As you may have seen from Sunday, I am using the book “All are Free to Write” by Sheila Allee to help me to feel inspired and to write. The second prompt was about discussing trauma that you have gone through. I made a list of 5 traumatic experiences from my life or general trauma areas that have occurred within the scope of my life. I have also stated that I am going to be very honest during this week and these posts. This means that these posts may come together on the same day depending on how I am feeling writing about the trauma or they may come later on in the day depending how I am feeling.
I have struggled with this being the next area to write about this week. It is taking more time to write these then it did last week. I will also be doing an update for the physical abuse section as well because more information came to me that I remembered after the fact. I think this section came at the right time though. I am doing a lot of healing and even attended a very important retreat focused on well-being this week from my work, so it feel very organic for where I am in life right now.
I also realized I needed to reorder slightly the list. Due to this, the verbal abuse section came earlier, so there is some reordering that is still occurring. The fourth trauma area I am going to discuss is:
Drug Abuse
I recall when I was first introduced to crystal meth. It was the ex, Mikey, that introduced it to me. I was in his room at a hotel type place he lived at. It was a homeless program. I would later go into that same program during all the time that I was homeless, but at this juncture I was just visiting him. I was still homeless myself, but just not in this program. He told me he wanted to put something up in a certain area of my body. I trusted him at this particular point, but he put meth in that part of my body. I got high without really expecting to get high. It was weird and start a very bad period of time of me hunting down this drug.
I recall agreeing to do things that I normally would not do in order to get this drug when I lived in San Francisco. It was a perfect way, in my mind, to numb out feelings. To numb away all the abuses that I had lived through. I could stop remembering them all for a brief moment because I was in a weird euphoric state. I was out of my damn mind, is what I was. I was away from the demons that constantly came out and towards me. I always felt them, like an old friend that you wish would go home but just keeps themselves around you. I kept doing the drug and started using sex to get it. I realized if I hooked up with people, they would give me the drug to do the other things they wanted to do. I allowed it to happen. I was becoming someone else at this point of my life. I was becoming a lesser version of who I wanted to be in life. I had to fight this demon though to get to other things in my life.
The first time I stopped using, yes the first time, I realized I was going to die from it. That is what my brain said to me. I let someone use a needle on me to “slam” the drug. When this happened, I knew it was time to stop. I left San Francisco shortly after that. I knew that if I did not leave I was going to die. I was going to keep using and lose any part of who I was as a person, even if at this point I did not feel like I was much of a person. I just knew if I kept using this drug, I would be less. I would be something else. Not someone I wanted to be.
I used again years later. My cousin started dealing. They sold to me. This started me back down that road. I was looking to numb emotions again, so I took them. This was my decision, but it started me down the dark road again. I was looking to avoid my life again. I was on disability. I was barely a human at this point either. I had just ended a relationship that the person wanted to put me in one room and only that part of his house. It was a weird relationship, but it was probably the “BEST” relationship I had been in up to that point, but after it I was devastated internally. I was lost again. I was feeling less of a person than I had in a long time, so I fell into an “old friend” and allowed it to start to take over again.
I only used a few times at this point, but then I met someone. The next 8 years would see off and on times of abuse from this one individual. Drug abuse was a huge part of it. It was dictating so much of our life. This individual would use and then disappear. I would not know if he was alive or dead. He wouldn’t respond to people that cared about him. It was hard to live in this. He only got sober this year, but I lived in it for 8 years for some reason. This person took my debit card one time and spent thousands of dollars that I was trying to save. He stole a car and I lost it because of him. There were other horrible things that happened because of this drug as well. I was using at this point off and on. I was getting other areas of my life in order finally. I graduated. I started in my field, but the entire time I was dealing with this dirty secret that I was using to keep numbing away those emotions. I was passing drug tests because it was so sporadic on my end, but there would be times because of how often this person was using that I would lapse. He would lie to me about things as well. He would make me believe things that were not true, he had started making me believe the world hated me. He told me I was crazy. He would say very hurtful things. He tore me down. Drugs were at the heart of it all. I stayed around though and I see the person that he is now and see a different person. I stayed on the peripheral during part of this time though, as I couldn’t survive it any more. I left for awhile, but moved back in with him. I had thought it was over but it ended up not being over. When I moved to Fort Wayne, it really took another huge hit. This last year was a lot in regards to this. I lapsed one time during that time period and it was enough to make me realize that something was going to have to change. I made it known that he was going to have to go into some type of treatment program. He did go into treatment. He has battled a lot of dreams, but I realize that living with him impacted my own trauma history. It compounded it and made it even more complicated. I stopped again because at this particular point, it had become just a weird usage that occurred because someone else around me was using.
I have learned that we can’t allow someone else to dictate our sobriety. This was probably the hardest lesson I had to learn in sobriety. It can take a lot to step away from drugs. The drugs lie. They tell you that something was fun or good that usually was not. It twists truths from lies. It makes you believe things that simply not real. I have had to be clear to my brain since my last usage that we would not fall into old thought patterns and I have been sober for numerous months. I am not a “I have been sober this long” type of person and never will be. I am gentle with myself. I will not fall into old patterns because someone else is having issues. I have been able to voice to this person that he was impacting me and I have been able to stop when he uses. He hasn’t used in months upon months now, but I had stopped a few times when normally I would have fallen into it. This is a demon I will fight the rest of my life and this is one of the first times I have been honest about that with myself. Being a drug addict is something I will always be, but it does not have to be who I am in this moment. I will not let the fact that you have to always battle addiction to remain sober defeat me. I have a blessed life and I see that right now and I will not let something like a drug take away my happiness any more. This is a huge step in the recovery and maintenance of sobriety world, making a choice to keep going forward and not allowing other things to take away that sobriety. I will not allow myself to fall back into drugs. It is a struggle, but I know I got this.
HOW I FEEL AFTER: I feel despondent. I want to share these truths and traumas, but right now I am also realizing how much I have avoided them. I have became “Cass, the therapist” and not at all authentic. I am wearing a huge mask over my face that is not fair to myself at all. I need time to readjust to my own life, but when we work that becomes such a challenge to do. I need to really sit with myself, but I am not sure where I can get that time. I know, I need to make time. I need myself to be a focus for a few days. Talking about all this stuff has made me realize, I have not properly managed it all. I have a lot of raw emotions attached to it all. I feel like emotions can become harder and more overwhelming when we are truthful to ourselves. I am being very truthful during this week, even if it causes some hurt in my heart. It is time to be fully honest and be open to the world at large. My emotions will recover.
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