Monthly Archives: March 2015

Sick and tired. 

21 Saturday Mar 2015

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I got onto heroin around my mid teens, my first ever serious boyfriend introduced me to it and within weeks I was hooked. The circumstances leading up to the decision to try it are long and complicated. I distinctly remember when I first tried it thinking that I didn’t have the time or desire to get addicted. I was stronger than that, I could try it and leave it alone. That was day one. 14 days later I had used everyday and the gear finally ran out. I couldn’t sleep, L decided that if we got some more it would help us sleep. We bought some more. My next proper recollection is sitting in my kitchen 6 months later. I was withdrawing, I recall sinking down the cupboards to the floor and saying out loud “I’m a heroin addict. I’m a fucking heroin addict” I nervously laughed at this realisation. I don’t quite understand why.

From that point on my life changed. My childhood was gone. I was thrown into an existence of survival. Something which I learnt I was pretty good at. I could start the morning without a penny to my name and within hours be sitting there with £1000 of drugs. I couldn’t see the point of doing things in a small way, so I threw myself into my life of crime. I sold drugs, a lot of drugs. I was unrelenting in my quest to obtain more drugs. Enough was never enough for me.
Gradually, over the years things in my life changed. My partners changed. L turned into S and then my eldest sons dad P, then J. They all had one thing in common; they were addicts, fully ensconced into their addiction. They were broken people and the one thing I have learnt about broken people, is that sometimes you end up being cut on the shards of their lives. Each one of them brought something to me at the time that I couldn’t find in myself.
L brought me into the peer group that had previously shunned me. He gave me an, albeit fragile, position in the society of my youth. S gave me a more grown up and sophisticated facade, he worked up town. He held down a good job, he helped me to make believe that my life was moving on, as I had always anticipated that it would. While with S, I worked in London at a solicitors office, I presented a view to the world that I wanted them to believe.
P came into my life and gave me control. By gave me, I mean he arrived at a point when my life had spiralled into chaos, and he took control of me. Totally and absolutely. It took me years to escape his clutches. The control I craved turned out to be stifling and unhealthy, instead of taking control of my own life I had no control at all.
J came after this, and he was kind and he helped me to like myself again. To see that perhaps, with a little work, I could be worthy of love.
Throughout this my drug taking continued. At some point I added crack cocaine into my daily medication list. I don’t quite know when or how. It just seemed to have slipped in. An essential ingredient in the recipe of my life.
My weight dropped drastically as my health deteriorated. I was 5.5 stone and I felt like the living dead. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Battling daily to survive, literally, took its toll on me. My veins were collapsed, and my arms, hands, feet and legs were bruised and bloodied from the numerous attempts to inject into them. I nearly wanted to give up. Only I couldn’t, you can’t give up on life. What are your options. Live or die? Well much as it looked to the contrary I didn’t want to die. I’d been inadvertently committing suicide for many years with my addiction but dying was never in my plan. I just didn’t know how to live.

Going to prison probably saved me. It was god awful and painful and scary but it came at the right time. I will never forget the day, a few weeks after I arrived when I walked into my cell and realised that I was able to just lie there in peace. No worrying about being ill. No pain. I needed a safe haven and I needed respite. I needed time to recoup my strength and determine a new path. I needed to clear the space to grow new seeds of life. Prison gave all that to me. That is one of the reasons that I work hard for my clients. Everyone deserves an idiom of peace.

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The thin red thread. 

16 Monday Mar 2015

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I went to my ex partners wedding last weekend. J invited me months ago and immediately I knew that I would go. It was 600 miles away, no problem, I’d drive, pick up his son on the way, it wasn’t even a consideration really, he invited me, I was totally honoured, of course I was going to go. Nevermind that I’d never met his wife to be (luckily she didn’t mind) nevermind that I hadn’t seen him for months and before that years. 

 J is someone who I’ve known for all of my adult life, we first met when we were in different relationships, both drug users with other drug users. We lived in the same house for a while, him with his partner, me with mine. Then our partners fell out and do we moved on, our paths crossing occasionally. 

Roll forward a few years and I was in hiding from my new partner, the father of my son, I was living in a refuge and I was desperately unhappy. I was alone, and withdrawing from heroin and I needed some kind of human connection and there, when I was most desperate, I bumped into J, walking down the street. It was as if I was drowning and someone had thrown me a lifeline. I believe that he saved my life. Not in a literal, physical way, but emotionally. I had spent a considerable time in emotional hell and he appeared and he put no pressure on me and he was there when I was alone and lonely and desperate. He was exactly what I needed at that point in my life. 

Life rolled on, we stayed together, we made bad choices, we took a lot of drugs but throughout this time he was the rock that I hung my life upon. He was gentle and in truth he soothed my soul. He treated and lived my son as his own. We weren’t the best parents but we tried our best in difficult circumstances. 

I’m sure that during this relationship, my family thought that we were making each other worse. But what they didn’t realise is that J was the one rooting me, stopping me from going over the edge. I like to think I did they same to him. I have to admit that without his undoubtable love my son wouldn’t be the child he is now. 

After few years life changed for us. J went to prison for a significant time and my life just kind of escalated off the scale of chaoticness. J tried his best from behind the prison walls to get my life back on track, he arranged for people to take me to NA meetings, he wrote to me about change about how life could be different. I never truly believed it. I ended up in prison myself. Somehow, even in there J managed to convince the authorities to let him call me. He spoke to me from his prison to mine, told me that this was an opportunity, that it was the best thing to happen. I didn’t believe a word of it. 

I got out of prison and moved in with my Dad. I realised that I needed to move forward and I cut J out of my life. Looking back, I was vicious to the one person who had been there for me. At the time it was survival. 

