Tag Archives: addiction

The thin red thread. 

16 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Friends, love, Relationships

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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. 

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Imperceptibly insidious.

23 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by in Emotions, Relationships, Uncategorized

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It starts off as something good. It’s nigh on perfect. The phoning to check you got home safely, asking if you have enough money, wanting to spend every waking moment together. All proof, as if you need it, that they care, this might even be “it”

At some undefinable point the balance shifts. It’s almost imperceptible. The phone call you used to get to check that you got home safely changes. The question “are you home ok?” Changes to “are you home?”, that in turn changes to “where are you?” Or “why aren’t you home?” Almost the same words, completely different question.

You don’t notice. It’s imperceptible.

Their concern that you have enough cash, might somehow turn into “how much money do you have?”, and then it may turn one of two ways; either asking what you have done with your money, or possibly requests to borrow cash, most likely small amounts at first, perhaps getting larger. There may be believable excuses as to why they need this money, the excuses may be increasingly unbelievable, as may the excuses they give for failing to pay you back. It doesn’t really matter, you love them, you can’t say no. Anyway, if you say no they may not ever pay you back the money, and you can’t afford to lose that. Or you don’t want to say no. You love them.

At first you spend all your time together. It’s intense, you can’t stand being apart. You cancel plans with friends and family because you’d rather spend time together, it’s a choice you make freely. Gradually you realise you haven’t seen friends for a while. You want to show off this new person in your life, show off the perfectness of it. You make plans. You meet with friends, your friends and family may be just as enthralled by your new relationship, they may be as charmed as you are. Your partner, on the other hand, may not be as enthralled by them. They pick up on things which seemed perfectly innocent to you and with the twist they put on them, things that family or friends say seem like insults and slights. You may begin to think perhaps your friends aren’t as good as you thought, or maybe you don’t believe it; either way the amount of hassle you have to go through to see friends or family means that you start to not bother. After all you have each other, that’s all you need. It is worth it. The other person is like an addiction, all you need.

Imperceptibly, your relationship with even your closest friends has changed.

One day, you realise that you are not your own person. Your world revolves around this other person. They are the sun to your earth, only like the sun, you only see the light occasionally. Unlike the sun, there is no way of predicting when that will be, or how long it will stay.

They may or may not become physically or sexually violent with you. It doesn’t matter; you suddenly realise you are walking on egg shells around this person. Your happiness, indeed your entire state of mind and self esteem depends entirely on them and the mood they may or may not be in. It was insidious. You can’t pin point a moment in time. It just happened, along the way, without you realising. Seemingly harmless, but ultimately cruel, and harmful. And because of the insidious nature of it, you have lost the resources (money, friends, family, self esteem), that you need to escape.

That’s when you need support the most, and somehow, the abuser has managed to remove every support mechanism from you. You are literally isolated; socially and emotionally. Every escape route blocked and secured with amazing vigilance by the abuser. You probably feel like you don’t deserve to be treated any better. That without this person you are alone. They may have even convinced you that this is your fault, that there is something wrong with you.

This is why I think it’s so important to discuss abuse. I have seen friends of mine getting dragged into unhealthy relationships and I always try to broach the subject with them. It’s a difficult conversation to have and I’ve lost a few friends afterwards, but hopefully, when the time comes that they find themselves creeping around on eggshells not knowing where to turn, they will remember that conversation and it may give them a route out. Hopefully they will know that no matter how long ago I last saw them, no matter what has happened in between, they can reach out to me for help. There will be no judgement. There should be no shame. At the very least I know that I have tried, I have tried to leave them a door to escape from, and sometimes that is all that we can do.

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The interweb.

17 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by in Friends

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I had to pop round a friends house today to pick up a package that I’d had delivered there way before Christmas, but kept forgetting to collect. On the way there I was thinking about the complete randomness that made me friends with her and more importantly, why we are still friends. Don’t get me wrong, we aren’t close friends, but I know her and her sisters well enough to be invited to important life occasions, such as birthdays and weddings.

The thing is I only know her because I met her sister a few times at the local children’s centre when I was on maternity leave. We have no other link, and likely never would have. Ten years ago that would have been that. I’d have met this girl, probably promised to carry on meeting up once I’d gone back to work and then, as these things happen, we would both find ourselves back in the madness that is our lives, and that would have been that. Perhaps we’d see each other occasionally in the street and say hello. Perhaps it might have been too awkward to do even that.

So what was it that made me not only stay in touch with her, but also then become friends with her Mum, and sisters? It was something that we all take for granted today: the Internet, or to be specific; Facebook. We sat in the children’s centre one day and added each other as friends. We then saw each other’s lives carry on, we commented, commiserated and laughed at things together. I virtually met her family and made friends with them. A friendship which would, previously have been a fleeting thing was prolonged and enhanced. Fascinating really.

