beach house

I need to surf.
I need the water.
I need hurricane season.

I painted the waves I’m craving to catch right now. I need. I always feel like I need something.

Especially a house on the beach — a place where I can sit and stare at the ocean, feeling like everything might finally be okay. I believe I would be happier there.

Today, though, I understand that a beach house would only enhance my life. It would not fulfill a deep, unmet need. I don't need to surf. I want to surf. I want to use surfing as a coping skill, a source of joy — but it wouldn’t be my only source. Even with it, I would still walk through dark emotional days, fleeting intrusive thoughts, old patterns of self-soothing behaviors, and waves of anxiety.

I tend to attach absolutes to things — even healthy habits can become obsessive thoughts.
“I feel like this because I haven’t skated in a few days.”

“I feel like this because…”
That phrase — one I’m trying so hard to swallow before it leaves my lips. Like a nervous tic. In that instant, my body tenses — my neck, my back — and a lump rises in my throat. I become a detective, scrambling to figure out why I'm feeling what I'm feeling. That investigation spirals into dark holes of imagined possibilities, none of them rooted in reality. It gives my anxiety something to cling to — any “clue” I find becomes proof of some impending threat. I start to create fake scenarios in my mind to explain why I feel off.

It makes me so deeply sad for my inner child — the little girl who lived like this every single day growing up. She was taught to expect the worst. She was taught she didn’t deserve safety, protection, honesty, or respect. She was taught her body was her only value, that men were always abusive and unfaithful, that she would never be enough, never worthy of love, and that she was a burden.

Walking on eggshells — that's how I lived.
My little body absorbing the tense energy from the moment I woke up.
What was going to happen today? Would we have enough money to make it through the week? What kind of fight would break out?

I was always over-analyzing, even as a 4- or 5-year-old, sitting on my bed, trying to figure out what I had done wrong to cause the tension in the house. Scanning my parents’ faces, reading their energy like a survival skill. Usually, when I felt that "off" energy, something catastrophic would follow — a violent fight, utilities being shut off, life taking a sudden, painful turn.

I didn’t realize until recently that I carried these survival behaviors — these negative core beliefs — into adulthood.

In active addiction, there truly was often something about to go wrong. Anxiety wasn’t just a feeling — it was reality. Most of it was caused by my actions. The drugs warped my character. The disease took hold so tightly that I forgot about that little girl inside me. I buried her beneath guilt and shame — shame for becoming the person I swore I never would.

I’ve had to work tremendously hard to forgive myself for the pain I caused others during my addiction. The guilt mirrored the people-pleasing I learned as a child — desperately trying to avoid conflict, desperately trying to be “good enough” to be loved, to be safe. That guilt made me believe I didn’t deserve to say no, didn’t deserve to stand up for myself. I was conditioned from an early age to believe that love was conditional, that worth was conditional. That any love I received had to be earned, and easily revoked.

In recovery, I'm learning how to forgive myself — for the brutal punishments I inflicted on myself.
I would never treat a friend the way I have treated myself.

I am loving and kind and forgiving toward others. I am self-sacrificing for those I love. Yet, I never showed myself the same compassion. My love for myself was always conditional — based on some arbitrary scale of “good” or “bad.”

The only way to stop the hypervigilance — the constant monitoring of myself and those around me for potential threats — is to retrain the way I love myself. To make my love for myself unconditional.

If I love myself unconditionally, my nervous system can finally relax. The fear that seizes my body in moments of uncertainty stems from a childhood where love was unpredictable, inconsistent, and frightening.

If my parents were okay, then I was okay.
If they seemed to love me, then I was allowed to love myself.
If they were happy, I was happy.

Emotionally kidnapped by everyone else's emotions.
I repeated this pattern in every relationship — with friends, coworkers, everyone.
I convinced myself I was a burden.
That it was exhausting to love me.

I always needed something — some form of validation — to prove I was "good." I couldn’t find joy on my own. I couldn't feel joy unless I believed those around me were happy with me.
If I thought someone was mad at me, my world would crumble.

That hypervigilance — that deep need for reassurance — became a vicious cycle. I wasted countless hours in anxious spirals, trying to read people’s tones, facial expressions, moods. Even now, sober and healthier, even doing activities I love, I find ways to distract myself from the emotions that inevitably resurface.

I could be sitting on my board in the ocean, the sun beating down, the waves crashing around me — yet still feel a pit in my stomach wondering, Is my partner mad at me?
Did I do something wrong?
Is tension building that I can’t see yet?

Even though I know in my soul that I’ve done nothing wrong.

Even though I know I have removed toxic people and situations from my life.

Still, the pit remains.

I am learning:
I do not NEED anything.

I do not need to surf.
I do not need new clothes.
I do not need a degree.
I do not need to lose 20 pounds.
I do not need a beach house.

I need to believe I will be okay — with or without those things.

I have made so much progress, but some of these patterns feel embroidered into my subconscious. I have to stay actively aware. I have to choose differently. I have to believe differently.

Sometimes it feels like I have all the ingredients to bake the cake — but I don’t put it in the oven. Or I pull it out too soon and it’s still raw in the middle.
I know the secret to beating these anxious thoughts: presence, self-trust, unconditional love — but I don't always trust myself enough to believe it will be okay, no matter what unfolds.

I dream of that little beach house.
A garden in the back.
A gate leading to the ocean.
Kids running barefoot in the sand as I bring out lunch on a blanket.

How can I truly enjoy that future if part of me clings to the fear that it could all disappear?

No matter what blessings come into my life, if I don’t continue to work on believing I deserve them, I will never be able to fully enjoy them.

Moving forward means telling my inner child the truth she never got to hear:
That she did not deserve the uncertainty.
That she was always worthy of love.
That she was not responsible for her parents' emotions.
That what happened to her was not normal.
That her worth was never tied to her body.
That not all uncertainty is bad — sometimes, uncertainty is magical.