As I was getting better, J was left alone. His life continued in a spiral of drugs and crazy women. Occasionally I’d bump into him, or actively seek him out to make sure that he was alive, ok. I felt guilty that my life was getting better whilst his stayed the same. 

So it was fantastic to hear that he had finally managed to extricate himself from our old lifestyle. That he had met an amazing woman and planned to marry her. And most of all that she was sure enough in their relationship to want me to join them in their celebration of their marriage. I’d have understood it if she hadn’t but it meant a lot that she did. She understood the link between us and didn’t feel threatened by it. She had no reason to, life was different now to 14 years ago. 

There is an old Chinese proverb that  says an invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, despite the time, the place, despite the circumstances. The thread can be tightened or tangled, but can never be broken.  in life we meet up with people, they might be there for a while, they might go and sometimes they may reappear at times when they either need someone or you do. J has always been one of those people in my life. That is why I drove 600 miles to celebrate his wedding.  I will always consider him one of my closest friends, I wish for him and his new wife all the joy in the world. They both deserve it. 

Reinforcing the chain. 

12 Thursday Mar 2015

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Being away from people that you love is hard. It’s harder when you get news of their pain, suffering and illness. Every bone in your body wants to do something. Jump into action, help make it right, make them better. But sometimes you can’t. Sometimes the distance that you would need to travel is too great, other responsibilities too much or maybe it is financially unachievable. Whatever the reason, knowing that someone you love and care about greatly is not right and that you can’t do anything about it is heart wrenching. 

9 years ago my Dad moved to the USA.  He has had a few health scares over the years, most of which he has brushed off without any fuss to us kids. This week he was taken into hospital, and it seemed like it could be bad. We found out in the middle of the night (mainly due to the time difference) that he’d been taken in with abnormalities in his breathing and heart. 

There is honestly nothing to make you feel more impotent than hearing that someone you care about as much as your parents are possibly critically ill and yet being absolutely incapable of doing anything about it. I wanted to make sure they were doing all the correct tests, make sure they were doing them promptly, and then reacting on the results. Everything seemed to be taking far too long, for goodness sake, this isn’t anyone, this is my Dad; you need to fix him now. There was also a nagging in my mind that perhaps he is worse than my stepmom is telling me. She could be trying to protect me from knowing how bad he is. 

Most of all I just wanted to see him. Give him a cuddle and tell him I loved him. Of course, I’ve told him that I love him hundreds of times, but it suddenly became important to tell him so again, to remind him. I tried to think back to the last time that I saw him, or spoke to him: what had I said, will he know I care? What if that is the last time I ever spoke to him? The time difference between us often makes it difficult to talk at a convenient time, he may well call as I’m cooking dinner or putting the kids to bed. Did I give him my full attention? 

I imagine how I would have felt if that initial message saying that my Dad was ill instead had said something else, imagine if it had been worse news. Would I have been happy that I had done everything in my power recently to make my dad feel loved? 

This week has made me realise the importance of making sure that I strengthen the chain that holds our lives together. Not just with my dad but with everyone I care about.  I am going to make the effort, go out of my way to let people know that I care. There are a million ways to do it, and they don’t need to cost money or even vast amounts of time. I can call someone I care about for no reason whatsoever, tell them or show them through my words that I’m thinking about them, that they matter. A text or a Facebook message can do the same thing, sometimes it’s not about how or what you say to people, it’s the fact you have reached out to them in some way. I can send small surprises to people I love. I can offer to help them out, pay them a compliment, it doesn’t really matter how or what I do, the important thing is to let them know that I care. That they matter. 

Kicking and screaming. 

03 Tuesday Mar 2015

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Today I have had enough of being a grown up. I’ve had enough of being the responsible one. I’ve had enough of dealing with other people’s crap. I’ve had enough of worrying about how I’m going to pay bills. I’ve totally had enough of tempering the desire to rip people’s heads off their shoulders and drop kicking it into the distance.  I want,  desperately, to revert to a toddler like tantrum,  throwing anything to hand as far as I can. The urge to lay on the floor kicking and screaming is almost overwhelming.  

Being a grown up is exhausting. Well it is for me. My natural propensity to punching idiots in the face is constantly needing to be controlled.  Then there is the need to look after other people, constantly.  All. The. Bloody. Time. A lot of these people are other adults,  and yet somehow I still seem to have to (figuratively) wipe their arse and help them now their noses. 

 Now in general I don’t actually mind helping other people out,  in fact,  being a fairly bossy person, I can often be found telling other people what to do,  however, sometimes, and only very sometimes, it would be nice not to be the person making the decisions. To be the one spending the money and not worrying about how I’m going to earn it. To be the one making the mess rather than just tidying it up. 

 It would be lovely to have the food magically appear in the cupboards once a week without actually having to go shopping. Or for clothes not only to somehow be clean and ironed,  but also to be laid out for me perfectly coordinated and ready for whatever adventure (job)  I have to do that day. 

Days like today make me wonder why we chastise our children for throwing temper tantrums. Surely a 5 minute outburst, rolling on the floor screaming and ranting is preferable to feeling like I might snap in half under the pressure of holding it in? Perhaps there would be less stress related illness if, in a contained and safe way, we were able to express our entire range of emotions in a childlike and untethered way, rather than it just being ok to express happy, positive thoughts. Maybe my tension headaches would go away if I could actually tell some people how I feel (or rather how they have made me feel)  rather than just grating my teeth and clenching my jaw. 

Or maybe I should just break out a bottle of wine and some chocolate and grow the hell up.