{"id":904,"date":"2025-01-19T00:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T00:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/?page_id=904"},"modified":"2025-10-07T23:33:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T23:33:19","slug":"kaitlyn","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/?page_id=904","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Y."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>\u201cI thought it was normal, until I realized it wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I was growing up, my older brother was everything to me. He was the protector, the one who always made me laugh when things got hard. But then came the drugs\u2014first just weed, then pills, then the deeper stuff. He started changing slowly, and I didn\u2019t really understand what was happening. I thought maybe he was just going through a phase. The way he looked at me started to shift; he became distant, unpredictable. He\u2019d be there one minute, and then gone for days, disappearing into the world of addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It tore me apart when I had to be the one to explain to my friends why he wasn\u2019t around. My parents were always working, always too tired to deal with it. I had to be the one to pick up the pieces when things went wrong. The hardest part was watching him spiral and knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it. I wasn\u2019t old enough to understand addiction fully, but I knew it was taking him away from me. I started to believe that I was invisible to him, that I wasn\u2019t enough to make him care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The turning point came when I was 16. My brother overdosed. He survived, but it was a wake-up call. He went into rehab for the first time, and I thought, \u201cThis is it. He\u2019ll come back to me.\u201d But recovery wasn\u2019t a straight path. It was messy, filled with relapses, and each time it felt like I was losing him all over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I spent so much time focusing on&nbsp;<em>him<\/em>&nbsp;and trying to fix things that I forgot about myself. I became a codependent, always trying to be the \u201cgood sister,\u201d the one who could fix the broken parts of his life. But eventually, I learned that I can\u2019t fix someone else\u2019s journey, and that\u2019s okay. What I can do is focus on my own healing. Therapy helped me with that, and I started to rebuild a life that wasn\u2019t tied to his addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If there\u2019s one thing I\u2019d tell someone going through something similar, it\u2019s this: your worth isn\u2019t tied to their struggle. You can love someone without losing yourself in the process. And sometimes, the best way to love someone with an addiction is by taking care of yourself first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI thought it was normal, until I realized it wasn\u2019t.\u201d When I was growing up, my older brother was everything to me. He was the protector, the one who always made me laugh when things got hard. But then came the drugs\u2014first just weed, then pills, then the deeper stuff. He started changing slowly, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-904","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Colleen","author_link":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/?author=2"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"\u201cI thought it was normal, until I realized it wasn\u2019t.\u201d When I was growing up, my older brother was everything to me. He was the protector, the one who always made me laugh when things got hard. But then came the drugs\u2014first just weed, then pills, then the deeper stuff. He started changing slowly, and&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":977,"href":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/904\/revisions\/977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyoverdrugs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}