Mother of Five-Pill Head… – anonymous
I have to say, looking back at my childhood, it was not so bad. From a family persepective that is. To sum it up in a nutshell, when I was 2 (and I remember this like yesterday) and until I was 4 years old, I was sexually abused by someone very close to my family… So close, he was like an uncle to me. And he lived right next door. I never knew it was wrong, like he said, “it was our little game, our little secret”. What I knew was that I did not like it though… But I never said anything until my family moved to another house.
Long story short, my mother literally busted into his house and pinned him to the wall with a knife threatening to kill him. My parents left it at that. If they were to take him to court I would have to take the stand as I was the only witness… and victim. The decision was that it would be much more traumatic for me to take the stand. Fast forward some years later… Elementary school was good, though I was always kind of a loner and different from everyone else. But by grade six… I was bullied and made fun of. Alot. Right around then, my mother got into a bad car accident. To this day, I do not know many details, but I know she suffered a bad bout of depression, and began to combine and abuse painkillers with alcohol. She was terrible. Humiliating…
Skip to my teen years and EVERYTHING began to spiral out of control. I started abusing alcohol at 13 years of age. I thank God that where I grew up, there was not much for drugs available other than pot and I hated pot. My mother at this point was a legitimate drunk. I can say we have never had a close relationship. One I craved so much.
To sum it up, from 13 to 19 all I did was drink every day all day, cut myself all the time, bounce between bulimia and anorexia and fail school. I was in a long term relationship with someone abusive, someone who raped me, someone who treated me like dirt. Yet, he had this hold on me and I could not leave him for the life of me. My parents eventually shipped me to the the other side of the world. With time I managed to break up with him and entered university. And for the first time in my life I did well.
I made honors roll in my first year, I loved school and I met someone who treated me like a queen (he treated me so well and loved me so much, I actually ended up leaving him because, as I understand it now, I had huge issues with commitment). That was also the first time my mother said the words “I love you” to me, something I will never forget. I even remember the clothes I was wearing that day.
Don’t ask me how, but somehow, I managed to get a degree in teaching, all while still drinking all the time, starving myself, binging and purging and cutting myself. I also obtained many certifications related to my degree. I had the world and my whole life ahead of me and I was ready to climb to the top.
Sometime in the next few years, I met my spouse and fell in love in a heartbeat.
My parents hated him. We come from a very religious and strict culture. He was nine years older than me, with children, not of the same culture as me and most definitely not religious. Despite how “in love” I was from day one, despite the fact that I stopped cutting myself, bingeing and purging and starving myself, it was an unhealthy relationship from day one. And the fact that my parents hated him made me want him even more.
I was so happy, great education, and had my first baby.
Somehow as the years passed I found myself pretty much a single mom as my spouse worked out of town and I had five children (two of them biological) aged from 16 to a year. I was so stressed out. On top of my busy houshold I also had two sister-in-laws and a brother-in-law live with us while I was pregnant with my second child. They brought addiction and violence into my home-and I do not in any way mean this in a demeaning way, or blame them in any way whatsoever, I love them with all my heart.
During my third trimester, I began to have severe back pain and was prescribed Percocet for it. I loved the high and energy it gave me, I was super mom. I had my baby and of course stopped my medication no problem as I was breastfeeding. Three months later I was back on the medication. I built up tolerance so very fast. Within less than a year, I went from Percocet, to plain Oxycodone, to a combination of Oxycodone and Oxycontin.
I did not abuse my medication at all. At first. If you were to ask me when along the way I started to spiral, I could not tell you. But before I knew it, I was a 29 year old mother with five children and huge amounts of Oxycodone that I used simply to cope with my life (severe depression had set in before I began to abuse). At my peak, I was averaging 460mg once to twice a day. I became very good at tracking my dates for refills. I became very good at deceiving my doctor to get more. My entire life became consumed by this drug.
Of course I knew what I was doing was not ok. I switched several pharmacies because the techs and pharmasists looked at me like I was a druggie. Me, a druggie? No way. There were a few times I had to have my prescription refilled by a different doctor other than my own because she was booked. When I tell you that anyone who knew what I was taking and how much (which pretty much only consisted of my doctor and pharmacist-though they did not know I was ingesting the entire daily amount all at once) looked at me in bewilderment, I am not lying.
They could not understand how I could take that much of the drug and not be nodding off all day, with my eyes rolled back into my head and slobbering all over myself. My own doctor had once told me that if she were to take that large of an amount, she would overdose, go into cardiac arrest and die. I really did not care to be honest. But, like everyone else I would tell myself “I can stop whenever I want. Just not today.” I was fine. I “functioned” fine, I took care of my children and my home, my responsibilities, I even ran a daycare out of my home.
Absolutely no one had a clue, not even the people closest to me. Finally, the day came when I screwed up and showed up at my doctor’s office for a refill… two weeks early. And that was it, she cut me off, cold turkey. I went into panic mode instantly. I spent the next month trying to get more Oxy any way I could. I kept going to the hospital and lying… It worked the first few times until one day, I was literally thrown out of the hospital, and told that if I showed up again seeking narcotics security and the police would be notified.
I was not “brave” enough to try and get it off the streets because I was terrified that if I got caught, I would lose my children. So onto the internet I went. The same fear of getting caught also prevented me from ordering it online. So I began to explore other legal options that would hopefully provide me with that fuzzy warm bubble I craved so much. I wasted so much money for nothing.
Let me say at this point that going cold turkey and into withdrawal off so much Oxy, in a house full of children who needed their mommy, was beyond hell. I will never, ever be able to express in words how sick I was. My physical withdrawl symptoms actually lasted almost 3 months. I am eight months sober now, and still experiencing the psychological symptoms of withdrawal. My depression worsened and I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and panic disorder. More pills. I was so desperate, I even tried replacing my Oxy with the much less potent Tylenol 1 (with 8mg codeine and 325mg acetamenophen) that is over the counter here.
It was nothing for me to take 60-70 of those at a time. I am shocked I did not kill my liver… So incredibly desperate.
After all this my condition, my pain was finally accurately diagnosed. A year and a half later, officially an alcoholic and drug addict. The words still seem surreal as I type them.
BUT, I am alive. And getting addiction councelling, CBT, going to AA meetings and have a wonderful sponsor who is like the mother I never had.
Things are tough on the homefront. But I remain hopeful. I have placed my life and fate in God’s hands as I understand him. And I live one day at a time. Because that is the best that I can do right now.