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Thank you TDS!

painenduser

painenduser

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 13, 2011
Messages
404
Location
NJ
All here at TDS and the mods that keep it awesome,

I just wanted to take the time to thank all those at TDS as well as the Mods that keep it awesome and one of the most helpful places I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of.

For many years especially in the time since I have been sober, I have often lived most of my personal life feeling that I didn't belong. I never really found a place where I felt useful, helpful, or wanted. Thats not to say that I wasn't in fact at my last job I had before I got sick I was one of the most popular people in the office , but then as my addiction flourished, I found myself becoming more of an introvert and less wanted or needed. Then I almost died from my addiction and illness. Thats when I really felt like my life, thought, and words were meaningless. Why would anyone want to listen to what I had to say? What did I have to offer anyone or even my self? I mean perhaps some of the feelings were self induced, but the rest were in the way people treated my once I came forward about my addiction. It has been a long, bumpy and tough road I have been down and I never felt of any use.

Then I found TDS. Since I have been a member here, I have been able to share my thoughts, my feelings, and my experiences. Everyone here has made me feel welcome, and my words now seem to actually make a difference with people. For the first time I have felt worth something and that feeling is awesome. I enjoy sharing my story, my knowledge and my thoughts/feelings. While many people have had all the opportunities to flame me, noone here really has. Sure people may have disagreed with something I have said, but they have done so respectfully. It has really done alot to help me to become more confident with myself and what I have to offer and share. So thank you all very much.

The way people have treated and accepted me here has been awesome and has done alot for me. I know just saying thank you doesn't mean much to some people, but it's the best way for me to get across how appreciative I am to be here and be with a bunch of people of whom I can relate too and can relate with me. It is wonderful to be here and to be able to hopefully help others and make a difference in peoples lives. I am not sure where I would be at this point in my sobriety and in mental stability. It is nice to be a part of something that can and has made a difference in peoples lives, mine included.

It just awesome to be a part of a place as special as TDS where we really depend on one another and have a voice.

I personally hope that TDS never goes anywhere, my hope for TDS is to become bigger and better and be the place addicts of all kinds can come and be a part of something with out ridicule or oppression of thought.

So thank you to everyone here! I wish I could express better how great everyone is here...

My very best to all of you for making TDS everything it is today and everything it has done for me personally.

Live long TDS and thank you for everything!!!

**** If you have a similar story of how TDS has helped you, or made you feel good about TDS, yourself, or in some other good way improved a situation or your life, feel free to reply and share it with all of us here at TDS. After all Flattery is the best of all compliments. And as we sit and enjoy all the wonderful things that the Mods have done to give us place like TDS, go ahead and let them and us know all about it! I think is would be great to read some of the "success" stories that have come out of TDS.

Peace!

-Pain
 
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Pain, your words are so kind.

So this is my thank you:

Thank you everyone on TDS. IF it hadn't been for any of you members, I would not be the person that I am today. Each day I get to read posts from people all around the world who are extremely intelligent, funny, talented, or just friendly. I don't see this as a job but more of a privelage to be able to serve as some part of happiness in your life. Everyday I make an effort to at least change some person's life on here, whether it be somebody considering suicide, addicted to drugs, survivors of an overdose or mental trauma and diseases. I love the fact that when I sit here and write what comes out of my heart, sometimes what I say completely changes a person's life for the better, and I think that's the best feeling of all.

TDS has been my refuge in life. It's the one place where nobody in my real life will ever understand me or who I am. I consider this a second life not because I change the person who I am, but it's my shelter. When I was at my worst, TDS was here with wonderful advice from people who were going through the same thing as I was, or just people who feel the way I do. In my real life, I love the friends I have, but there are somethings that at times I can't tell them, and TDS seems like the only way. TDS has taught me so many coping methods, it's connected me to some of my good friends I thought I'd never meet, and has helped me improve the person who I am. I love the community here, everybody is so loving and accepting. And I honestly never thought that some of the coolest people I'd ever meet would be meth addicts, heroin addicts, or old ladies ;) (that means you herbavore!). It's helped me remove my stereotypes of hard drug users into a very positive outlook, and I'm thankful to have every one of you in my life.

I hope in some way that I have affected or changed at least one of your lives. If I have, then that makes all the difference to me.
 
Wow guys that would be awesome! When I wrote this I was writing this as a way to express my personal thanks for all that all the Mods, the members, and TDS has done for me personally, but having this as an official thread would be a wonderful way to give those hope who aren't sure that sharing their story or airing their dirty would help them in anyway. Hopefully reading this would encourage more to do so and allow them to see the underlying benefits of such a wonderful group / family we have here. Thanks for considering this as an official post, though I am not sure what exactly it means to have this as one, but what ever it means, I am sure it will do some good for others!

