Overcoming The Drug Addiction I Never Had

By Tasha Denese

A personal journey of a woman's dominant struggle to survive through and recover from a painful childhood and learn how to forgive an unloving mother. This is my heartbreak and heart-work in your hands

This is

the hurting

my trauma

the pain

my shattering

the healing and

my overcoming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LaTasha Bellamy
• Release date: Jul 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986225012

Book preview

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Black Woman Excellence in the Literary World

Each piece of this heart’s labor was designed and nurtured by a Black Woman

Publisher & Author (Tasha Denese)

Editor (Jenaya Perdue)

Cover & Interior Design (Carlette Thompson Whitlock)

Copyright © 2022 by Author Tasha Denese

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

Dedication & Preface

Acknowledgments

Broken Heart - Fixed Vision

Some Wounds Take More Than Time to Heal

Careless Ammunition

Mama's Bait

Our House Was Never a Home

Closets Full of Secrets and Unhappiness

Running Scared

Her Trauma Caused My Pain

Muzzled into Silence

My Pain Caused Her Trauma

Cycle of Trauma

Disrupting The Narrative. Fighting to Change the Narrative. Mirroring the Narrative

Escaping Smoke to be Scorched by Flames

Searching for Perfection yet Creating Despair

The Ramifications of Toxic Comfort

Broke my Heart and Healed my Soul

My Soul was a Recognizable Stranger

Beautiful Flowers Covering Ugly Bullshit

Inhaling Truth, Exhaling Chaos, Pain, and Fear

Unraveling Family Ties

Forgiveness Isn’t Weakness – It’s Freedom

Breathing Again

Learning How to Love

Mustering the Resolve

Cleansing the Old, Anchoring in the New

Home Was Chaos Until I Chose to Move Away

From Trauma to Transformation

Letters of Release and Healing

Letter #1

Letter #2

Letter #3

Letter #4

Dedication & Preface

Overcoming The Drug Addiction, I Never Had

A personal journey of a woman’s dominant struggle to recover from a painful childhood and learn how to forgive an unloving mother

Dedications

I dedicate this book to the living memory of my brother, Robert, who will forever remain in my heart. 

And…. 

To the woman of the hour, my mother, Deborah, who inspired my writings but will never have an opportunity to read them. May the winds of heaven whisper softly in your ear that you can finally rest in peace, and not live in pieces. 

Heal so you can hear what’s being said without the filter of your wounds

Acknowledgments

It has been written that a book’s dedication is the author’s opportunity to blow someone a kiss and an acknowledgment is like extending a warm and welcoming hug to someone you care about and who has supported you through or after a long process or journey. Having said that, I must blow a kiss to my editor, Dr. Jenaya Perdue! From reading early drafts to giving me advice on flow and effectiveness. For being a listening ear and encouraging me to complete this everlasting project. I love and appreciate you more than I can express in words (which is ironic for a writer). Although I have attempted to express my gratitude during our extensive conversations, I would now like to let everyone else know just how amazing you are and that you’re the one who helped make it possible for this book to even exist! I would also like to extend a hug of gratitude to my formatter and book cover designer, Carlette Thompson Whitlock. This book was finally completed because of both of you! I thank you; I love you, and I appreciate you both! 

Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope. Excerpt from the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Once I formed a deeper connection within, the power and perceptions of self-love began to grow. When that happened, I recognized the different levels of consciousness that surrounded me on a more natural level. I gained clarity and saw that the world around me is just a reflection of the world inside of me. Honestly, this made it somewhat unclear to me who I could blame for the problems in my life. You see, as someone who suffered a distressing childhood, it has been frustrating to learn how, or if, I should take responsibility for the experiences I survived but didn’t create. Even in my personal relationships, owning my part was hard AF* to do–especially since I believed that the burdens of pain were mine to hold on to. With uncompromising resentment towards everyone, who I believed had intentionally created unjustifiable pain in my life. Projecting responsibility onto someone else, of course, is contradictory to identifying and taking responsibility for my own feelings and the consequences for my life choices. 

