People Were My Drug

That night I realized how fake I was - trying to please people and get them to accept me.

Story Tags

approval, traumatic experience, childhood, loneliness, suicide, depression

Explore the Story

• Craving Acceptance
• Twists and Turns
• The Hole in Our Heart
• Finding True Love
• Where's God in suffering?
• Identity Crisis

Most people will tell you to never do drugs in your life. Well for me my problem that I can remember that I have been struggling with since middle school is drugs. My drug was not something I physically took, but something that is in some ways just as bad. My drug was people.

Ever since I was in middle school I can remember my fellow classmates picking on me and making fun of me for my size and weight. When you are 13 that is something that you don't need to hear very often, as you deperately try to fit in. This sets the stage for one of the biggest events of my life where I turned away from someone who I should have made my best friend all along.

This constant ridicule eventually came to a head when I was in 8th grade. Here is where I started getting the brunt of the ridicule. I wondered why they picked on me. I began to think of the way people treated me, and wondered why no one liked me. I was constantly trying to be nice to people and it just seemed like everyone was out to get me.

One night the culmination of many months of trying to be nice to these people, coupled with their ridicule and in some ways abuse, was brought to the surface. That evening my parents had gone out and I had finished my studies early. I put on some music and just thought. I remember thinking I was going crazy, and thinking that I had really lost it. I can remember asking myself why no one liked me over and over again. Finally in my loneliness and despair I thought I should end it and kill myself. I thought that maybe the answer to my problems was to take my life and then everything would be alright.

I didn't know it at the time, but then God showed up. If He had not come I would have surely taken my life, and I would not be alive today.

It was after this night that I told myself I would never be alone again, that I would never let myself be that depressed again. I began to seek friendships and to seek acceptance from other people. I even started drinking just so I would have something to do with the people in my school. Here's the kicker though, I had been going to church all my life, but after that night that's when my interest in my Christian faith began to drop, and my focus was getting the people around me to like me. It wasn't until college when I met people who were so happy that they knew God. This made me start thinking about who I was before that fateful evening. One night I was reading the Bible a little bit before bed, and I got to the scene were Jesus was killed. I remember thinking about what I learned in church so long ago. I thought about how Jesus died for my mistakes and imperfections, and that through Him, I might know God have Him become my best friend. That night I realized how fake I was - trying to please people and get them to accept me. I also thought about how happy I had been when I had a relationship with Jesus. I realized that the only way for me to be happy was to know God.

The high point since I started my relationship with God again is that, I dont need to prove myself to other people. God wants to know me and He doesn't care about what anybody else thinks about me. He's shown me that people are like a drug. If I keep trying to find my acceptance in them I will never be satisfied and I would always be looking for someone to accept me, like a junkie always searching for a dealer to get a fix. Knowing that God loves me and that I am accepted by Him and striving for a relationship with Him, has made all the difference. He has filled that loneliness that hurt so bad that one night.

It's still a struggle sometimes and I still feel that sometimes I need to be accepted by people, but knowing that God is there and was there back on that one night where I thought about taking my life has made all the difference. Knowing that God cared enough for me to save me is just awesome. It's great too, because since I have started to come back to God, He has provided me with great friends who believe in what I believe and accept me for who I am.