How many years of writers block? And here I am. Here you are, if you're reading this. I am going to start this piece with an argument. Homeless. Houseless. "Chosen homelessness". I had somewhere to go. I had an out. I "chose" to stay a junkie. And up next, a houseless junkie. How many of you just thought to yourselves, "See? It's a fucking choice!" It's all good. I don't bias my readers. I do, however, beg to differ. Let my fingers lead the way to my side of this argument, and also to my truth.
Side step....today. May 31, 2021. Life is funny, isn't it? I don't know if funny so much as fucking crazy. Either way, WTF are we living through?? I am such a different human than I was when I first began this journey of Felonies and Poppyseeds. I'm not a different soul, but I am so much more learned. So much more trauma informed. Which, being trauma informed sets such a different stage for this story of my life. I don't know that understanding things helps with pain in any way, but it may, at the very least, reframe these things. Things. Things that I have experienced. Things that I have lived.
At this point in my story I have survived Damion. I am numb. So comfortably numb. Also very uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to stop my self destructive path. Not uncomfortable enough to use my out. Not near uncomfortable enough.
Ger was in and out of jail so much through out our time together. I stayed out of jail....until I didn't. (That will come in a very soon blog)
So, we were going to keep up our drug use and function and take care of our girls and live happily ever after. That was always my plan. Every day. Every day that plan became less and less "real", delusional, really......to rephrase, the delusion stayed, but the reality could never have been.
Almost every time Ger went to jail, I went home. To my parents.(until later when I was sooooooo far gone that I couldn't) I would continue my use, waiting for him to be released. Oh my God, shit was off the hook. So much that I struggle to remember time frames.
I had been on a hold at the hospital for slitting my wrist with a kitchen knife in front of my dad, and my girls. Shit got real. The girls dad got involved. He took them on an emergency custody law that I was served as being a danger to my children. They were flown to Las Vegas, where he and his wife lived. (Instantly) I somehow got a lawyer and fought it, and won. My lawyer convinced the judge that my slitting my own wrists did not put my children in physical harm, so the law states. They were returned. Not to stay long, little did I know. We gave up on the dream of moving our family to Astoria. (Napa, really). Ger got a job at a logging company. We convinced my parents to let us live in the garage. In the fucking garage. We told them we were clean. We were taking suboxone quite a bit, which was clean. We were still using, but taking the subs every few days felt much more controlled. I would get up at 3 am and take him to work...and he was making good money. My job was to make sure he had what he needed when he got home and also in the morning before work. The tables were turned.....him working, me not. He had worked there for a few weeks, maybe a month, and we had enough money to get into a little house. This was it. We were doing it. Not where we wanted, but still doing it. It was a 3 bedroom house very close to my parents. We were so fucking happy. But rather quickly the suboxone went out the window. He was making too much money to maintain sobriety with zero skills. The girls once again had their friends over all the time, and we were the fun house. We let the girls pretty much do whatever they wanted. Holly had friends who were close and she would meet up with them and walk around town like all the kids did at that age, or have them over. Collette had a boyfriend who wasn't even old enough to drive (neither of them) and Ger and I would get so high that we would let them take our car and go do whatever. They always said they were seeing a friend or shopping or whatever, but really, she was getting into some things that were not safe or good for her, and I was too high to notice. *I am going to leave their journeys to them. One day when they are ready, they will write their experiences, I hope. We masked everything with fun. We would either pile everyone up in the jeep and all go look for heroin (they were told weed) or leave them at home while we went and looked for it. Every morning and every night. On the weekends we would turn up the music and all dance around the house and cook and laugh, and live. Ger and I going into our bedroom to do a load every hour. Our bedroom was adorned with the bed set we stole from the vacation home we broke into and stayed at up in Astoria, and many other stolen items. The girls had no bed time or rules. They had a club house in the back yard that I let them keep to themselves. Get and I would sneak in there every so often, and one time we found some vicodin back there. We ate it. Holly had a friend who we "took in". His parents weren't around and sometimes he would sleep out in the clubhouse. Sometimes she would sneak him in....although she didn't have to sneak. We took in all the kids who needed taken in. We provided what we could when we were capable.
The fun never lasts when you're a junkie. It just doesn't. No matter how desperately my soul wanted this life, it just couldn't be. I was a prisoner, and I was free all at once. I tried so hard to embrace the good times because I knew by now how quickly they came and went. And by good times, I mean when we had enough money to have enough heroin to keep us more than well......the times where we had the energy and mind set to have fun with the girls. The energy and mindset to have a family. To be a family. I vividly remember the argument in my head.....the argument that this COULD work. Ger was doing well at keeping this job. The boys loved him.....he was a hard worker and loved being in the woods. I did too. Some days he would let me come out on the job with him. It was incredible. Driving up the mountain before the sunrise...watching him climb.....hangen with the boys. I was his. And it felt good. He was always proud to have me by his side. I was proud to watch him work. Those were the times that fooled me into believing we were living an amazing life. Sticking a needle in my arm before, during, and after everything all day long was the problem. I loved it so much, though.