Logically, the uncertainty in taking ownership of my emotions stems from knowing that I wasn’t responsible for the pain I was forced to take responsibility for. I blamed my mother and a few other relatives for my low self-esteem and blamed almost everyone else I encountered for worsening it with their unsuspecting behavior. Blaming made sense to me because it wasn’t my fault that my mother was unloving, toxic, and an irresponsible crackhead or that various family members were uncaring and spiteful towards me. And the poor treatment I encountered from people I met along the way, sure as hell wasn’t my fault either. But then I realized that all I was doing was holding on to the act of blaming others instead of taking action to heal and release myself. I believed blaming and avoiding others protected me from more harm. On the contrary, I ended up creating more damaging situations that were difficult for me to detach myself and move forward from. The increasing burdens of shame and guilt only added to the anguish I was already carrying, and I continued to attract the exact pain and toxicity that I was desperately trying to escape. 

In addition to doubling up on my burdens of stress, I expected to find the solution to my pain blended with declarations of guilt and remorse in the hands of everyone who had hurt me. Once I understood it was up to others to take responsibility for their actions when and only when (or if) they chose to do so, I was able to release myself from unrealistic expectations and move forward instead of continuing to hold my breath. I was literally suffocating because I was waiting for something to happen that never would. From there, I was able to live in my own freedom and truth. I was able to gain clarity from detrimental self-created situations. I began taking control of my feelings and bearing responsibility for my actions which included responding with silence to others’ actions that impacted my life. I forgave the people who hurt me even though they didn’t ask for my forgiveness. I forgave the people who abused me even though they never admitted any wrongdoing. I forgave myself for not knowing all the answers and not knowing what to do. I learned to love myself the way I deserved to be loved and work on creating the life I never knew I wanted or merited, and frankly, a life I didn’t even know existed or that could be my own. I left the resolve of the wrongs committed against me in the hands of the Universe and released myself to live my life free of blame, shame, and guilt. 

Extending grace and forgiveness to myself gave me mental and emotional freedom. It’s a lifelong process of commitment that takes some serious fugging work! But I’m here for it and I’m worth it, and so are you.   

These writings began as stored up anger and resentment that I wanted to release with the sole intention of disarming and exposing the very people who I believed had either intentionally abandoned me or willfully caused me pain in some way during my childhood and early adult life. But once I was able to recover from the humiliation and come to the realization that there was nothing to gain aside from creating more of the same hurt, drama, and pain that I was running from, I changed my mind. Had I continued writing from a space of emotional devastation, I would have only proven that, although I had seemingly escaped the people who broke me, I was still carrying my brokenness. Steering clear of all paths that lead to communicating or connecting with the people who had hurt me, prevented more pain from getting inside, but it didn’t eliminate the pain that had already settled inside my heart. And it certainly didn’t prevent me from passing that same pain and brokenness down to my own children. 

My writings now serve a dual, more meaningful purpose that stretches beyond the pain, shame of my childhood, and the emotional battles that substantially hindered me for a significant portion of my early life through adulthood. First, I write to talk about the unspoken dynamics of brokenness that sometimes exist between mothers and daughters, and how that specific burden of pain, if not properly addressed and healed, can transfer from one generation to the next. Secondly, I write to let readers know that they don’t have to be silent anymore. They can tell their story and release their pain. We don’t have to live our lives hiding behind the shadows of fear and shame while the monsters who inflicted our pain live their lives and continue destroying others’ lives. We can speak up and fight against the darkness instead of allowing it to keep our voices silent. Your light, just like mine, can outshine the darkness. 

I pray that my survival of some of my most regrettable mistakes, shameful moments, and exasperating experiences will prevent someone else from having the same heartache and provide comfort in knowing there is a rainbow after most every tumultuous thunderstorm. If I can help just one person in this world, who may be held captive by mental and emotional guilt that’s endorsed by family dysfunction and damaging societal opinions, to know that their feelings are valid and real and that they will be okay, then that’s enough for me. 

It’s my genuine hope that through sharing my story of overcoming heartbreak, shame, and struggling to find myself through all the darkness derived from my life experiences, that I can offer enough light to another human being to be able to fight their way through their darkness as well. This is my life, but this certainly isn’t my entire story. 

Broken Heart - Fixed Vision

Once upon a dream, I was engaged to be married. My fiancé and I decided we would have pre-marital counseling so we could both learn how to sustain our soon-to-be partnership. During our very first session, our counselor asked us to explain what we each wanted from one another as we entered our new union. I was asked to go first. 

Now, according to most scripted reality TV shows, there’s a long, exhaustive set of obligations and a