals alone. You’re gonna need some kindred spirits to help you put together the pieces of yourself.

It’s tough to believe there are others like you…but I promise – you’re not uniquely f@cked up. Lots of us survived. Some of us are getting better.

You’re a lot like me. The biggest difference between you and me is that I know and love a lot of people like you and me.

I’ve heard you tell my life story – the first half anyway. Yeah, I get it. You’re terrible. You’re the biggest mess ever. You’re crazy, bad, and broken. Just. Like. Me.

But you don’t see that.

The person you know me to be today is a lot of years in the making. I never forget where I come from. You help me remember. It took a lot of help to get here.

Therapy taught me some huge lessons I desperately needed to learn:

  • How to let myself just be, just feel, and express it
  • How to let go/How to grieve
  • How to stop hating myself/blaming myself/redirecting anger at myself
  • How to forgive
  • How to have friends
  • How to unlearn what I was taught
  • How to let good people teach me about me
  • How to let people love me

Sure, the details of your story and mine are a little different, but the takeaways are the same: buried pain, shame, anger, feelings of violation and betrayal, self-destruction, rage, tattoos, piercings, chemicals, and scar tissue.

It’s so strange to you that I get you. It’s so strange that no explanations are necessary. I know. I remember. We were all new to getting better once.

You didn’t break my heart today. You won it. You became family to me. You said words I have said. You shed tears I have shed. Your eyes were every bit as lost as mine were.

I see you and while it makes no sense to you, I claim you as family and I am going to love you until you learn to love yourself.

“And oh, how I loved everybody else when I finally got to talk so much about myself.” – Dar Williams

Jim LaPierre

About Jim LaPierre

Jim LaPierre LCSW CCS is the Executive Director of Higher Ground Services in Brewer, Maine. He is a Recovery Ally, mental health therapist and addictions counselor. He specializes in facilitating recovery (whether from addiction, trauma, depression, anxiety, or past abuse) overcome obstacles, and improve their quality of life. Jim is the cofounder of Sobernow.com an online addiction recovery program that is affordable and provides complete anonymity