TWEEKERLAND – Meth Speed Bumps

Tip of the Iceberg…

Before I get into this entry, I want to make something crystal clear.

Although I am talking about the history of my own journey through meth addiction and recovery, it is important to me that readers know something. I may talk about how things were when I grew up, I may talk about my relationships or issues with other people who have played a role in my life, I may talk about events and places that are a part of the history of my meth use.

I want to make sure that readers understand that, although I am talking about specific people, events. etc – they are a part of my story, and I do not blame ANYONE for anything I’ve done.  Life is what it is, things end up how they do. At the end of the day, I made my own choices.  I am as responsible for my drug use in the past as I am for my recovery in the present. Blaming gets me nowhere, and has no place in this story.

I started getting high around the time I started high school. I remember the first time I did speed very well – someone offered me a nickel bag of bennies (Crosstops,) and they were small, and they didn’t work as fast as I wanted them too… and after about 2 hours, I took 25 of them. I remember not knowing what they were, and the fear of not being able to sleep that night  – I didn’t know what was happening. It wasn’t long before I came to realize that speed + pot + alcohol made for a pretty good time, though.  It was shortly after I started using pill forms of speed that I was introduced to meth.

Why was a 13 – 14 year old kid doing bennies, snorting crank, smoking weed, drinking, and taking LSD? Why was I so willing to take drugs when I didn’t even understand what I was taking – including taking “Acid” several times before someone told me I was using LSD?

Because it was fun. Because that’s what the kids I wanted to hang out with were doing, and I wanted to hang out too. Because all of those drugs created a whole new person that I felt more comfortable being – I didn’t have to be “Me” anymore.

I was finally “Cool.”

When I was younger, I was a good kid, but not a particularly “Cool” kid. I was often the “New Kid” because my family moved a lot. My Dad was in the Navy. My younger brother is autistic, and that required a lot from my mom. My older brother is a very successful man, and when we were kids, he was always busy grooming himself for success as an academic overachiever, Eagle Scout, and becoming part of “Who’s Who” and MENSA. My dad and he went to do a lot of things together as a part of the Boy Scouts.

I spent my time with my friends, mostly playing in the dirt somewhere, climbing trees, and pretending I was someone else. I was never involved in any “Activities” except for a short run through the Brownies; my mother had her hands full with my autistic brother, and my dad was my dad. I helped take care of my little brother. I was the babysitter. I was invisible most of the time, and I don’t remember it bothering me all that much. It was just how life was.

My dad was a cop after he retired from the military. My Dad was difficult when we were kids, and I became a difficult kid as I got older. Before High School, I was the good kid, the middle kid, the only girl.

I became the kid that was getting suspended from school, I was the kid that was fighting at school, getting busted for drugs, and I was the kid that used to be “Good.” I was the kid that embarrassed her dad every time I got arrested. I became the black sheep of our family.

I didn’t want to be good anymore.

I wanted to be cool, I wanted to be noticed, and I wanted to have fun. I found that in drugs. I stopped doing things like going to school, showing up at home when I was asked to, and the harder my Dad pushed me to get my act together, the harder I pushed back.

By the time I was a freshman in highschool I was a full blown addict. I was loaded every day. I got caught with pot, I got caught with mushrooms, I got suspended a lot, I got in fights a lot.

I was just having fun, and the rules just got in my way. By then, “Rules” made no sense to me and didn’t apply to me.

When I was about 12, I was playing in an abandoned house with a friend after school; to make a long story short, we were locked in that house by a man who said he was coming back for us. We broke out a window, unlocked the door (It had a lock on the outside,) and my friend was seriously cut by the broken glass. We got out and ran through the Gladiola fields and went to the store for bandages for her cut. They called the police, who did nothing.

I got in trouble, was told I could not be with that friend anymore, and was made to feel that this incident was somehow my fault. I was “Restricted.” I was yelled at. I was locked in a house by some sick fuck… and it was “My fault.”

My parents did the best they could as parents. My parents have regrets about this incident. My parents had a lot on their plates back then… so when something similiar happened about one week later, I got in trouble again. A different man talked me and another girl into following him to a horse pasture. That man said he wanted to show us something – and HE DID. It wasn’t the horses.

I clearly remember having NO idea why this guy had his pants off, yet knowing that we needed to get out of there. Again, the police were called, and again, nothing happened. And, again, I was punished. It was “My Fault.”

I was 11 or 12. I had no idea what those men were doing. I had no idea what could have happened to me. No one explained that part to me. I was at fault – that’s what the rules appeared to imply.

The rules made no sense to me. Eventually it became clear to me that I did everything wrong, I was not good enough, I was “Less Than.”  I was never going to be my big brother. I was never going to amount to anything – that’s what I was told, anyway. I made sure I did all I could to prove that, too.

I believed what my Dad told me. I believed him when I was told I was never going to amount to anything. I believed him.

My parents did the best they could. All parents make mistakes. I love my parents a lot, and I don’t blame them for the way that I dealt with what I now recognize as severe anxiety and depression from a very young age.