I will be your moon⌠StellaLuna remember my first name here!!!
Hope you had a decent day.
Awwww yes I do!!! Thank you Stella I appreciate you so much, today was a lot better thank you 
This reminds me of the benevolence and sharing and caring of TS. Hugs, all.
Love the moon in the dark @Its_me_Stella, thanks.
âWandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: âIf anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.
â Well â one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. âHelp,â said the flight agent. âTalk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.â
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
âShu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-se-wee?â The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying.
She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, âNo, weâre fine, youâll get there, just later, who is picking you up? Letâs call him.â
We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies â little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts â from her bag â and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo â we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend â by now we were holding hands â had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate â once the crying of confusion stoppedâ seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.â
~ Naomi Shihab Nye
Itâs hard to admit that addiction wasnât the only problem in your head. Plus itâs hard having mental health issues that you used to cope with addiction to relieve yourself now that youâre sober: itâs almost the only exit you can think of when you feel awful.
I thought Iâd be doing better at 398 days.
Today I couldnât do anything else than feeling depressed, fighting to not go out and get a drink, to not self harm, by watching Netflix and eating deliveries. Days almost over and do not feel anything better.
My girlfriend would be home soon after a long day of work. Sheâll be good to me like sheâs always, but I feel horrible. Like guilty of being sad. Guilty of being just a normal human being whoâs struggling with depression waves that he absolutely cannot control. I just canât do anything with it.
Just feeling and hating myself for feeling this way.
Hard today to be self compassionate.
Sorry for bumping on the first post I saw about mental health.
Although it feels good to vent a bitâŚ
Hope everyone is doing good
Yep!! Absolutely 
!!!
I go through the exact same thing, youâre not alone @WCan weâre here for you!!! I have the exact same waves of depression and Iâm at the point now that I recognize them as such and know they will pass in time. I also used to have the shame and self hatred for having them but Iâve been able to get to the point that I donât have that anymore. Self compassion and self love has helped me see that itâs just the way my depression is and Iâm not a horrible person at all. Some days the best I can do is go to bed early and ride it out. Super proud of you for reaching out and sharing what youâre going through, awesome job!!! 
Yep ! 
!!!
Me too ! Just as @Rockstar24777 said, youâre not alone, youâre just brave enough to say it out loud. 
Me too and I have been feeling this way for what feels like forever. I know it hasnât been but itâs for sure been awhile. Slipping in and out of dissasociative states, full of rage, major avoidant behavior. 659 days and as hard as my days have been I know very well my life before was much worse. I had all these feeling PLUS the chaos of active addiction. The shame, alcohol induced anxiety, worse depressive states⌠I couldnât stop self injuring, I couldnât stop using substances, I couldnât stop spending hours and hours compulsively gaming, among a bunch of other addictive behaviors i couldnât stop because I didnât have a choice. I have a choice today, so no matter how shitty I feel I KNOW for a fact I am in a much better place than I was 659 days ago even if it doesnât feel like it sometimes.
I try not to get consumed in the negative that addiction loves to consume me in⌠I try to be grateful for my life today. If nothing else I am grateful for that choice.
Me five! Becoming sober and clean has given me the possibility to actually work on my mental health problems. But Iâm still in the phase of actually recognizing them for what they are and untangling where it all started. Both things I could never do when I was using, then it was all denial and hiding. And heading for an early exit. Not sure Iâll ever move beyond that but at least Iâm alive and fighting now.
Life is still a struggle. Iâm still not very happy overall. I still feel alone a lot. I still have depressive episodes. Bit I am grateful and proud that I choose not to try to bury my feelings and ultimately myself by indulging in all my addictive tendencies. That in itself is a huge positive and something to hold on to. Exactly like @Its_me_Stella is saying. Thanks for being here and sharing all.