I then started to think about other circles of friendships that I have, which in all probability wouldn’t exist without the means of social media. My marriage being the first. I met my husband in a chat room, spoke for a month, met, then moved in together all in a few short days. That was 9.5 years ago. Obviously we now communicate outside of the medium of the Internet (occasionally), but without it we would never have met. I’ve not ever asked him, he might possibly say that was a good thing!

I have a group of friends who I have never met, but who I have had support me, and I have supported them through some of the most traumatic experiences of our lives. We know, on occasion, the details of each other’s bodily functions, we know who’s marriage is happy, who’s struggling with depression who have just been promoted at work, and we have celebrated and laughed together more than I have with some of the friends I see everyday. These people are people who I met on a message board over 5 years ago.

I have old school friends I’m in contact with purely because of the ease of socialising through electronic means. I mean seriously, I’d never have found the time or possibly inclination to keep in touch with these people otherwise. It is good to keep in touch with your youth. The internet is the web that holds us together.

One of the groups of friends that I am most proud to stay connected to are a random group of people who, like me are in recovery. I call them a group of friends, however, very few of them actually know each other or even realise that I connect them in my head to other random people in my friends lists. Some of them are relatively new to this journey, others have walked the path longer, some have faltered and yet all of them are hanging on. Despite the odds. I am honoured to be able to follow their progress and offer support where I can through the medium of the internet.

All that said, I am fairly cautious in my approach to Facebook statues or tweets. I often get friend requests that I ignore or block. I try my hardest not to argue with people online or write statuses designed to enrage or offend. It is often tempting to berate someone who you feel has wronged you in someway, by updating your status or tweeting about it. But the problem with social media is that once you have pressed the send button, there is no taking it back. Not only may you regret saying it an hour later, you may have irretrievably broken a relationship in the process. That thing you said in jest that you didn’t actually mean can hurt and rip apart lives.

The Internet means I can cultivate relationships that in the past would never have existed, I can settle arguments with a few words typed into Google. I’d never have finished my degree without it, however we should all pause and think; Social media has the power to enhance, change and destroy our lives. Every single person using it should consider that before they post.

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Significant insignificance.

10 Wednesday Dec 2014

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I’m feeling fairly reflective this evening. I’ve been studying Trauma on my course and it makes you realise how fragile life is. Life as you currently know it anyhow. One minute you could be driving along worrying that you are late for work, the next you could be dead, be it from an accident or a brain haemorrhage or a heart attack. It really can be that quick. Alive. Dead.

In the case of a road accident, you could argue that being late was the cause. Because if you were on time something different would have happened maybe, maybe not, but one thing I do know is that life is full of moments which at the time you may not even pay attention to, and yet, with the power of hindsight or to someone else it is huge.

You may not even realise that it happened, there may be someone who is walking around right now, whose life you have massively impacted upon and yet you don’t even know it. The moment was so insignificant to you that you don’t even realise that it happened and yet to the other person it had huge significance, good or bad. Insignificant significances.

There are certainly people in my life who have done this for me, who have shown me an unwarranted, but absolutely needed bit of kindness that has been a turning point in my life. In the very least they have made me think differently about my life.

An example of this was when I was about 22. I was a single parent, who had just got out of a really abusive relationship and was attempting, for the first time, to cope on my own. Oh, and did I mention that I also had a huge heroin addiction? I weighed 6 stone (I’m 170cm tall) and I felt like I was going to die. Not just from the addiction, but just because life was supremely tough. I was living in a bedsit in a women’s refuge, I had no friends and I was also withdrawing.

I’d gone into town to see if I could see anyone to get some gear from or to shoplift to earn some money, but I was having no luck and I wanted to die. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was cold, I hadn’t eaten for 2 days, mostly because I’d forgotten to, but also because I was skint and feeding the baby came first.

And then I saw him approach me. I was standing in the local shopping centre, feeling desperate and instead of avoiding me, he came up to me. He asked if I was ok, and I nodded yes. He asked me if I wanted to sit down on the bench with him for a bit as I looked ill. So I sat down and we chatted for a bit. He asked me when I last ate and I told him I couldn’t remember. He told me to wait there, and he disappeared, only to reappear 3 minutes later with a can of coke and some chocolate for me to eat. Then said he had to go and left.

This good Samaritan significantly changed my life that day. I will never forget him. He showed me a bit of kindness when I desperately needed it. He may have even saved my life. His actions have become something that I have tried to live by; if I can help someone else then I should. It doesn’t take a lot, words of encouragement, a smile, a car of chocolate and a can of coke. All can be insignificant things which change the course of someones
world. Insignificant significances.