Anger Is a Friend
I used to say I hated being alone with my thoughts. Like – actively avoided it. Couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t do the bath thing. Meditation? Absolutely not. “Just breathe” made me want to scream. Because if I did stop, if I let the noise die down, I’d have to hear what was left underneath. And at one point? That was the sound of a heartbroken drunk girl trying to convince herself she wasn’t heartbroken. Or drunk. Or girl enough to say “I’m not okay.”
But here’s the thing:
It wasn’t the thoughts I hated. It was the reality they were trying to show me.
And reality, back then, sucked.
I had locked away every feeling that hurt – boxed it up, slapped a sarcastic label on it (“lol, I’m fine”) and buried it deep in the emotional attic. But feelings don’t like being ignored. They don’t go quietly. They rattle the walls. They start to scream. They seem like demons because we’ve treated them like monsters. We’ve shut them out in the dark and expected them not to grow claws.
And I’ve said this before, they weren’t trying to kill me. They were trying to help.
Anger wasn’t the enemy. She was the one trying to say, “Hey. That wasn’t fair.”
Sadness wasn’t weakness. She was the part of me that cared.
Loneliness? Loneliness just missed me.
I thought I was haunted by trauma, when really, I was being called home by my own neglected truth. And it was angry. And it was sad. But mostly? It was mine.
I had to learn that anger isn’t a meltdown waiting to happen – it’s a message.
It’s what shows up when your boundaries are crossed, when your heart has had enough, when your truth has been buried so long it starts to claw its way to the surface.
And when I stopped running?
When I stopped drinking it away or numbing it out or pretending I wasn’t falling apart?
I started writing.
Not to be profound. Not to be poetic. Not even to be okay.
Just to get through it. Just to say it. Just to sit down with anger and ask what it wanted to say.
Turns out, it wasn’t trying to destroy me.
It was trying to save me.
And now, I love being alone with my thoughts – because they’re not screaming anymore.
They’re writing. They’re healing. They’re real.
Sobriety didn’t make the pain disappear. It just gave me the strength to stop calling it “the past” when it was still living in my chest.
I’m not afraid of the quiet anymore.
Sadness Is a Sister
Sadness isn’t the wrecking ball we treat her like. She doesn’t barge in to destroy your life. She shows up like a sister who lets herself in, drops her bag by the door and sits beside you in the mess. Quiet. Familiar. Unapologetically present.
You might try to ignore her. Distract yourself. Scroll past her voice or drink her into silence. But she doesn’t leave until you look her in the eyes and say, “Okay. What is it?”
She’s the one who reminds you of all the things that once mattered. The love you gave. The time you lost. The people you buried – in memory, in heartbreak, in survival. She’s not weak. She’s honest. And yeah, sometimes she overstays. Sometimes she pulls the curtains shut and makes you think the sun doesn’t rise anymore. But she does it because you needed to stop. You needed to sit down. You needed to cry, maybe scream into a pillow, maybe remember that you’re a person and not a robot holding it all together for everyone else.
Sadness isn’t a glitch. It’s a sign your system works.
And when I was drinking, I confused sadness with failure. I thought if I felt sad, I must’ve done something wrong. I must’ve not healed “right.” I must’ve messed up a-fucking-gain. But I was just grieving a version of myself that didn’t get what she needed. And that grief? That sadness? She’s allowed. She should come around sometimes. Especially when you’ve spent years surviving instead of feeling.
Now, I let her stay when she visits. I don’t rush her out. I don’t call her names.
We sit. I write. She exhales. Sometimes she helps me sleep. Sometimes she helps me let go.
And then – she goes. Because that’s the thing about sadness: she doesn’t want to live in you. She wants to move through you.
She’s not the storm. She’s the water that comes after. The flood that clears what couldn’t be carried any longer. The sister who says, “It’s okay to fall apart. I’ve got you, Sugar.”
Loneliness Has a Point
We act like loneliness is some personal failing. Like if you feel it, you must be doing something wrong. Not lovable enough. Not fun enough. Not healed enough. But here’s the truth: loneliness isn’t punishment. It’s a pause. A redirect. A quiet echo asking, “Are you listening yet?”
Because before I got sober, I wasn’t alone. Not technically. I had texts coming in, people around, noise on in the background. But I was lonelier than I’d ever been – because no one was actually with me. Not even me.
Loneliness got loud when the distractions died down. When the bottle ran dry. When the wrong person left or worse – stayed. And I hated her for it. I swore I couldn’t be alone with my thoughts but what I really meant was: I couldn’t be alone with reality. And reality was that I was hurting. I was tired. I was disconnected from the person I used to be and terrified of the one I was becoming.
But here’s the thing: loneliness is what brought me back.
It stripped away the performance. It cleared the stage. It said, “Okay, it’s just us now. Who the fuck are you?”
And at first, I didn’t know. Then slowly, I did.
Because there’s clarity in the silence, if you stop fighting it. There’s comfort in your own company, once you stop believing it’s a trap.
Loneliness has a point: She’s not here to mock you – she’s here to meet you.
She introduces you to the version of yourself who doesn’t need the room to clap. Who doesn’t need a savior. Who doesn’t need another night out to forget how empty it all feels by morning.
She leads you to art. To recovery. To rest. To the parts of you that only reveal themselves when no one else is looking.
So if you’re in it – if you’re scrolling, spiralling, telling yourself you must be unlovable because you’re alone – stop. You’re not unloved. You’re uncluttered.
You’re being offered a mirror. And for once, no one else is in the reflection but little ol’, sweetheart, you.
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