I don't know how long we were in that house. I am going to make an educated guess that it wasn't more than 3 or 4 months. That's the problem with heroin. You need more....and more....and more....and more. Therefor you need to make more and more and more and more money. Well, that's not real. Every day I would spend looking for a load for him to do when I picked him up from work. For me too, of course. If I didn't find any by the time I needed to pick him up, we would go look together. This is where shit got bad. Again, spending money to be well over bills that were again piling up. Frustration rises, fear rises, pain comes. We were out looking one day after work, and found what we were looking for. We had a bag in the car with dirty spoons and syringes....always. If we couldn't use that way, we didn't even use. It was a waste of drugs. We had found some and picked it up. We always did the load in the car right after we got it. Ger was driving without a license and we saw a cop parked in a parking lot. We decided to pull over and switch places just in case. Ger was on paper, I was not. I had a license. The cop pulled right behind us when I pulled back into the road. He pulled us over. I had no fucking idea what was happening. I was scared. They called another officer to the scene. Which was a highly public area. Ya. So, the officer had us both get out of the car and searched us. I had shit on me because Ger told me they couldn't search me as a woman. He was right....or we had good luck. However they searched the car and found so much shit. Not what I had on me, but ...so much shit. Each needle, spoon, lighter, everything was displayed out for all to see. I remember the officer talking about testing the spoon for what the dark substance dried in it could be. I mean.....we all knew what it was. People were watching. People passed by that we knew. My mind was racing with.....are we going to be able to do our loads or not? What the fuck? We somehow were let go. I did NOT understand what had happened. Ger did. He was to check in with his PO....but we weren't worried because he was working and doing so well.....What I didn't know was that I had caught a charge. My car...my shit....even though he told them it was old and we didn't know it was in there. I remember him saying "come on guys....I'm doing good...call my po...he will tell you..." And they did. And he did. I was supposed to appear in court, I believe.....not even sure of the charges, as they never found the real shit...just old and used shit.....I didn't know....I didn't go. Also we were PISSED because they took our rigs. We had to go find some. Maybe we bought them or maybe we went home and used our own. I can't remember. I just remember that we couldn't immediately do our fucking H.
We were spinning back out of control. The girls were staying more and more with my parents again. We were sick....we didn't have enough money to pay rent...same fucking story. Same mother fucking story, man. At some point we knew we had to leave the house. We weren't ones to stay around if we knew an eviction would come. I think we even told the land lords we were sorry but we couldn't keep up the facade. We had started taking out things here and there that I didn't want to lose. We didn't get far with that, even. The stress and sickness got so fucking intense. Ger and I got into a fight one evening and I left with the jeep. I did not go back to take him to work. I messaged him and told him to find a ride. He did not. He walked out on his job that day. I was fucking irate. Like now what the fuck are we going to FUCKING do? I drove over to the house that was starting to look abandoned and started yelling and screaming at him for losing our only source of income to get H. Like What The Fuck, man? Well, he didn't like the yelling and screaming too well. He pushed me down and I jumped up....I didn't fear him like I feared Damion...even tho, maybe sometimes I should have. Ger and I had bad behaviors, but compared to what Damion put me through, our behaviors were childish. I jumped up and saw a different kind of Ger. He was fucking done. Sick. Quit his job, and had me coming at him like a crazy person. He grabbed my arm and yanked me towards him and I broke free and tried to run for the door, which he blocked. I ran to the window which was open but had a screen and blinds hanging down. I jumped through it. Ger caught my leg on my way out and down and cut it open on the window frame. I got in my jeep screaming and crying and limping. He was screaming and chasing me as I was backing out of the driveway. I left. I fucking left. I loved him. I loved heroin. And I left. I drove to town. I drove to a trap house. I got so fucking high.......but it came with a price. A price I was unwilling to pay, so I ran. I was so fucked up....in my head. I didn't know what the fuck to do. I was alone. Ger always protected me. What the hell.....What in the actual fuck just happened? I had zero money. I could have easily made the money or earned drugs at that trap house. I considered it, I'm not going to lie. The man who I would have had to please was not someone I wanted to do anything with, let alone be in the same room. There was another girl in bed with him.....she couldn't even hold her head up.....and to get high I had laid on the other side of him for a while....got what I needed and ran. . He tried. She tried with zero comprehension of what she was doing, barely capable of doing anything. Her words were jumbled, and slow...needles and blood on the bed. The door to the upstairs bedroom was unhinged. It was leaning across the doorway. It was a very heavy wooden door that I had to have moved for me to get in. I ducked down under the small opening and my heart was pounding. No one got up to chase me. They were fucking loaded....
