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Someone mentioned that they wished they had my old posts. I've been wanting to re-write this story for a long time so I can have a copy of it.
So here goes, this is a REALLY long post that goes over 11 years of my life. It starts with my years of addiction, then goes through my battle in recovery.
I hope this will help someone out, loved ones and addicts alike. My story is one of success.
Love you all.
Part 1.
-----------------------
My story starts off relatively young. I started using meth when I was 13 years old. Back then I had a neighbor that was into meth and I looked up to him since he was 2 years older than me. I was rebelling from my parents and from school. My biological father was starting to show his true self to me and really let me down that year which sent me into a downward spiral. I was rejected by him and trying to find a place where I felt that I fit in.
I found comfort in a group of friends that seemed to also be going through tough times. I actually used the first time with some people I barely knew. They had offered and I accepted, telling them that I did the stuff all the time. I didnt really know what I was about to get myself in to. I had seen people using all the time. Like I said earlier my neighbor was into meth and I was always over there when they were getting high. But I always said no when they asked if I wanted to try it. So the opportunity to do it with someone who didnt know me was easier than with someone who had known me for years. After the first time, I was off and running. Later that week, I went back to the neighbors and told them what I did. Now it wasnt so strange for me to use with them.
My using got bad REAL fast. One day I was sitting outside in our shed, and I found an eightball stashed away with the tools. I quickly escalated from using at friends houses, to stealing dope from my parents room. I wasnt just using on the weekends anymore I was getting high every day and skipping school when I wasnt high. I had a constant supply of drugs by stealing it from my own house.
I dropped out of school in 10th grade after a year and a half of failing classes. I got a job and was able to support my own habit with my own money when I was 15.
Fast forward about 4 years. I went through 4 jobs at different fast food places and was living with a girlfriend at a dealers apartment. There were 5 or 6 of us living there most of the time and I had an endless supply of drugs. This was really the first time in my life that I was talking about quitting. I wanted out. That didnt happen. Over the next few years I lost more jobs. I got evicted from another apartment, and was living back with my mom. This was actually the first time that I ever told my mom that I was on meth. I told her that I knew she was too and she of course acted all confused and denied it for probably a couple hours. I had unfortunately found my connection that I used for the next few years. This was when my anxiety and depression really started to get bad.
I have lived with anxiety since the beginning of this story. I never really knew why or what it even was. But I had a few panic attacks when growing up. I always preferred to stay at home with close friends rather than go out to parties. If everyone I knew was going out to do something I stayed home. I couldnt handle public places.
When I was 21 I got a job working in a call center. When I would get off work I would get a ride home and go straight to my room. Lock myself in there and not come out till the next morning when it was time to go back to work. I was really strung out. I slept maybe 1 or 2 nights a week. After a year on the job, which was the longest I ever held a job, the constant daily use was starting to take its toll on me.
My psychosis set in slowly over the course of 3-4 months. It started off as the standard paranoia. I was getting more and more uncomfortable at work. I was using larger and larger amounts of meth to keep myself up through the week. My anxiety was so bad that I refused to leave the house for any reason other than to go to work. If I walked out the door I was already having a panic attack. I started hearing people talking about The Tweaker at work. This was the beginning of a really bad psychotic episode for me. Every day at work I heard more and more things being said about me. I started to get paranoid and thought that people were watching what I was doing on the computer.
I started typing messages to them to communicate with them. I heard voices that repeated phrases over and over for my entire 8 hour shift. Most of the time I though there was people laughing at me. I heard people talking about me. I started to realize that this was in my head and I had a serious problem. But I was too far into it and I had no idea how to ask for help. I started to tell my mom and other people that I was going crazy. They just laughed and asked what I was talking about. Nobody seemed to understand that I really was going nuts. I had to run out of the building at work some times because the voices in my head would get so loud I couldnt concentrate on anything else. I heard an echoing in my head one day screaming to KILL, KILL SOMEBODY.
It only got worse.
