For a long time, I thought the only way to deal with my pain was to escape it. The anxiety and sadness felt like too much, so I turned to pills and alcohol. It was easy to tell myself I was fine because, for a little while, it worked. The world got quieter, and the feelings I hated didn’t feel so loud. But it didn’t take long for the escape to turn into something worse. The problems I was running from didn’t go away—they got bigger. And now I was stuck with a new problem I couldn’t control.
Juice WRLD’s music came into my life when I felt like I was losing everything. His songs didn’t hide anything. He talked about addiction, depression, and how it feels to fight battles in your own mind. When he said, “Drugs got me sweating, but the room getting colder,” I felt that in my soul. It wasn’t just a lyric—it was my life. He showed me I wasn’t alone in struggling with substance abuse and mental health issues. He didn’t glamorize it; he just told the truth. And hearing that truth made me start to look at my own life differently. I realized I wasn’t just hurting myself—I was losing myself.
I’m not going to say everything’s better now because it’s not. Some days are still really hard. But I’m trying to make changes. I’m learning that facing my problems is harder than running from them, but it’s the only way to get better. Juice WRLD didn’t save me, but he made me believe I could save myself.
