My 47th birthday was a few days ago. 11 years ago, I wrote a post on my birthday, detailing my addiction and recovery, and while I won’t go into the same points again, I thought I’d write something in the same vein.

Shortly after my last (third) stint in rehab in my early 20s, I had moved back in with my parents while I found my footing. In the depths of bipolar depression (undiagnosed at the time), I went into the basement, coiled a coat hanger into a spiral, heated it to white hot with a blow torch, and pressed it into my forearm. I almost passed out from the pain, but it was, in lieu of proper treatment, what I needed at the time.

I’ve always been extremely sensitive to sensation, both pleasurable and painful. It’s part of why drugs always sat well with me — they were fun, but also an escape from physical and emotional pain. And I’ve had lots of both my whole life.

I didn’t shy away from pain — I got tattoos, got in fights, slammed around in mosh pits, and all of that, but I always had drugs to keep me from feeling the brunt of it. But here I was, stone cold sober, seeking out the pain I’d always sought to numb. It was clarifying, cathartic, and I felt peace like I hadn’t in a long time.

When I was a kid, we used to have those Just Say No films shown to us. They made smoking look cool enough that I started when I was 12. But what really got me was one on heroin and cocaine. The “disastrous” results they portrayed looked appealing to me at 8 or 9 years old. I decided early on that when I could get drugs, I would. It would narrow my world down to worrying about just one thing, and that was appealing. Nancy Reagan made sure I knew it would be painful, but I wanted it.

It was, in essence, about focus. I had so many internal voices and contradictions that I just sought simplicity. And addiction offered that. Intense pain offers that as well. It’s clarifying. Especially pain you can control when you can’t control anything else.

But I’ve been clean for over 20 years, I’ve been through years of therapy, and I have diagnoses and treatments for my various disorders. I don’t seek out pain anymore. I don’t need it the way I used to. Now I avoid it when I can, and have healthier ways of dealing with what I can’t.

I still have that brand on my arm, though. I look at it as a symbol of a painful time in my life, but the scar also represents healing to me. Of dealing with pain — depression, uncertainty, loss — and finding my way through it. Pain changes you, and it leaves a mark, but it doesn’t have to control you.

Both pain and pleasure are temporary. I do a pretty good job of remembering pleasure, but I’m wont to forget pain. And that’s a good way to keep hurting yourself. This brand is something I can’t forget, and is a good reminder about recovery the temporary nature of pain.

When my partner, Elle, knit a raccoon (my favorite animal) for me, they knit a matching brand into its right foreleg. It meant so much to me, representing the same pain and healing that my own brand does, and it reminds me that I’m not alone. I love it (and them) more than I can say.