My life is a house. The basics are its foundation. Self-soothing: the windows and doors. And a strong community of people is what makes up the walls and roof of my house. Without that community, I would be exposed to the elements…not able to last very long on my own. But I have people that support me that make my house a home.

I’ve written a lot about community already, so I won’t belabor the point, but I wanted to reemphasize its importance briefly here in terms of how it helped with my recovery. Without the support and accountability of many key people in my life, I wouldn’t have stuck with the basics and the self-soothing techniques that I needed to learn to recover. Even if these people weren’t literally saying, “hey, Beebe, do this thing that you’re supposed to do,” it made a difference just knowing they were there if I needed support.

When I talk about key people, I’m honestly kind of choosy about who I put in that category. It’s not just any well-meaning person that makes up those walls and roof, but people that fill a certain criteria: people who really get it. People who accept you unconditionally. If you’re unsure about who these kind of people might be in your life, here’s a quick list of traits that I’ve come up with:

They understand your situation, or are honest about it when they don’t
You feel safe expressing your feelings to them
They don’t try to minimize your feelings
They make you feel good about yourself, and are supportive
They are able to be honest with you, and don’t handle your struggles with “kid gloves”
They remind you of helpful tools when you’re struggling, instead of or throwing meaningless platitudes at you
They understand your boundaries and respect them
They love you…no strings attached, and don’t put requirements on your relationship

And, above all…

They accept you unconditionally
They accept you unconditionally
They accept you unconditionally

It’s really quite simple. We need people like this in our lives to survive. It feels so easy to isolate ourselves in times of struggle but, what we need in those times is the very opposite: to bring people into our lives however we are able. Whether it’s face-to-face, on the phone, or via the internet doesn’t matter. The point is that we reach out…and reach out to people who accept us unconditionally . They keep us sheltered while we weather the storm.