Smile beautiful

****TRIGGER WARNING****
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
ABORTION

Most conversations I had with my girls over the phone involved tears.  Whether happy tears or sad tears....they were usually involved. We missed each other so much. I was missing things....important things.   I had been missing them for years but until I got sober I didn't realize it.  At first the high was distracting ....the rush....but after my body got used to the heroin coursing through my veins it was the numbness I tried to accomplish day in and day out.   Load after load after load.......til I would nod out, pass out, or get close to death. (Or I had hoped) But now that I knew I was missing out on the girls' lives it completely paniced me.  Sweet 16s, drivers permits and licences, periods, and boyfriends.  Things mom's should be a part of.  Not only did their lives get turned upside down from me turning into a junkie, but now they were in another state at a school that was 100 times bigger than the small...20 kids per class....school they had grown up going too.  All their friends and family...and mom.....gone.  In my active addiction I had believed 100 percent that I was only hurting myself and I had convinced myself that my girls were better off without a piece of shit mom like me.  Man did reality slap me in the head heart and face hard when the last of the numbness wore off. In letters we wrote to each other we started writting "Smile Beautiful" at the end of every one. It became something very special between the three of us. It meant more than what it sounds like when you first hear it.  Smile Beautiful.  Smile....smile beautifully .....share beauty....share it with your smile.  You're beautiful.....smile, beautiful.  If you smile beautiful ....you are spreading beauty around this sad world.  What more can you do?  I don't know how many times I apologized to my girls during our evening phone time.  I knew I could never do it enough and I knew that the best way to show them how sorry I was was to just be what I needed to be.  Mama.....well, Madre.  Actually both.  Collette called me Mama and Holly called me Madre.
Every Saturday we we're allowed visitors or depending on how long you had been there and what level status you were you could go out on a pass.   Visitors would come and sit through a work shop with us clients for two hours and then we we're allowed to hang and visit or go out on pass.   As I said before mom came every single weekend.  I had finally worked my way up to getting a three hour pass.   She came and picked me up and took me to my sisters house.   It was so crazy leaving the facility for the first time.  I had been there for a few months by then.  She had brought me chocolate and mountain dew!!! Two things we weren't allowed to have at the facility.  (But could have on pass) She took me second hand shopping and bought me some clothes and then to my sisters for an hour.   It felt so weird.  Different then getting out of jail after a long stay.   I can't even describe it really.   Being out and being sober.  It felt.....I don't know....it felt like the air was fresh and I could breath and when I breathed it in it was like I was breathing in happiness.  Being sober inside rehab was very different than being sober outside.   I don't think I have ever felt such freedom in my whole life.  Freedom from heroin.  I had been a slave for too long. It was the best three hours ever.   When I got back I went straight to bed.  I was sick from the junk food.  (We we're on a very healthy no sugar diet in rehab) But it was so awesome and worth it.
During my counceling sessions I was finding out so much about myself and about life.   I knew at some point I would have to talk about the one thing......that I didn't want to talk about because I was so afraid of losing control.  I truly didn't know if I could handle it sober....I could barely handle it at my most numb.   She let me avoid the subject for quite a while.  She was waiting until she knew I was strong enough in my sobriety.  So we continued on......back to Damion.
After that awful night at his parents house I had made the decision to stay with him. He needed me and I felt I owed him loyalty and compassion after our few weeks as a couple.  He was very verbally abusive.  Very  manipulative and I had no idea what was happening.   I did know that somehow I felt that I couldn't leave.  Almost like I wasn't allowed too. ...it wasn't an option. The physical abuse was often. But far enough apart for me to believe that it would never happen again every single time.  My parents had a small apartment that my dad built above his garage and let me and the girls move into it. I got a job at a camera shop.  Developing film and selling cameras and equipment. I loved it!  I loved photography and I was good at it. I had started doing it as a side job/hobby.   I did weddings, senior pics, sports shoots, anything and everything.   I apprenticed with a professional photographer for a while.   It was something I really loved.   Things seemed to be going well.   The girls and I loved our small apartment close to Mom and Dad.   Damion stayed the night alot sometimes with his kids and sometimes without. (We didn't love it the nights he stayed) if I payed too much attention to my girls then he got mad.  Jealous.  One day we were talking about me using meth back in the day.  He told me that he had just done some with his friends a couple nights ago.  I remember telling him I can't touch the stuff.  I loved it too much.  We moved on from the conversation and that was it.  Well, the next day he brought me some. I was excited and sick at the same time. Yep.  We did it.  He was super nice when he was high.  So ya.....that worked. But I quickly found out that as nice as he was high he was equally the exact opposite when coming down.  So what's the answer to that?  Stay high.  Well, that only works for so long. With the meth came sex.  Lots of it.  For those of you who know what meth does to a guy during sex......well, it's horrible for the girl. 12 hours later in pain, in tears...."just a little longer.....hold still.....do this! You're not doing it right!  I can't get off when you're fucking crying! ".   His favorite thing to do to me was choke me out. It became a  pretty regular thing. Screaming in my face, knocking me down, getting on top of me and choking me til I thought it was the end.  He never did it in front of the girls.....but they could hear it.  They were so little and they had gone from a normal good life....stable and routine to....this.   A mom who was using meth with an abusive boyfriend.  There were mornings I couldn't wake up to take them to school or even pick them up.  My mom would get them ready, feed them and make sure they got to school.  I would sleep all day until I got more meth. We would take the kids to the river and do fun things with them when we were up and feeling good (high). Then I would sleep for days in between.  Somehow at this point I had still managed to keep my job at the camera shop.  I knew that my co-workers were starting to suspect my drug use....and I knew it was just a matter of time before they let me go.  I remember thinking about that very clearly and being very sad because I loved my job.  But being unable to make a conscious decision to change what was happening in my life.
