Edit: Trigger Warning for mentions of suicide and addiction.
It's 4:33 am here in Swannanoa, North Carolina as I start this. I'm currently propped up on a half deflated air mattress surrounded by twinkle lights and stuffed animals. I'm starving but I don't have any substantial food at this temporary house i'm staying at and it's too early to go get anything. I really, really miss my tiger (cat) Raja who is at my parents house in Charlotte, North Carolina.
SO, I guess i'll write to distract myself until normal human hours begin and I can emerge from my safe little hobbit hole out into the terrifying "warzone" (almost don't even want to put quotes around this phrase) that is current day America in 2024.
I've been unintentionally doing this thing where I accidentally fall asleep pretty early the moment I lay down and then I wake up wide awake at 2/3am with all my lights on, still in my regular clothes, and usually freezing because i've accidentally fallen asleep (again) with the window open. We just got snow a few days ago here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, if that tells you anything. This used to happen to me a lot when I was stuck in heavy addiction. I can proudly tell you that i'm back on the recovery train as of this past March so this isn't the reason nowadays. Now a-days my addiction is trying to be a good person and survive in this very complicated, messy world. We thought the pandemic was bad, it's unfortunately gotten even more disappointing as the years have gone on.
Life is both beautiful and tragic and we have to pay attention to both.
It's hard to know where to start again since my last post on here which was in 2020 right when I was getting sober the first time while living in Asheville, North Carolina. It was also right before the pandemic hit and before I uprooted myself during that pandemic and moved away from my home state of North Carolina for the first time ever to embark on a new, solo journey out in Denver, Colorado. "Sobriety" for me has consisted of staying away from the two harmful substances that have caused me and my body/mind the most distress: alcohol and stimulants (aka adderall and a lot of the "street" adderall which gets pretty dark) and the also cigarettes (which I used to smoke around a pack a day of Spirits for almost ten years if that tells you anything.) I made it about two and a half years sober from these substances until I relapsed around May of 2022. I'll save that story for a different post.
Now we're at the end of 2024, around two months post the catastrophe that was Hurricane Helene and almost 10 months into jumping back onto the sober train after a pretty tough 2 year relapse. I guess i'll start by sharing what has happened just in the last couple weeks and go from there.
Over the last two and a half weeks I had to spontaneously break my lease on my new, wonderful apartment in Denver, Colorado, move everything out and into storage at my boyfriends place in CO within a couple days, drive myself and my kitty/best-friend (Raja) from CO to NC (which took about a week due to a few terrifying setbacks), lived on the road in and out of way more hotels than I originally budgeted for, made it safety to NC and officially embarked on a merch tour for a current WNC Hurricane Helene relief fundraiser that I started (more on that later), have vended five different events for this fundraiser in four different cities/towns just in this past week (eight total events in this past month and plenty more on our calendar to come), moved into a temporary room in a cute little house in Swannanoa, NC right in the heart of where a lot of hurricane damage occurred, started working (again) at Open Hearts Art Center as an Executive Assistant for the admin team helping them catch up post Helene.
Going back even further to just the past 4-5 months; I was the one who caught that my mother has Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia (CLL) back in July, which was a very terrifying week for both of us, and then mid September I was unfortuantly given no other option than to "peacefully" resign from my dream job working as an Art Therapist for at-risk youth in Denver, Colorado. There's a lot more to that story that gets pretty difficult but I will also save that story for a different time. Just after losing my job, while still processing the trauma's of the week with my mom getting diagnosed (I thought I lost her twice during that week), Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina and for atleast a good 24 hours I truly thought I may have lost 80% of my community in NC. By the grace of God everyone I personally know survived, but the number of people, animals, art, businesses and land that did not survive is a new level of heartbreak that I had never experienced until now.
I've endured all of this without having a single drop of alcohol, adderall (etc) or taking a single drag of a cigg (I do still use nicotine via a vape but i'm trying really hard to quit that as well. Baby steps.)
All I can say is returning to God, my faith and my recovery has literally saved my life these last months and unfortunately I think I need to mentally prepare that things are likely to still get worse before they start to get "better" again. And i'm an optimist..
Returning to this blog has been on my mind for a while. When Hurricane Helene tried to completely demolished my adopted home of Western North Carolina (I was born and raised in Charlotte, NC but lived in Western NC via Boone and Asheville from 2009-2020 and used to spend a lot of my weekends in Boone when I was in highschool) I turned my then private personal instagram and facebook account to public to start and lead a WNCSTRONG fundraising effort with my art. Over $20,000 dollars given back to the Western North Carolina via this fundraiser later (i've yet to come anywhere close to having $20k to my name ever in my life just fyi) i'm still going strong in my relief efforts, recovery and faith and i've recommitted myself to keeping my personal life public with the hopes that my ability to stay strong during this extremely trying time could possibly help others one day. Or atleast that's the intention.
