@deathrazed sent / meme.
↳ 11. an entry discussing their fears and anxieties.
i always thought this year would be the year i joined the 27 club. i mean , my entire adult life , i’d never considered anything else. for twelve years , all i’ve known is isolation , pain , rage , insanity , et cetera. i don’t remember what life was life with hope. i haven’t been sober or been around people who wholeheartedly cared about me for ten years. but . . . then i found myself in frazier , i found family , i found everything i longed for and yearned over for so many years. no , no. it’d be an injustice to dan to simply say i found myself here.
the truth is , mom doesn’t want anything to do with me after the book release. i’ve had to accept the thing i feared most — she doesn’t love me. she chose not to when i was five years – old and i held onto so much hope for so long that maybe she mourned dad , maybe her grief was so much so that seeing me was a reminder of the love she lost. but that was never the case. if i fucked up or she got a call saying ariel did this , or ariel did that , i was met with her venomous spite for dad’s family. using the pen name ‘ jackie torrance ’ was the final straw and the reason to leave me physically , just as she’d done emotionally when i was only a child.
so i was forced out. i stayed in the only shitty and extremely shady motel in castle rock and drank my anxieties away. i isolated myself for so long , so hesitant to let anyone in , that when my own flesh and blood disowned me . . . i truly was alone. but i remember in one of mom’s rants that uncle jack’s son’s name was daniel. i didn’t know if he was alive , i didn’t know if he knew about me. but i took a shot in the dark and looked him up. finding things no one wants me to find is kinda my specialty. and that’s exactly what i did — i found him living in frazier , new hampshire. an hour away , that’s all. i felt so many things about this , both good and bad. but i decided that i would take a chance. that’s how i found myself in frazier.
turns out , alcoholism does run in the family and dan’s been sober for sixteen years. and i have to get clean too. because if i don’t , i can’t be around him. i’m a risk to his own well – being and dammit , i like this whole aspect of having someone who was never obligated to take me in , but did it because maybe he had more faith in me than i do myself. i’ve gone so many years without familial love that when i found it again , however awkward it was , i knew i had to make this work. and that meant putting the bottle down today. but i’m scared , i’m terrified actually.
what if i’m too weak? what if i crack and fall off the wagon? there’s so many things i could do wrong. and sydney always said i was weak. just as weak as my father for taking the easy way out and just as weak as my mother for being spineless and cold. i have a family now. or , well , i’m starting to piece one together. we don’t know each other all that well yet but my dad’s family? dan’s dad’s family? they lied. they shut dan and his mother out and i always was led to believe it was because they were these horrible people , but it turns out the torrance family that decided dan and his mother didn’t deserve their support were the horrible people.
all i can think is how well he’s done for himself in spite of everything. both of our fathers died when we were five. we’ve both gone through shit we should’ve have had to. we’ve both had issues with substance and alcohol. it seems like the only difference between us is that he had a mother who gave the world for him and i didn’t. but he’s giving me this chance to change my life and not end up in a body bag at 27.
god , i want to do it so badly. i want to get clean , i want to be sober. my career might depend on it. my life depends on it. i could have family , i could have my career , i could exist in a world less shitty with my cousin at my side. i have that chance. i haven’t touched a drink today but i crave it so , so much. it’s like bad rash , always nagging at you and demanding to be treated. you don’t think about it and there’s less of an itch to give in. but when you’re alone in your thoughts you remember it’s there and it demands to be taken care of. it’s what makes me think i’m too weak for this. well , added to the list of many things.
i circle back around though , sorting through the reasons this would be good for me and the benefits before coming back to my fears and the biggest fear i have in getting sober is simple : what if i disappoint dan? if i do become too weak , if i do cave . . . will i just disappoint him like i’ve disappointed my mother all these years? do i have enough strength and courage to get through this? i don’t know if i do. but i have to try , don’t i? i have to try and maybe i’ll fail. i’ll get to that if the time comes. but maybe , just maybe i’ll persevere. maybe i can make dan proud of me and maybe that will give me the oomph to be proud of myself.
also giving @shinedied a special mention because dan‘s a huge part of this.
