I started this blog as a sort of self therapy for myself. It was a place where I could truly express my thoughts without reservations. No one knew me. No one could see me. It's a lot different than sitting in a therapists office while some stranger stares at you with a pen and a clipboard, jotting down notes.

    I think that writing my feelings and fears and worries has helped me immensely. My mind is always so busy and without a place to release those thoughts, no matter how intense or irrational, I could never get any peace. I was tired of talking only to myself. That's what crazy people do. And I didn't want to be crazy anymore.

    It also seemed that part of my healing process had to include facing the mistakes of my past. Actually confronting them and writing them out and acknowledging that they existed. And in doing that, I was able to not only let go of the guilt and shame, but truly see how far I've come. I also feel the need to acknowledge the people in my life who have tirelessly been there for me. Trying to help me, even when I refused them.

    I already paid a tribute to the amazing woman I have in my life. She is truly my lifesaver. She changed my entire outlook on life and myself. But she's not alone. There have been others. Friends and family. My brother especially. He is my best friend. He's the one who saved my life more than once. He saved me from myself. When no one else even noticed I was dying, he always did.

    I wrote a blog when I first got here about one of the times he saved me. But I deleted that almost as soon as I'd written it. I don't think I was ready to tell that story. But I am now. Because I want to remember just how lucky I am to have someone like him to love me.

    So many people in this world hate their families. And a lot of times for good reason. I've been lucky though. I've had problems with everyone, but most of them were created by me. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate just how blessed I've been to have what I have. And my brother deserves more credit than I ever gave him.

    The night he saved my life was a dark one. It was several years ago and I had a terrible fight with my (then) girlfriend. I was probably a horrible boyfriend. No, I'm sure I was. I tried really hard to do everything right, but it's difficult to be much of a catch when you're popping pills all the time. I'm sure I deserved the horrible things she said to me. I don't even remember what they were, but they ripped through my soul like little knives.
  
    I just wanted to disappear. Escape this life. I wanted to drown out everything painful and replace it with bliss. So I went to a friends house and he let me raid his medicine cabinet. In fact, we made it a party. It was the two of us and some girl who I don't really recall. A friend of his, I suppose.

    We had about five different bottles of pills. I don't know what they were. Some of them he'd stolen from his mother because she had chronic back pain. That shows the type of people I was friends with back then. Stealing medicine from their sick mothers. I'm ashamed to have been a part of that, but at the time I didn't really care. I just wanted the pills.

    I took a little bit of everything he had. I didn't read the bottles. It didn't matter what they were. I've never felt so good in my life. Whatever I had taken, it was like pure bliss. It's not even a feeling I can describe in words. It was the very definition of euphoria. And in order to keep that feeling going, I took more pills. I lost count after the total got to ten.

    I wasn't trying to die, even if in retrospect, it sounds like that was my plan. I wanted to live, but only if I could keep feeling like that. Forever. I never wanted to come down. But eventually you do. You can't stay like that forever. All good things must come to an end. And this came crashing down around me.

    The only thing I remembered was that I suddenly felt wrong. The euphoria was fading and something else was taking over. It scared me a little at first. I went into the bathroom. Maybe to splash water on my face? Or to get sick? I don't know why. But that's where I was when my brother found me. On the bathroom floor. Unconscious.

    I'd been there for about an hour I guess. I wasn't aware. When my friend found me lying there like that, his first thought was to call my brother. Not an ambulance. But my brother. I still don't know what the reasoning for that was, except he was afraid to get in trouble for supplying me the drugs. He was just as messed up as I was, so I suppose he wasn't thinking clearly either.

    My brother somehow got me to wake up and I've never seen someone look so terrified. I did that to him. He looked just as sick as me and he hadn't done anything. I caused him to look like that. He dragged me up off the floor and told me we had to walk around the block. I didn't want to and I tried to fight him, but he forced me to do it.

    We walked around the block for what seemed like forever. I had no concept of time. All I remember is wanting to sleep. I tried to make him stop walking and let me lay down in someone's yard. He refused. He kept telling me I had to stay awake. I had to walk this off or else I was going to die. He had tears in his eyes and I didn't know why. I was so far gone I had no idea just how close I was to killing myself. I thought I was okay.

    But then I got sick. Really sick. Violently sick. I threw up so many times I was hoping that I would die. It actually felt like someone was ripping my stomach out with a knife. Then I threw up blood. That's when my brother realized that he alone couldn't save me. He called the ambulance. They took me to the hospital. And he handled everything for me.

    Once I was there, they said there was nothing they could do. I had already thrown up so much, there was no need to pump my stomach. And the blood was from a broken blood vessel somewhere. They said they'd keep me for observation until the morning. I barely remember any of this. I only know this much because my brother told me later.

     After I recovered enough to be coherent, I expected him to hate me. I expected his wrath for doing something so stupid. I thought that once I wasn't dead from the drug overdose, he'd kill me himself. But he didn't. He just said he loved me and that he couldn't stand to see me doing this. He wanted me to get help. He begged me to do something. And he tried to tell me that my life was actually worth living.
   
    I didn't believe him. In fact, I don't even know if I thanked him for what he did for me. Or for keeping it a secret from our parents. He never told them about this night. Eventually I learned he did tell them I had a problem, but they never knew about this. He kept my dirty secret because he was trying to protect me. And protect them. He didn't want them knowing what I did because then they'd be sick with worry over me.

    He kept my secret and he saved my life and I walked away from him. I told him I'd change, but I didn't. Not just then. It took me awhile longer to admit there was a real problem. I thought I just had a moment of bad judgment. I wasn't ready to change yet. Almost dying wasn't enough of a deterrent because my life meant so little to me to begin with.

    I assumed that when I failed to change my ways, he would disown me as his brother. But he never stopped loving me or believing in me. And when I finally hit my bottom, he was the one who picked me back up again. At that moment in time, I had no one else to turn to. And he was there. He never judged me or rejected me. He only loved me and tried to make me see that my life didn't have to be so full of pain and darkness.

    He's the one who was still there for me when I struggled with hiding myself away from my girlfriend. He was so happy when I had been sober for so long and my life was going well, and then I met her. He wanted me to hold onto her because he knew she was special before I even comprehended just how special she really was myself.

    Whenever I'd try to run away, he'd always set me straight and push me back where I needed to be. He's been doing that for me all my life. I'm obsessed with angels, and I know he's my guardian angel. He's never left my side even when I forcibly tried to make him leave. He said he'd never give up on me because blood is thicker than water.

    I hope he knows now that I'm okay. That all of his work wasn't for nothing. I'm still here. And I finally see what it was he did for me all this time. He saved me. I'm surrounded by angels. I see that now.