One morning I went to work and Damion and I had been fighting.  Before work he had chased me down the long stair way to my apartment. I was running so fast from him because I was so scared.  He was yelling and calling me names and I was screaming and crying.  I ran for the house for any hope of not getting what was coming if he caught me. He stopped when I got to the door and saw my mom.   I got in my car and drove to work, heart racing.  I got to the parking lot and lit up a cigarette and tried to gather myself.  Then I saw his truck come to a screeching halt in the middle of the isle and I saw him jump out and start running toward me. I got out of my car as fast as I could knowing I didn't have time to dig for my keys and leave, and ran towards the door of my work.  He caught me right before my hand touched the door handle.  He yanked me back away from the door, turned me around and slammed me up against the outside of the building. He pushed his head against my face and grit his teeth and whispered that I was going g to fucking die that day.  He jerked his head back and put his hand around my throat and picked me up off the ground with that one hand.  By my throat. I couldn't breath. I was kicking my legs, I think.  Everything was starting to fade away.  He was slamming my head against the wall.  He slammed his head into my face again and said something (I don't know what) and then bit my ear....like bit a piece off.  Then all of a sudden before I completely passed out he let go and I fell to the ground. He walked off and told me to plan on being dead later.  I remember looking over and seeing his truck still there with the driver side door open still and seeing his two little kids sitting in the truck looking at me.  I quickly gathered myself and went into my work and called my sister. My work had called the cops and locked the doors behind me.  I sat on a chair with my supervisor a few feet away in a chair looking at the ground.  I was so humiliated, shook up, and terrified.   Shame filled my soul.  Self hatred as well.   My sister showed up and took me to the police station.  I sat there crying and told them what happened.  Then I went home. My work called and fired me that night.  I was too big of a liability and brought too much risk with me to work.  By then Damion had talked me into calling the cops and telling them I made up the whole thing because I was mad at him.  I asked them to drop the charges and told them I shouldn't have made up a story like that.  They told me that it's allready charged and it was the state verses Damion now.   They heavily encouraged me to stick with it and leave him. They told me they knew I was lying to get Damion out of trouble.  They had taken pictures of me and they had witnesses to what happened from my work.  I stuck with my story that I made it up and got off the phone.
We moved out of the apartment and into my grandmother's house with my sister and her boyfriend after a couple of months. I was getting unemployment from getting fired from the camera shop. Damion had a job close by and was staying in a trailer on some of his relatives property close by.  He stayed with me, I stayed with him. We were pretty heavy into the meth by this time.  It was an every day every night thing.  I somehow pulled it off ok in normal life.  The girls still had there little slumber parties with friends and we had lots of fun family days.   But there was a thickness in the air...always.   Like we all knew when to keep our mouths shut or when to speak.  We could not be ourselves.  We were all very guarded.   We walked on eggshells every second of our lives.
One day I started feeling different. I didn't know what was going on but I wasn't feeling myself.   This went on for a few weeks when it finally dawned on me.  I was pregnant.  Oh my God.  What in the fuck am I going to do?!  I cannot have a baby with Damion.   I knew I could not bring a baby into this world.....into this life that I could not escape from.  I didn't say anything to anyone about it for a while.  I had no idea what to do.   A few weeks later it was Easter.   I had gotten some little treats for the girls and for his kids.   I had gone to my parents for Easter morning and left the girls for a few minutes to take his kids little Easter treats to them. The girls always opted the other option rather than going to Damions or seeing him.   I drove to his trailer and walked up to the door.  I opened the door and said "hey...I'm here".   He said something about me not hanging out with him on Easter.  I told him that the girls and I were spending the day with my parents.  I was standing at the top of the trailer stairs (3 steps off the ground) in the doorway.  He got up and kicked me in the stomach so hard that I flew out of the entrance and landed on my back on the ground.  I tried to catch my breath and get up real fast.  I don't want to fucking do this man!  Not again.  Fucking please!  (These are thoughts) I knew to never say anything like this out loud.  I got up and he was beside me and pushed me down again.   His family is in the house right next to me.  Jesus, can anyone hear me scream or see what's happening?  He drug me to the ditch on the side of the road and choked me while slamming my head into the ground.   This is it.  I'm going to die this Easter morning. The baby inside me is probably dead. After I don't know how long he let up.  Kicked me in the head and walked away.  I layed in the ditch. I remember what I was wearing.  A light blue pleated miniskirt and a white T-shirt and sandals.  The shirt was torn and there was blood on it.  From what?  I didn't even know.   The skirt had dirt and grass stains.   My legs were scraped up and I felt like I was going to be sick.  I just layed there dazed. Thinking about how many of my clothes he had ruined by then.  I layed in the ditch and knew that I could not keep this baby. I closed my eyes and thought about killing Damion for the first time.