((((((<3))))))
 
One of the first things that happens when you have a baby is that you learn you never really understood love before. One of the next things that happens is that you learn to deal with shit--literally, frequently and hopefully with a good attitude. The love and the shit are inextricably one. The love you experience as a parent for your child is unconditional, it encompasses the entirety of a person from the miraculousness of being to the nitty-gritty of being. It may seem strange to start off an appreciation letter to TDS with a discussion of unconditional love and dirty diapers but if I follow the thread all the way back, that is indeed how I got here.

I came to Bluelight through my son, he of the dirty diapers 20 years ago. It is not the only strange place his life took me but it is certainly the most unexpected. My son was ektamine here. I knew nothing of Bluelight before he died, indeed I didn't even really know what a forum was, let alone a drug forum. My son died of an unintentional (but fatalistically expected) drug overdose just after turning twenty. His brother found this site on his computer and in my hurt and ignorance, I asked him to log onto it, to post his obituary and then to say FUCK YOU to anyone that had ever encouraged him in any way, had glorified benzos or stimulants or opiates for one instant, or had supported him to do any of the drugs that had taken his precious life --a life that was more precious to me than my own. I was angry and the hurt I felt, and still do, was indescribable. But thankfully, my other wonderful son (who initially felt the same) kept reading. He found the shrine that had been posted, then the fact that his brother had recently become a moderator and what that entailed and finally he began to read his brothers own words. We sat together and we read and we cried. We realized that here was an amazing tight-knit community that embraced Caleb in many ways the real world denied him. I ended up saying the opposite of 'fuck you' which was 'thank you'.

I thanked the Bluelight community for giving me the deepest comfort. It was always so upsetting to our family that because of Caleb's differences he was often seen as a failure when he was such an amazing human being. His life was messy and intense but never without beauty and a soulfulness that I will miss until the day I die. Here Caleb was accepted. He could be himself with all his contradictions, his extremes and his complexities. His real world life was hobbled by courts and meaningless hoops and programs and failures. It was a world of despair. His Bluelight world encompassed everything from the beautiful, light side of his humor and compassion to the darkest sides of his madness and addiction. I came into this world to simply connect with him in any way that I could, in my own desperation,and I was welcomed and invited to explore The Dark Side; which I did.

Reading TDS posts for the first time was like talking to 20 different aspects of Caleb. I felt compelled to respond, to say the things that I could no longer say to my own precious boy. Things like: Don't be ashamed of anything. Be gentle and kind to yourself. Empower yourself with the truth. Do not accept the world's view of you. Define yourself, define your life. Learn to stay with your body in the present and let the past be past and the future unfold without your worries. In other words, TDS has given me a place, a way, to keep nurturing, to be a holder for hope and a believer that no matter how awful things are, they can change. When Caleb died I was afraid that my hope and my compassion might die with him. This forum, this community has not only kept that alive, it has allowed me to continue to live.

It is enough of an irony that a despairing mother came on to Bluelight to rage and ended up embracing and benefiting from it; but one of the bigger ironies and a sad one for me is that Caleb never allowed himself this part of Bluelight. The Dark Side community, I am convinced, saves lives. Asking "what if" is something that I try to avoid, but the questions creep in anyway. I fully believe that eventually my son would have posted here. He was already talking to us about his fear of his addiction to MDVP. He was researching and considering trying to work with a psychiatrist for bipolar and anxiety. He wanted what so many others come here seeking. He died alone a week after that conversation with us.

My thank you to The Dark Side is really a thank you to every person that logs on here, from those that post everyday to those that post once every few years and everything in between. I have never been surrounded by more selflessness, more hope and faith and empathy and compassion. No one in my real life can quite understand this. Most, including my family, think that it is some bizarre reaction to grief and so they indulge me. Why would you want to surround yourself with all that misery they ask? Misery? That is what I see in the world everywhere. But nowhere outside of here do I see the level of honesty in actually addressing that misery. You are my heroes. You face your struggles with courage, you fall and get back up, you question everything including each other and you step outside of your own pain to help others. Gratitude is certainly a large part of what I feel for the TDS community but awe would probably be a better word for what I feel.<3
 
I couldn't possibly follow that.

Every time that I see you here, herbavore, I am constantly amazed at your patience, strength, and the love that pours out of every post. Virtually any other person would not have gotten past the rage. I likely would not have. And I'm thankful for all of us here that we can be blessed by your wisdom and kindness.
 
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