When I was a little girl I was what you would call a social butterfly.
I never had a problem making connections with others and I had many friends.
But that all changed at age 16 when a light switch went off in my head.
That’s what it felt like.
One day I was happy and go lucky then the next day…sad…depressed…scared.
I stopped engaging in school activities. I left the clubs I was in. I stopped hanging out with friends.

The night before I went off to college someone recommended that I smoke a cigarette so that I would feel better and get a “buzz”.
That was the start of my drug use and abuse.
I spent my entire college years on drugs.
I did all the drugs.
I’m not going to bother listing them all. If you can think of a drug, I did it.
I was at least a functioning drug abuser as I not only graduated, but graduated cum laude with honors.

I had no concept of when I was even graduating so I certainly had no plans after college.
My parents came to pick me up and that was the beginning of my unintentional detox.
I lived with my parents miserable, sober, and lost for 6 months.
I didn’t know how to function sober. I had just spent the previous 5 years on mind altering substances.
I forgot what it felt like to be sober..... and it felt like shit.
I had been self medicating my depression with street drugs for 5 years and now the medication was gone.
So were my drug abusing friends.
I was alone.
At least I had my parents who looked at me like I was a disappointment and a failure.

That’s when the panic attacks started.
So I moved to pharmaceutical drugs for depression and anxiety.
Did they help? I don’t even know.
Is feeling flat, emotionless, and dead inside helping?
Is that better than feeling overwhelming sadness and wanting to die?
I’ve had about 30 massive panic attacks in my life time and I can say that I would rather feel dead inside than have a panic attack.
But, there must be something more than just those 2 options.

I spent the next 15 years slowly coming out of my shell.
After I got sober it was like I was skinned and all my nerves were exposed. It was like a was a new born baby that had to learn life all over again.
I would walk down the street terrified with my eyes to the ground, sure that everyone was laughing at me and hating me.
I would speak like a meek tiny mouse because I felt worthless like my thoughts didn’t matter.

I always had music in me and was compelled to release it, but I didn’t want anyone to actually hear it.
It was my heart and soul and I was too weak and fragile to expose myself. Forget about playing out live, I couldn’t even handle someone looking at me when I was at the store, how could I possible go on stage with people staring at me?
Over time, I did share my music and I did play out, but I always felt uncomfortable and I didn’t like it.
It has been a slow and painful process of opening up and becoming a functioning, sober human being over the last 15 years.

There’s so many other issues that I could share, but for now I’ll just say that I can look back on my life and say that it has been a depressing disaster.

Shane (The Husband) told me the other day that he thinks I’ve grown more as a person here on Steemit than I had ever grown before that.
He’s right.
When I first joined Steemit I was even too terrified to post my own intro.
Shane helped me write most of it and I cringed as he hit the submit button.

I was too scared to actually talk to people in discord.
I actually asked Shane once to go into discord and pretend he was me and make friends for me which he of course refused to do.
Does that sound like something a crazy person would ask?
Yes…..yes it does.

Playing live music brings fear and terror to my soul, but I figured I could take a step to record a video of me playing for Steemit open mic. That experience has helped me grow so much as a person.
Each video that I've made gives me the confidence to open up more.
I’ve slowly shared a part of myself with each post that I make and it has given me the confidence to share even more of myself.
Doing live radio on MSP-waves even though I am scared has helped me to gain confidence overall.

Thank you for your support!
Hive account@isaria