Without My Struggles I Wouldn’t Be The Awesome Person I Am Today!
by Amanda
(believeinrecovery.tumblr.com | Twitter: B3lieveRecovery)
It all started when i turned 13. I don’t want to go into it, I’m not ready and it’s really not necessary. but something unethical happened to me.. I didn’t know how to cope. I asked for help but I didn’t receive it so I turned to self-harm. At first, I only cut when I was upset.. then it turned into a full on addiction. Self-harm wasn’t really known about or common when I was 13 (that was 11 years ago). That year, we moved.
I used to live in a diverse town with many different cultures, so when we moved to a predominantly white “rich” town, it made things a lot worse. I was left with no friends, no one that would even talk to me. I wasn’t rich and these kids have been friends since pre-school.. why would they want to be friends with me? The school noticed this, and without my parents permission they put me through intense consoling (including them ‘overseeing’ me in the classroom and lunch). it was humiliating and made things a lot worse.. for me and my self-harm.
High school wasn’t a lot better… still self-harming but now I was older. i would drink A LOT or take any pill that was given to me. (One time I even ended up in the nurse’s office because I accidentally took horse tranquilizers). I was out-of-control. My mom and I were at each other’s throats. I ran away on a few occasions, ended up in the hospital, and I just hated myself. I was going to drop out of high-school but instead I went to a vocational school for art. That was when i met Cesar.
Oh Cesar. We instantly clicked and were inseparable. He saw me for who I really was. He buried my razors in his backyard. when I would cut, he would cry to me. He made my life worth living. Everything got better for me once I found him. I graduated high school, and my mom and I were actually friends… I was in love. There was never a day when we would be apart.
To make a REALLY really long story short.. that day came. Cesar was brought into this country when he was 2 years old… he was an illegal immigrant. We were already a couple for 5 years (lonnggg time for being so young, 16-21 years old).. when his family was deported. I lost him. I grieved like it was his death. He didn’t want to leave me. I was RIPPED to shreds (I’m actually crying while I’m typing this.. it’s still really hard for me)
A month later, i flew on an airplane for 11 hours straight, alone, to a county where I don’t speak their language. I was there with him for 5 months. It put my mind at ease but I was heart-broken all over again when I had to leave.
When i got back to the states, I found out my mom enrolled me in cosmetology school. I still didn’t know how to cope with all these emotions; I was still devastated about Cesar, and I promised him I would never self-harm again. This is when I met Allie. She was a ‘pill-head’. We would skip class to get messed up, get messed up in school, get arrested during lunch period! That was it… I found out she ratted me out to the cop that pulled us over. By then, I had all her pill dealers in my phone. I wasn’t ashamed to use them alone. Within a year, I met Bear.
He was everythingI was looking for. He was cute, a lot older than me, he got messed-up, and he was popular. He brought me along to all the parties! He found out that I did pills EVERYDAY. …he decided that he wanted to join in. Until he told me about heroin. You got the same high for way cheaper!
That should have been the end of that relationship; however, I was with Bear for 2 years. Within those 2 years, my mom kicked me out (I told Cesar about my drug habit and he told my mom)… so I was living with Bear. The only time we would leave the house was to go get drugs. He treated me really bad.. emotionally and physically. He beat me up on a few occasions. He brought my self-esteem so low that I thought I deserved it, plus my mind was clouded from the heroin. We stole so much money, from everyone. I broke into my own house to rob my family. Anything to get a fix. It was fucking awful.
We would go into crack houses, the projects, meet up with people we didn’t know. …then I started doing that alone. I could get more drugs if I didn’t have to share with him.
We broke up and I moved in with my dad. I was still copping drugs in crack houses in the west side of town, driving around with people I just met, I could have been murdered… I didn’t care.. maybe it would make the pain go away. But I realized the drugs made the pain worse. When I would wake up, I would be soaked in sweat and shaking. Every morning I would vomit from the sickness then go to work. ‘Luckily’ I worked with someone who also used heroin. She would help me get it during the day, then I would drink away my sorrows at night.
One afternoon, I called my mom at work telling her I needed to talk. She knew. She left work early and picked me up. We sat outside that dunkin donuts for about 2 hours. She couldn’t get me into a suboxone doctor for 2 days, so she gave me money to go get methadone from a dealer I knew so I wouldn’t be sick until the doctor. I knew that once I told her, I had to be serious about recovery. And I was. (I ended up messing up a few times… until I quit my job, changed my phone number, deleted my Facebook… I literally had to DISAPPEAR to get away from the drugs)
Today I am 7 months clean off heroin. I don’t drink either; I’m completely sober. I have a new boyfriend Mike. He was also a heroin addict.. will be 10 years clean this year. He has been my backbone and is almost like a sponsor, although I don’t rely on him for my sobriety. Mike could break-up with me and call me the worst of words and still I would NEVER go back to using. I ONLY RELY ON MYSELF. I still talk to Cesar, he will ALWAYS be my best-friend and any boyfriend that I have, will know that.
I will always love him, he’s a huge part of my heart. I go to intense therapy.. and I am learning to deal with my emotions properly. I have changed my whole life and my mindset completely around. Now i spend wayyy too much time on tumblr trying to convince others they are worth the process of recovery. Without it, I know.. I would be dead.
Recovery is possible.