I was the girl no one expected. The nerdy little girl who always smiled and laughed but always kept to herself. I didn’t go out. I didn’t go to a party. I didn’t do the normal teenage things that get into trouble. Even when I sneaked out at night, it was to go to Sonic or McDonald’s. It was boring, but drug addiction doesn’t care about boredom. He doesn’t care about your personality, your friends or you.
The thing is, he knew about the addiction before he started using it. My parents were drug addicts and I had seen my family destroyed over and over again. I had seen how the need for drugs took over his need to eat, to have electricity in the house, to spend time with me. I saw my parents become different people since I was 10 years old. Finally, I got angry.
I was mad at drugs for turning my parents into these creatures I didn’t know. I was angry because my parents preferred to spend money on drugs instead of feeding me and my siblings. I was angry because at the age of 15 I had already been so traumatized that even now I have nightmares. My anxiety and depression are flowing through the roof. I couldn’t eat I couldn’t sleep My grades at school dropped. I just wanted to know: why?
What made this drug so good it was worth tearing my family apart? What made it so cool that when choosing between me and meth, they always chose meth? I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind, but they kept coming back, forcing themselves into my brain to the point that no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake the question. Why? Why? Why?! had to know I had to try it at least once, just to find out what exactly was so great about this substance.
So I did. And everything stopped.
The Depression. The anxiety. The feeling that it could never be good enough. Everything was gone. My mind raced, then slowed, raced, and went blank. Did I feel normal or did I feel at all? My adrenaline pumped. I had to go. Do something. So I cleaned the house for 8 hours before I went to school.
I didn’t sleep for two days and when I fell, I slept almost 20 hours. At least now she understood. The worst thing was that she wanted more.
I quickly climbed up and became a regular user. I didn’t need to sleep. He didn’t need food. All I needed was this drug, the one I watched destroy my parents. Now, I was watching myself destroy myself, but I didn’t care. She made the pain stop, at least for a while.
I ended up at 65 pounds in the hospital for severe malnutrition and a nasty infection before I quit. The withdrawals were horrible, but I don’t remember much except about three months. See, what they don’t tell you about being a regular user is that after a while, it redirects your brain. So now sometimes I hear things and see things that aren’t there. I have incredible paranoia and after quitting, my depression and anxiety increased tenfold.
The physical pain was much worse. Broken bones, broken ribs, and a host of illnesses before and after quitting have given me the bone and muscle structure of someone in their mid-40s instead of early 20s.
I have been clean for over two years and never plan on going back. God, though, do the cravings ever stop?