Thomyog - Untitled

The legendary line "Let's Talk Now"

Blue-gray Tanager (Thraupis episcopus), family Thraupidae, order Passeriformes, found in Mexico, Central America, and South America

photograph by Pajareando ando🇲🇽

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When Someone You Love is Addicted to Steroids

There's a kind of pain that doesn't bruise the skin or bleed, it's much slower and much deeper. It's the agonizing pain of watching someone you love destroy themselves while you stand there, powerless to stop it.

This is about my father. Oh, dad...

A man I once knew as strong, kind, and full of life.

A man I still love, even now, even through everything...

Steroids were never supposed to be the monster (the "demon," as he calls it). They started out as a tool. A shortcut to strength, confidence, control. But that's where it gets you, right? The shortcuts you take in life. Over time, they took him—piece by piece.

At first, it was just the mood swings. Anger. Paranoia.

Then came physical changes. His face started bloating, his body started swelling, his eyes looked past you instead of at you.

And then the man I knew was gone...

He doesn't see it. He thinks he's invincible, untouchable. He doesn't see how sick he's getting. How his body is decaying from the inside out. How much we've lost. Our family.

Steroid addiction is insidious. It's not just about the muscles or the vanity. It's about control, insecurity, a constant need to be more, to feel as if your enough. But it will never be enough. It consumes, isolates and kills. It takes and takes until...there's nothing left.

The hardest part you may ask? Realizing there's nothing more we can do, nothing more I can do. You beg and scream and cry. You plead with logic, love, fear, with every fiber of your being. But addiction doesn't know those words, that love, any of it.

Then you reach a point where you're forced to choose:

Hold on and go down with them, or let go and try to survive the grief of a person who's still alive.

I've chosen to grieve.

I've chosen to grieve the father I used to know. The one who would laugh until he had tears in his eyes. The one who would hug me so tight, I felt safe. The one who existed before the vials, the needles, the lies.

There's a unique kind of helplessness in loving an addict. Especially when the addiction is hidden behind muscles and denial. People don't talk about steroid addiction the way they speak of the others. But it's real, and it's deadly.

If you're going through this too, please know you're not alone. And it's not your job to save them. It never was.

Sometimes love looks like holding on. Sometimes love looks like walking away. Both are excruciating, but they're love.

And they both leave scars.

I love you, dad.

Source: When Someone You Love is Addicted to Steroids

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“If someone wants to be a part of your life, they’ll make an effort to be in it.”

— (via emptystic)