6.27.2025: One month clean + some shitty poetry

Content warning: This blog post contains discussion of self-harm recovery and psychiatric hospitalization.

Addiction is hard.

After my hospitalization in February, I was doing a lot better mentally than I was before, but it didn't break my self-harm addiction. It took until the end of the school year for me to want to recover. That's one of the biggest things about addiction recovery--you can logically know that getting better would be a good thing, but you have to want to stop to actually be able to stop. I relapsed quite a few times after getting home for the summer, which was tough. But, finally, at the end of May, a switch flipped in my brain and I decided that I needed to stop, and after fighting the urge for a couple weeks, the need to stop turned into a want.

Well... I've done it! I'm officially one month (and one day--my one month date was actually yesterday) clean from self harm! That might not seem very long to some people, but it was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I can't say I don't still fight the urge, but addiction is something that sticks with you. It's not like you decide to be better one day and after that, you're recovered. I think I'll consider myself to be in recovery for quite some time.

Now that I've finally committed to being clean, I want to get my tattoo. I'm planning on getting a dandelion on my left arm over my scars. Once I get it done, I'll explain the reasoning behind a dandelion, but for now, that's all I'll say on that. It's going to be a promise to myself to stay clean. I didn't want to get it done until I could actually genuinely make that promise to myself. And I've hit the one month milestone, and now I feel like that promise is real! (I am trying to save money right now, though, so I'm planning on getting it done maybe right at the end of summer? We'll see.)

Anyways. Here's a shitty poem about working on the farm and recovery.

PROSE POETRY SCRIBBLED ON A RECIEPT IN THE BATHROOM DURING A BREAK AT THE FARM

Sometimes you have a hard time feeling real. You've picked up a couple habits to remedy this. Drugs to blame the feeling on. Sleeping to avoid it. Making yourself bleed to check that you're alive.

People ask you how the farm job is going. "It's work!" or "I'm getting paid!" are your usual responses.

It's a hard job. Twelve an hour for the dirt to bruise you and the sun to burn you.

But you're real. You're real. You're real.

You wake up in the morning. You eat a real breakfast. You touch dirt and listen to the morning birds. You're grateful for the Amish deli's bologna sandwich even when they put tomatoes and mayo on it. And when Paul gets to work in the afternoon and brings the dogs, you're excited to see them. Your shirt is wet with sweat while you listen to the cicadas sing about the summer heat. You drive home exhausted. You go to bed at night.

And you're real, and you're happy. You're happy. You're happy.

Sincerely,

Sam

Tags: Mental health , Poetry