She was a little over 90 days clean, yet her talking would speed up, and the shakes would begin. However, it was one sentence she held onto, one sentence she believed. A mentor sat with her one day, and she said these words, “I will be here to support you, until the shakes stop”.
The shakes she experienced throughout her life each held a different story.
When she was an infant her caregiver would get overwhelmed with her cries and she would get shaken until she stopped making a sound. Silently she would lay in her bed, until she learned not to cry. As she grew older her tears remained as stagnant waters in her soul.
When she was in her late teens the shakes came from a boyfriend, who she thought loved her. In the daylight in front of others he was the perfect gentlemen. Yet, behind closed doors he would beat her, and grab her by the shoulders to shake her. He would force her to look him in the eyes, as he demeaned her. When she finally got the courage to leave, she was homeless.
The third set of shakes, came from a plunge into addiction. The shakes from her past, and the uncried tears left her desiring a release, only she didn’t know how to get rid of her pain. She got high to silence her cries once more, to ride the waves of temporary joy. However the side effects of such a joy ride, was shakes. From her head to her toes, her body would tremor. She began to lose control of keeping herself still. Even as she became clean one thing remained, the shakes.
At night when she went to sleep, the nightmares would come. Her old boyfriend, the caregiver of her childhood, hard nights on the streets would leave her undone. She would wake up, drenched from a cold sweat. This time the shakes were from her nightly fears of returning to trauma. She would grab a pillow, close her eyes tight, and scream.
Yet there was something that would change this young woman’s life, it was Hope. Hope came when a mentor stepped in, and said: “I will support you from now until the shakes stop”. Each conversation opened up the lock boxes of pain she held within herself. Each prayer and reading of the recovery Bible gave her new insight into a life filled with truth and freedom. Each day that her mentor showed her that someone was willing to fight for her, opened her eyes to see, that she was not alone. The more she shared, the more she learned. She began to take back her power over the fear that she let control her life. Her mentor helped her build a community of people that had walked the path of recovery as well. The more she opened up, the more she began to feel, and the stagnant waters that sat in her soul began to pour out, so that true healing could shape her from the inside out. In time, the nightmares stopped, the shakes from her bout of addiction had ceased. She rose up, and she became a mentor for others, and her words still echo in my mind today, “I’ll support you until the shakes stop”.
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Visit: acresofhopeonline.org or Call: 530-878-8030