allison jaye

i’m an expert at knowing how to graze over the details of my tragic life in thirty seconds or less.

for a long time i hid the darkest parts of my story.  the darkness had been going on for so long and was so severe that i clung to it desperately with white knuckles—fearing that if anyone found out that i would become even more alone than i already was.  i spent years with the darkness being my one and constant companion and learned the art of acting early in life.  no one knew what i was really dealing with and i prided myself on having the biggest, cheesiest smile of anyone in the room.  there were times that i would start to realize how much i was breaking and i would get close to telling someone i needed help, but something always happened.  there was always a reason not to tell someone i wasn’t okay, and so i swallowed the darkness and shoved it down lower and helped everyone else overcome theirs.

i was twelve.  fourteen.  sixteen.  too young for that kind of darkness.

when i was sixteen the darkness began to eat me alive.  it was no longer complacent simply existing without anyone else knowing it’s presence.  it wanted more.  my hair began to turn grey, and over the next couple of years, my anxiety developed into a disorder cocktailed with depression and obsessive-compulsive ticks.  migraines took over my headspace and i had trouble completing thoughts and sentences.

these things happen to people, i guess, i would tell myself.  i tried to silence the darkness but the cure the people around me kept pushing felt more like a placebo and i wasn’t falling for it.

if you have followed my story at all, we all know i did eventually find recovery.  the darkness controlled my life for 23 years.  i finally found people who weren’t scared when i told them every messy part of my story.  i found people who let me sob for an hour straight, crying from every part of my soul, and i began to control the darkness instead of the other way around, and for the past three years i’ve been living as a whole person in recovery, clinging fast to hope.

“in times of despair, give us hope.”

the biggest thing that i learned in recovery is that bloodlines don’t always equate to family.  blood is not always thicker than water, and sometimes things happen within bloodlines that we can not ignore.  people can be and are toxic sometimes, and sometimes that toxicity exists and torments your bloodline.  family can and should start with bloodlines, but it’s not the end-all.

this has been working it’s way through me again since october.  something in my soul told me things were going to get rough again, and i started reaching out to the family i have no biological relation to, asking for prayers, grace, and peace as i began to guard myself up for what was sure to happen.  and happen, it did.  it blew up around christmas and hasn’t stopped and i don’t know what to do.  i’m at a loss.

i’m an expert at knowing how to graze over the details of my tragic life in thirty seconds or less.

the bloodlines closest to me keep getting more and more frayed.  the other people affected keep sweeping the situations under the metaphorical rug, hoping that no one will be injured on the tripping hazard they’ve created, and i detach over and over again.

part of me wants to swallow the darkness that surrounds right now, and charge full steam ahead and “fix” everything like i used to.  old habits die hard, i guess.  however, the larger part of me knows that 23 years of darkness was more than enough and i refuse to ever consciously put myself back there.  i guess all i can do is continue to ask for grace and peace, and cling to hope that it’s not always going to be this way.  that hopefully the others will choose to start attacking the dirty and dark area underneath the rug, no matter if it gets worse before it gets better.  

we all have choices to make, and when we choose to hide darkness it will eventually take over.  sometimes it’s a quick takeover, and other times it will build itself up for years, becoming a monster before it appears on the scene.  my hope in becoming more honest with my story is that as i begin to share it with those around me, we all take lessons from it.  life doesn’t have to be this hard.  there are good people out there, surround yourself with them.  don’t let the darkness steal your life.  even after recovery begins, it’s a whole new journey.  my amazing boyfriend, who is equipped with more grace, peace, and love than i can ever imagine, can speak true to this…if you forced him to.  as people, he doesn’t have a whole lot of brokenness while i’m still full of stitches.  i’m still healing, and some nights my flashbacks give me crazy brain.  we work through this together, and he never gets mad as me for being in recovery.  this doesn’t mean it’s not an arduous process, but it’s something we do in hopes that the crazy brain will one day be no more.  

the truth is, the earlier you bring light to darkness, the less the light has to completely expel.  so become honest with what’s going on in and around you.  choose light, no matter how much it hurts, because in the end, waking up with a heart in recovery is a lot better than not waking up at all.