Dear Te-Erika,
I've spent the whole evening reading your diaries with great pleasure. It surprised that that even though we have lived totaly different lives, we have quite a lot in common in our attitudes! I felt especially close to you in your entry "I'm not mentally ill" - it felt like you described my own feelings! I had the exact same problems in life with other people calling me insane because I couldn't keep a job for long time just because I didn't feel I can be myself there. More than that, my mother (RIP) has taken me to psychiatrists that tagged me as a manic depressive or having ADHD disorder.
Some of them also said I behave like this because I used to be a heroin addict. But the truth was, that I didn't see these things like most people. I couldn't appreciate the "normal life" people live, and going to the same work everyday as such a gift because we all live only once, and I can do so much more to contribute than kill my time in an office or a factory. Even in when I studied in professional school, I felt like they teach me how to be someone else that "would sell better". I hope you understand what I mean.
My luck was that I met some good people that had the same problems and kept telling me that I have to find my own self and my own way. So when I was backpacking for two years, sometimes on the streets, sometimes in the nature and sometimes finding a place in a squat, I had plenty of time to learn myself and to find out that when I don't "have" to do something that somebody else tells me to, when I am free to choose what I do with my time, I actually don't have depression at all. And I felt really happy, even if I was sometimes cold or hungry. I also managed to stop using heroin, which seemed impossible to me, because the whole time that I was working, I was on and off using.
I started it when I was 17, it became worse after my mother's death when I was 18, and I truly lost myself in it, because I had no family and no one to take care of me. 5 years of addiction with endless tries to quit seemed like forever to me. And the whole time people said to me "why can't you just be normal?".. So you can imagine how surprised I was that exactly on the "lowest point", when I had no home and family and I was a backpacker in a foreign country, it was suddenly possible for me to quit, be happy and keep it that way. Just because I felt free and had hope for the future.
I started it when I was 17, it became worse after my mother's death when I was 18, and I truly lost myself in it, because I had no family and no one to take care of me. 5 years of addiction with endless tries to quit seemed like forever to me. And the whole time people said to me "why can't you just be normal?".. So you can imagine how surprised I was that exactly on the "lowest point", when I had no home and family and I was a backpacker in a foreign country, it was suddenly possible for me to quit, be happy and keep it that way. Just because I felt free and had hope for the future.
My man has also given me a lot of hope, since he has gone through the same way, and together we can keep each other from depression and drug addiction, that both of us were facing when nobody around could understand or support us, and the feeling that we were living someone else's life. I know it sounds silly, but before taking my journey I simply didn't imagine that there's another way to live, a way of MY OWN.
I truly believe that God supports those who follow their soul, just like he did for me, time after time. And I believe that your journey is not for nothing, that you will reach your goals, or maybe get to a deeper understanding of yourself and your mission in this life.
I hope this letter would bring support and strength to you. I am sorry again for taking your time with this long letter.. I just was so excited when I read your diary that I had to write this to you.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I hope you keep in touch with us. Please take care of your beautiful self.
Big warm hugs from Romania and best wishes!!
Love,
Karen
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