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The Weeds I've Watered

Every day I found myself nursing my habits and bad coping mechanisms, only to find out I wasn't tending a garden. I was only watering my weeds.

By Lauren HarringtonPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Like millions of other human beings, I too struggle with mental illness. I've battled with depression and multiple anxiety disorders since I was a child. At the ripe age of 12, I started therapy. I had an almost unbreakable bond with my therapists. Since my family couldn't grasp my struggles, and I have a small amount of friends, I had no outlet. But, going to therapy gave me a voice, and skills that I can use for the rest of my life. The skills were like flowers in bloom, they filled my mind with color and beauty in the midst of the black and white.

Yet, as I got older and watched everyone around me grow and become happier with themselves, I was fed up, all because my mental health wasn't improving as fast as I wanted to. I just wanted to know what it felt like to have one day where I could feel free of unbridled joy or even just content. And I slowly started to form a toxic mindset: that nothing matters, since in my mind, I was going to be this way forever. There was nothing I thought I could do to make it all end. With that, I quit using all of my healthy coping mechanisms almost completely.

Those poisonous thoughts led me to rip all of the flowers I toiled to grow.

I started watering the weeds.

I let them take over, completely.

I rummaged through the medicine cabinet like a madman, tossing useless pill bottles to the side in my search to get high. Codine was the first to sprout taking form of swigs from out of the bottle left behind from a dental surgery I had a while back. I was in the midst of a breakdown when my mind told me to reach for something so I could numb it. I had no idea where the idea even came from, all I knew was that I needed something else in my blood, something that would make me feel less. I didn't even know what I was doing at first, but there something about the feeling as the drowsiness would grab me by the throat and lay me out on the couch for a nap or two.

Next came alcohol, sucking me into its ignorance as soon as I woke up almost everyday during the summer after my senior year. Within months, my 106 pound frame became a heavyweight and it only worsened when I moved into college. The list has become more extensive over the years, but those are the ones that grew the fastest.

And in a matter of months, I fell into a vicious cycle of substance abuse, a word I would've never thought would grace the lips of my 19-year-old mouth.

When I came home for break I weighed myself. I had lost six pounds since starting school, probably due to the fact that I'd rather drink than eat on some days. That's when I realized the weeds I had cared for became so tangled I that I couldn't control them anymore. I couldn't clip and cut them to make them seem manageable. It was blatantly obvious that I had a problem.

It's been a couple of months. My garden is still riddled with dandelions and crab grass. In fact, I can confidently say that its vines still have a tight hold on my psyche. In fact, as I'm writing this, I'm letting not sober fingers grace the keyboard in hopes that by being inebriated, I'll judge my work a little less. But now that I've come to terms with my substance abuse, daises and tulips are starting to sprout, since I no longer pull them out. It'll take some tending and perseverance, but one day I'll be rid of the weeds I've watered.

coping
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About the Creator

Lauren Harrington

An environmental science major, with a (not so) secret love for literature.

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