I’m not tough. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be someone different; I wanted to be fearless, poised, calm, and tough. Not surprisingly, no matter how much I tried to be someone else, I was always left with myself. I don’t have a long track record of sobriety, but I also don’t have a great record of honesty, and have never told anyone “My Story.” It is much easier to sit at a computer, and spill my story, than in front of a group full of people that quite honestly, intimidate me.
I had a fairly decent childhood. My mom had extreme Agoraphobia when I was younger, and spent a lot of her time pent up inside our house. She reports this as the worst time in her life, but I remember pretending that we were captives on an island, seeking refuge from cannibals (my older brother taught me about cannibals).
I, in short, remember being happy. I’m glad that my mom held herself together to benefit me, but at the same time I think I learned a lot about hiding the truth.
At school I was a geeky, four eyed, bookworm. The fact that I was apparently unpopular didn’t phase me at all until around the age of 11. I began to go through that awkward, chubby girl phase, and I was totally mortified. Up until that point, I had a normal relationship with food, and had never given much thought to my weight. That was all, however, starting to change. My distaste for my body had a lot to do with why I turned to drugs. I remember finding a bottle of diet pills, taking them, and breathing a sigh of relief when my appetite for dinner seemed to have vanished.
I wanted so badly to be skinny, but I couldn’t lose weight. I know now that I wasn’t overweight, but I also wasn’t skinny. After a few months of fasting, binging, losing, gaining, I gave up on starvation. I turned to vomiting instead, and unfortunately became addicted to the binge/purge cycle. If you aren’t one of the few who actually lose weight by vomiting, you can go a long time flushing away, without anyone noticing.
I found methamphetamines at fifteen, and was elated at the almost instant weight loss. I didn’t have to worry about food anymore, because I wasn’t hungry. It was much more pleasant to get high, than to spend an hour throwing up. My mom is a wonderful woman, but she was naïve, and afraid of hurting my feelings. She took me to counseling for my bulimia, but I refused to go back, and she didn’t push it.
I used meth weekly for the first six months, and then began using daily. I lost 20 pounds, and even though I felt like shit, at least I was skinny. Then a friend returned from a rehab center, and knocked on my door. She introduced me to crack cocaine. Meth was my drug of choice, but crack was such an intense rush, that I began to use both. My dad, however, whom had been deployed during the majority of my heavier drug days, was returning home. I had gotten good at hiding the signs from my Mom, but my Dad hadn’t seen me in a year.
I remember the first thing my dad said to me, “You look like a fucking drug addict.” Unfortunately my Dad and I are dangerously alike and I spouted off with some smart ass comment. Within weeks of my dad’s return I was kicked out of my house. I’ll never forget that feeling. I had nowhere to go, all my friends were addicts, living here and there. It was cold, and the feeling of loneliness took a permanent seat on my shoulder. My one friend (who introduced me to crack) told me we could stay with a guy she knew at a local motel.
I guess I wasn’t ready for what these guys wanted. My friend neglected to tell me what exactly she had done with this guy, and I hadn’t before reached this point. I don’t talk about the things I’ve done for drugs, because I’m afraid of what people will think, but maybe getting it all out somewhere will help me move on.
It was like a corny Lifetime Movie, except I couldn’t turn the channel. I was in the bathroom with a guy I didn’t know, on my knees for a quick high. I was seventeen, he was somewhere in his forties. Afterwards I was nothing, labeled as a whore, ashamed, and just hopeless.
In my mind I somehow justified oral sex, because it didn’t involve me. Unfortunately once you have the reputation of being a crack whore, protesting no doesn’t really make them stop. I don’t know if I’ll ever get past that. If I had been just a normal person, walking down the street, rape would be a tragedy. I wasn’t though. I was a whore, and it wasn’t a tragedy to anyone but myself.
A few days after that incident, police had apparently been called to where I was staying. Looking for a suspect in another case, I was arrested for drug paraphernalia. Fortunately my Dad found out I was in jail, and decided to let me come back home. He told me, however, that I would have to go to an inpatient treatment center. I agreed, stayed five days, and signed myself out. I went back home, bought some meth, and began again.
Up until two weeks ago I had been using Meth daily, once again. I haven’t used crack cocaine since my short stint in rehab, and am trying to forgive myself for the mistakes I made. I feel hopeful this time though. I’m older, I have a boyfriend that loves me, and am enrolled in the upcoming college semester. I know two weeks isn’t long, but it’s a start. I would never have posted this before (even if it is online), but I just want to feel some kind of relief, and I hope letting it all out will.
