As someone who has recovered from a lot of things and is often still recovering, I add things I might have wanted to hear. Recovery is lonely sometimes, hearing a supportive voice that acknowledges the struggle means a lot. Knowing there is at least one person who sees you on the inside can be the one thing sometimes that is needed to keep going that day. 

 

By Holly Herring

 

I wrote a poem the other day.

Well, not exactly. I was writing in the notes section of my cell phone while I was soaking in my bathtub having deep thoughts. The notes were to remind me of this “lightbulb moment” I’d had while deep in thought so that I could write about it later. But, that was weeks ago and no writing resulted from this note. I came across it today and it looks exactly like a poem now. 

 

Warm Weighted Blanket

I have a dog for ptsd

I used drugs for ptsd

I use dog instead of drugs now

SMI

 

I am not quite ready to mail this off to Reader’s Digest in hopes of winning a grand prize.

I think I am becoming my grandmother. My grandmother had little notes everywhere. I find things like this all over my life. My cell phone note section has a ton of “lightbulb moments” just like this. I have been known to use dry erase markers to write on my bathroom and closet mirrors. In the last several years I even started taking the messages in greeting cards quite seriously. My grandmother was the queen of serious greeting cards. 

Grandma was really into Jesus

She didn’t have a sense of humor because the rapture was coming. To her everyday could be her last on Earth, surrounded by these Earthly things and wicked sinners.

So, when my birthday rolled around each year, she’d mail me a card.

From the time I was a little girl in Michigan right up to the year she died when I was 41, she would send me a grocery store birthday card with a five dollar bill in it. The message inside the card would be scribbled out though. 

Knowing that the rapture could happen at any moment caused my grandma to remind me, with urgency, in each card she sent. Opening an ordinary card with a balloon or flowers on the front with a cheery message of “Happy Birthday!” was fun, but reading the message inside was where things got interesting. I would see a pen mark through a generic, pre-printed birthday message and then my grandma’s perfect penmanship expressing the REAL birthday message:

Holly, the time is coming when God will make good on his promises and this world will fall away like soot. I know I will be going to heaven with HIM (underline) and I hope you will be too. Because the wages of sin is death and if you don’t repent now (triple underline) there’s nothing but flames and weeping for ETERNITY down there (underline) with you know who. 

God loves you and so do I, Grandma

I don’t sign my cards quite like my grandma did. However, I did begin taking what I write in cards more seriously. My messages aren’t about a deity or an afterlife exactly. But, I chose my words carefully. I write in some words of recovery or affirmation. I make sure that the person I am writing to knows that I see them and I know them. For a minute that day I want this person to see themselves as a person with at least one connection. 

While Grandma had Jesus, recovery is my religion.

Messages of, “I see you working hard on your goals every day” or, “you may take one step back, but I always see you take two steps forward after and that’s what’s important,” are messages you might find in a card from me. When someone has a baby I’ll write, “You did great at something that was so hard! Let me know if you need some rest or to bring a meal.”

Recovery is hard.

As someone who has recovered from a lot of things and is often still recovering, I add things I might have wanted to hear. Recovery is lonely sometimes, hearing a supportive voice that acknowledges the struggle means a lot. Knowing there is at least one person who sees you on the inside can be the one thing sometimes that is needed to keep going that day. 

Every greeting card, for me, is an opportunity to send a message.

I can counter my grandma’s regularly quoted bible verse about the wages of sin being death. I think of my grandma when I write my messages of recovery. Grandma used bible verses a lot because she’s such close friends with Jesus, and I do sometimes too. But sometimes I quote my friend, the Buddha, instead. I like to think that Buddha & Friends have a lot to say about recovery and words of affirmation. 

When I feel the electric buzzing throughout my body and the waves of anxiety that rush up over me due to my PTSD diagnosis, I take a seat on the couch.

My hair follicles will feel as if they are standing at attention. The tension in my arms and legs builds up, burning to fight. My breathing gets fast & furious. I sit with my warm, weighted Bulldog on my lap, and I begin to feel relief. With a hand stroking soft fur and ears hearing the peaceful snorfle-snores of my best friend, I tell myself the things I need to hear in these moments:

Right here and now I am safe

I deserve this peace

I have all I need

I am loved

And you know what? We do recover. Maybe write that in a greeting card sometime.

 

“One moment can change a day, one day can change a life, and one life can change the world.” – The Buddha

 

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

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Were you inspired by this? You may also like:

Musicians & Addiction: The Power of Meditation and Visualisation in Recovery

The Little Lie That Kept Going All Day: My Journey to India {Part II}

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Holly Herring
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