So, any fucking way, I had no where to go. It was night. Dark. I was fucking homeless. I had no home. I had nothing. I was high as fuck, but at this point in my addiction, that lasted an hour if I was lucky. Fuck my LIFE. Getting high with no money. Easy. Fucked. Super fucked. I was determined to not go back to Ger. I knew I could get more drugs without him. If he was there, we would have to pay. If it was just me, I did not have to pay. Fuck around. I was sad and broken. Our life we built....gone. The girls? I don't know where they were. Our home...our everything....gone. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. So much loss. When I had pulled out of our driveway, I knew I would never go back to that house. It had our things...the girls bedrooms......GOD. So, what am I going to do? I'm not going to sit in my car and be sad, that's for damn sure. Sad means death at this point. Or maybe it always did. Sad means .....going down the road in my head that I have been avoiding since ......always. Poppy...nope. Not gonna happen. I drove back to the trap house. I went back up to the room for more. He said "you're my girlfriend, right? Where's Ger?" I told him I didn't know where he was, and avoided the question, but let him put his arm around me as he handed me the full rig. I did not fuck him. I got all the free black I could, promising lies. I was only there for one night. I didn't want him to touch me. He wasn't scary to me. Although he would be if I saw him today. I find myself typing "I didn't know" a lot in these pieces. It weirds me out to think of how from age 11 on....I didn't know anything....I didn't. I just knew that I didn't know how to say no to men, I didn't think it was an option, so if he were to push hard enough I would have closed my eyes and got through it out of fear of saying no. Not fear of the person. I spoke on this before. I was programmed from the start to say yes to all things. What a fucked up way to live. Dude was generous.....happy and high. I nodded out....woke up a few times through out the night, did more, nodded back out, hoping to never wake. My hopes were crushed the next morning. I was still alive.
So.
Was I choosing to be an addict? A houseless addict? Is it a choice? Maybe not, guys. Some people are blessed and taught skills to adult, and navigate this harsh world we live in. Some people are resilient. Some people start using at such a young age that their mental development stops.....at that age. This, "I didn't know better", is truth. My truth. I didn't know that I wasn't made to please others. I didn't know that I could be strong and brave and say no if I felt I didn't want to do something. Whether it seems like common sense to you or not, I did NOT know. I was a baby when I was introduced to meth. That's a pretty hard drug. My mind was growing and developing as a CHILD. Add in all the trauma that brought, and all the confusion. I also didn't know that my 35 year old "boyfriend" when I was 12/13 was a child predator . I didn't stand a fucking chance. I couldn't handle my pain. I couldn't handle the fact that I felt everything I experienced was my fault. I carried such a heavy burden. I wasn't even aware of that I was drowning before I was 12 years old. Throw in being beaten mentally and physically every day for 7 years, throw in watching Poppy, my beautiful daughter die such a horrific death, throw in all the failure I felt as a mother.....on such a deep level that my brain shut off.(until just a few months ago) I couldn't stop using. I couldn't put it down. The pain from failing my girls to one of them dying....... I didn't even KNOW I could choose differently. Not to mention, I wasn't worth better. It's not a choice all the time. Sure, there are some who choose to use here and there, party drugs....party people. Those are not addicts. Those people do not suffer the disease of addiction. My neuro-pathways were completely fucked. I didn't know up from down, or left from right. I was NOT choosing this misery. I was not choosing this sickness. I did NOT deserve better, I could NOT attain better. My children who survived were better off without me. My ideas were that I would never live a "normal life". I couldn't. Because then I would have to feel the weight that was crushing me.....and I couldn't. I couldn't face, nor deal with any of it. And, I did not know how to. Even the times that my mind would dare to think about getting clean....it was really a two edged sword. If I got clean somehow, I would kill myself from feeling the deepest sorrow a mother can feel....I knew I would. I felt like heroin was saving me. Addiction is no light matter and homelessness is no light matter. We talk about them both in such a nonchalant way that no one understands the severity of it anymore. Worthless people. Worthless junkies. Worthless homeless people. What the fuck, guys. How do you come out of fight or flight when you don't know what the fuck it even is? How do you surrender when you don't know what it even is? I knew nothing. I knew that I deserved to be abused. I knew that I deserved every single bad thing that happened. Because that's what I was told every single fucking day. I was a waste of space....a waste of a human.....I believed I killed my daughter. That somehow I should have been able to just leave Damion without being killed. I believed I stood zero chance to have anything. I wanted to keep using heroin because it was the one and only thing I could count on to help me even get through an hour of a day, Self medicating. I didn't know what adverse childhood trauma was. I didn't know that I was a human who was capable of doing anything but continuing to try to numb my nightmare I was living in. I wasn't a fucking psychopath. I was so traumatized, so lost, so hurt, and so confused. I had no way out...I didn't know shit. I was a scared little girl inside. My inner child was so broken and so starved for love and acceptance. Heroin never let me down. Ger rarely let me down. To get rid of those two "safeties" was to end me. I was hanging on by a string. And barely.
We have to help these people. We have to have compassion, grace, and understanding. We feel so small, and so worthless, that other peoples judgements are so real. We believe we are trash, so it's just affirming when others do as well. We can do better. We can.
Wise beyond your years, the hard way. Here you are sharing all the things to help the next person realize there are different paths. I love you ��
ReplyDeleteIs June 4 your latest blog Missy
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