My body ached and my soul ached. I didn't want to use drugs anymore. I didn't want to be with Damion anymore. I wanted to go back to being a family with my two sweet daughter's who needed me and didn't need any of this.  I was absolutely terrified of Damion at this point. Terrified to go terrified to stay.  I was told that if I left him I would be cut up into a million tiny pieces and buried throughout the different states piece by piece so that no one would ever find me. I believed him.
I made an appointment to get an abortion.  (I have to put in here that I do not believe in them) but my beliefs aren't part of this story.  I told Damion about the baby and he took me to the appointment.   We had to drive a way to get to this clinic as we didn't have any like it in our town. I was having panic attacks all the way there.   We weren't high.  I can't remember why we weren't but I remember that we were tired and hadn't used.   My panic attacks weren't met with kindness. No comforting words or support.  I was annoying the fuck out of him. Its so hard to try to stop your body from involuntarily shaking and breathing erratically.  But I tried with all my might.  I held my hand on my stomach and cried silently for my unborn child who I tried not to love, but did. With all my heart. We got there and walked into the clinic.  It was small and there were women in the waiting room. It was decorated with tie dye and Bohemian woven cloths hanging all over the gold and orange painted walls.  It felt like we walked into a place where people would all sit in a circle and smoke weed and smile and be happy.   From the looks on the other women's faces I was reminded that no, this was not a happy place.  I sat down and filled out a ton of paper work.  I told Damion that I couldn't do this.  I must have been feeling beyond myself because I normally didn't tell him how I felt about anything.  It always ended in unhappy moments. He told me he drove me all the way up here and I'm not backing out now. I didn't argue. Someone came in the room and called my name.  I underwent an ultrasound and an exam.  I was told to look away from the screen.  The Dr spoke to me but I have no idea what he said. I payed on the table with my legs in the stirrups and the procedure began.  OH MY GOD NOOOOOOO!!!!! PLEASE NO!!! PLEASE STOP!!! MY BABY!!  I must have been screaming in my head because no one stopped.  The procedure was loud.  I layed there with my head sideways staring at the light blue walls.  I will NEVER forget the feeling of something.....my baby being ripped out of my body and feeling the overwhelming emptiness in my belly and my heart and then hearing something "thud" down on the medical tray.  I looked over and it was wrapped in a blue operation sheet.  I started hyperventilating and my body started convulsing. I must  have gone into shock.  I was hot and dizzy and was going to be sick. The Dr held my shoulders down and I screamed and cried and got light headed.  Next I knew Damion was gritting his teeth and angrily whispering in my ear to stop hyperventilating and breath normal or the Dr will make us stay longer and he wanted to leave so we could go get high. The Dr wasn't in there with us anymore. I must have blacked out.
On the way home I felt like I wasn't me.  It's hard to explain but it was like I wasn't in my body.  Grief and anger and sickness took over so strongly that it's like I was gone.  I was an empty shell.  My soul was crushed.  Damion was talking about who we could call when we got home to find some meth.  Then all of a sudden he pulled over on the freeway.  He was......picking up a hitch hiker?   He said he knew this guy and if we gave him a ride he would probably get us high.  I scooted over in the truck and was in between Damion and this....guy.  I was sore and I was ashamed and I just sat there in between two guys talking over me to each other for over an hour.  It was as uncomfortable as it could possibly be.   Fuck man I fucking hated myself.  Do I commit suicide or homicide? My mind played out all kinds of scenarios.  Self defense....insanity....how could I end all this? I had to get out.  I just couldn't live like this anymore.  How the Fuck did I even get here? Why do I never stand up for myself and say no? No to Damion.....no to this life....no to drugs. I had to put an end to this. At this point it was a life or death decision.   I was going to die if I didn't find a way out. Period. I was under such manipulation and believed that I was trash I knew I didn't have the strength to just walk away from him.
When we got home I called my mom and I told her I had been doing meth and that I had to get out of this relationship.  We decided I needed to leave for a while.  I called my friend who lived in Michigan.  We arranged for me to fly out the next day.   The girls would stay with Mom and Dad and I would go away for a while.  Get clean....heal my body and soul.   It was a great plan........