It was not easy.
As I was throwing away all the regular soda and cereal and dumping all the chips, milk, donuts and cookies in the garbage, I was painfully aware of just how badly I'd damaged myself. It was a sobering moment.
I hated myself more in that moment than at any point in my life until making the decision to put my mother in a nursing home this past February.
I wanted to blame everyone. My folks. My friends. The education system.
Why didn't I know about this? Why didn't anyone tell me or warn me?
It was all hubris.
When you're young and growing up in moderate affluence, people everywhere validate you. You feel indestructible. Nobody can correct you and there is always someone else to blame for your bullshit.
It's still your bullshit. My experiences, 'my truth', taught me not to profit from my own victimhood in any way.
That's just setting yourself up to become a number in someone else's spreadsheet.
People may disagree. You do you.
But miss me with that 'you're sick you should get something for it' business. All I want are the meds so I can live long enough to learn from my own mistakes.