Prior to the hurricane all my socials (except my darcywadeart IG, which wasn't being used much) were set to private. Being a Clinical Mental Health Therapist in this current high-tech world can make things really complicated if people have too much access to your personal life. It's highly advised to keep all social media very private. Also, since I had just gotten out of detox/rehab only in March I was also trying to keep my recovery journey way more private this go-around. It was never my intention to start being public again, especially this early into recovery, on any of my social medias. But God has always had a different plan for me and i've always somehow managed to pay attention and trust the process even if it makes absolutely no sense or is uncomfortable in the moment. Or, like in these recent cases, it's tried to break me an uncountable amount of times in a very short time-span.
So, I guess this was my way of reintroducing myself, my story and current situation to whoever is still feeling called to pay attention to "The Darcy Show." I cringe when I say that because that phrase, "the Darcy show" has been used to shame and harm me countless times throughout my life. I guess that's my way of reclaiming my power to lean into the discomfort and embrace and take accountability for a lot of past "mistakes and regrets" that I cannot change now but I can continue moving forward to hopefully never repeat.
I whole-heartedly admit that there were A LOT of years throughout my youth and into my late 20's where I victimized myself and lived with the whole, "woe-is-me" mentality. I was raised by two good humans who knew how to love me but didn't always know how to appropriately parent me in the ways that made me an independent, confident human. I know it breaks their heart when I say that, but i've learned that I can both appreciate the good while also holding the not-so-good accountable as well. It's all about that balance, baby.
I've been working pretty damn hard over the last ten months especially to never put myself back into a place of choosing to play the victim card. My life has not been easy, but I sure as hell have a lot more privilege and opportunity than most just by being a white, almost thirty-four year old, athletic, fairly healthy, educated, born-and-raised American citizen. I will NEVER take what I have been gifted just from my DNA for granted.
However, it surely has not been all sunshine and daisies over here (although I do try to metaphorically plant a lot of seeds and spread a lot of light) living as a now proudly open neurodivergent, empathetic, highly sensitive person (HSP) who went undiagnosed my whole life until recently while also being an only child with two elder parents of a very different generation (both are around 72/73 years old) who still to this day don't seem to fully grasp anything related to mental health, recovery or raising a very sensitive soul.
Everyone is doing the best that they can and i'm well aware that I don't have it as bad as many, but the weight i've been carrying my whole life truly thinking that something has been seriously "wrong with me" has caused so much wear and tear on my heart and soul that it's truly a miracle i've allowed myself to be still alive today. Lord knows there have been many times I thought about, and came dangerously close, to ending it all. Yet the Lord always has protected me along with some very specific guardian angels who have saved my lost self time and time again.
I didn't honestly know that this was the direction I was going to go in when I started writing this blog entry. It's now almost six in the morning and i'm "allowed" to officially emerge from my deflated airmatress and go out into the world without fear that being "awake too early" would look like I was back on my addiction bullshit. Keep in mind, when you're someone like me who got heavily and dangerously addicted to stimulants I would sometimes go days at a time without sleeping and actually preferred to exist as a vampire in the night and hid from the day as much as I could. It's absolutely amazing how far i've already come in just 10 months. Yet that's the power of God and why i'm never going to turn my back on my faith ever again.
Thank you for stepping back into this journey with me.
Thank you for taking the time out of your busy life to read my words.
Thank you for (hopefully) reading them with compassion and for not judging me (and if you do that's okay too.)
I don't honestly think i've talked to anyone in the past month (and I talk to A LOT of people) who is truly doing "fine" these days. Our world and our systems within this human-lead world have somehow become even more broken as time as continues. Even our most current election has proven how many steps backwards even us "free" American citizens have taken (and if you were born with a uterus, like myself, we are very far from being free these days but thank God we have so many advocates trying to fight to overturn that...again.)
It's SO easy to want to give up in this world. As someone who has been suicidal many times and has worked with many suicidal clients (and has lost clients, mentors and multiple family members to suicide)- I understand the struggle more than most and I deeply understand why it feels less scary at times to want to remove yourself completely from a world that truly has become the version of Hell we've been taught about. It's absolutely terrifying if you're paying attention, and unfortuantely many of us, like myself, aren't built to be able to ignore the choas around us. One fucking day at a time yall.
Or better yet, make it one hour at a time. I sure do.
In the words of Glennon Doyle, "we can do hard things" and we just have to keep doing the next right thing one thing at a time.
Even if only one person reads this entry and it brings a sense of relief and comfort that you're not alone, then this almost two hour writing journey for me has been worth it. And even if not a single person but myself reads this then I know in my deepest part of my heart that this will be something I reread years from now with tears in my eyes (like I do right now) saying, "i'm so damn proud I never gave up on myself."
I love you so damn much.
We got this.
Love,
Darcy
For more information about the WNCSTRONG Fundraiser, or to continue learning about me and my journey in between blog posts, feel free to follow both my personal blog Instagram: @d_w.a.d.e and my art Instagram: @darcywadeart.
You can also sign up for my newsletter (which I will be sending another out this week!) by visiting my homepage on this website. You're always welcome to email me to connect further if you feel called by sending a message to darcywadeart@gmail.com
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