I wrote She Doesn’t Look Like an Addict from a place I didn’t know how to explain any other way.
For a long time, I didn’t look like someone who was struggling. I looked functional. Capable. I kept going. And because I didn’t fit the picture people expect, I stayed quiet, even when things were unravelling.
This poem came from the shame of that silence. From the stories I told to cover what I was doing. From the fear that if I told the truth, I wouldn’t be met with help, but judgement.
There’s an unfairness in how women experience this. Women aren’t given much room to fall apart. We’re expected to cope, to care, to hold everything together. Admitting you’re not okay can feel like a failure, rather than a human response, and that belief keeps a lot of women quiet long after they need help.
Poetry gave me somewhere to put those truths without trying to make them acceptable. I didn’t write this to shock or confess, I wrote it because it was honest. Because recovery isn’t clean or dramatic. It’s hours of resisting urges, sitting with discomfort, and learning, slowly, to speak to yourself without cruelty.
Writing didn’t fix me. But it helped me stop lying to myself. It helped me name what was happening before I had the words to say it out loud.
This poem is part of my recovery, not a summary of it. And if it helps even one person feel less alone in their own silence, then it’s done its job.
