*For most of my life, i felt lost, worthless, and stuck in bad habits. I turned to drugs to escape and numb the pain. I was merely exisiting.*

*Two years ago, something finally clicked. I realised that change only happens when you truly want it.*

*I started tiny : Opening my curtains every morning, writing down my thoughts, and doing small things  to care for my body and mind. Slowly my life, began to shift!*

***Here’s a part of a poem i wrote  about that journey :***

*I Am Phoenix – She Who Survived Her -*

*I kept returning to what hurt me, because it never left.*

*Not when I cried,*

*not when I broke,*

*not when I faded into silence.*

*It stayed cruelly loyal,*

*a shadow that lingered quietly*

*when I felt completely alone.*

*I thought it was comfort —*

*but it was just familiar pain,*

*a wound I wore like a second skin.*

*So I let it stay,*

*wrapped myself in it like armour,*

*because feeling pain*

*was better than feeling nothing.*

*That’s what’s hard to explain:*

*when you don’t know better,*

*you start to believe*

*that hurt is home.*

*I didn’t know peace yet,*

*or the kind of love that stays*

*without conditions.*

*The darkness didn’t ask me to heal,*

*it just held me in stillness,*

*until I forgot*

*there was anything else.*

*And still —*

*beneath it all,*

*a voice remained.*

*Not loud,*

*but constant.*

*"You’re still in there."……*

**If you would like to read the rest and learn more about the habits that helped me rebuild, you can check it out here** : [https://iamphoenixreborn.carrd.co](https://iamphoenixreborn.carrd.co) 

I always wanted to live - but inside, i felt dead. [oc] [poetry] [addiction][recovery]