Until one day at work I had a total breakdown. I was going through the daily routing of burying my head in my arms so that nobody could see me. Silently crying to myself and arguing with the voices in my head to shut up. I would yell at them and tell them that they arent real. That day I just couldnt control it. My heart rate was so high that I thought I was having a heart attack. The voices in my head were telling me that there was blood coming out of my eyes and that I was dieing. Naturally I believed them. I logged out of my phone and went to call my mom to pick me up. I was terrified and thought I was going to die. It just so happened that my mom was on the other side of town and said it would be 45 minutes before she got there.
I freaked.
I was walking in and out of the building and thought that my heart was going to jump out of my chest. I couldnt wait an hour. I went to the security guard and told him to call 911 because I was dieing. Naturally he asked if I had taken anything and being as scared as I was, I told him meth.
The ambulance showed up and they hooked me up to all those heart machines. My mom showed up while they had me hooked up to the machines and she came rushing over as they loaded me up into the ambulance. When I got to the hospital, they injected me with some tranquilizer to calm me down. My official diagnosis was a meth overdose which caused a panic attack.
----------------------
To be continued...
So here goes, this is a REALLY long post that goes over 11 years of my life. It starts with my years of addiction, then goes through my battle in recovery.
I hope this will help someone out, loved ones and addicts alike. My story is one of success.
Love you all.
Part 1.
-----------------------
My story starts off relatively young. I started using meth when I was 13 years old. Back then I had a neighbor that was into meth and I looked up to him since he was 2 years older than me. I was rebelling from my parents and from school. My biological father was starting to show his true self to me and really let me down that year which sent me into a downward spiral. I was rejected by him and trying to find a place where I felt that I fit in.
I found comfort in a group of friends that seemed to also be going through tough times. I actually used the first time with some people I barely knew. They had offered and I accepted, telling them that I did the stuff all the time. I didnt really know what I was about to get myself in to. I had seen people using all the time. Like I said earlier my neighbor was into meth and I was always over there when they were getting high. But I always said no when they asked if I wanted to try it. So the opportunity to do it with someone who didnt know me was easier than with someone who had known me for years. After the first time, I was off and running. Later that week, I went back to the neighbors and told them what I did. Now it wasnt so strange for me to use with them.
My using got bad REAL fast. One day I was sitting outside in our shed, and I found an eightball stashed away with the tools. I quickly escalated from using at friends houses, to stealing dope from my parents room. I wasnt just using on the weekends anymore I was getting high every day and skipping school when I wasnt high. I had a constant supply of drugs by stealing it from my own house.
I dropped out of school in 10th grade after a year and a half of failing classes. I got a job and was able to support my own habit with my own money when I was 15.
Fast forward about 4 years. I went through 4 jobs at different fast food places and was living with a girlfriend at a dealers apartment. There were 5 or 6 of us living there most of the time and I had an endless supply of drugs. This was really the first time in my life that I was talking about quitting. I wanted out. That didnt happen. Over the next few years I lost more jobs. I got evicted from another apartment, and was living back with my mom. This was actually the first time that I ever told my mom that I was on meth. I told her that I knew she was too and she of course acted all confused and denied it for probably a couple hours. I had unfortunately found my connection that I used for the next few years. This was when my anxiety and depression really started to get bad.
I have lived with anxiety since the beginning of this story. I never really knew why or what it even was. But I had a few panic attacks when growing up. I always preferred to stay at home with close friends rather than go out to parties. If everyone I knew was going out to do something I stayed home. I couldnt handle public places.
When I was 21 I got a job working in a call center. When I would get off work I would get a ride home and go straight to my room. Lock myself in there and not come out till the next morning when it was time to go back to work. I was really strung out. I slept maybe 1 or 2 nights a week. After a year on the job, which was the longest I ever held a job, the constant daily use was starting to take its toll on me.
My psychosis set in slowly over the course of 3-4 months. It started off as the standard paranoia. I was getting more and more uncomfortable at work. I was using larger and larger amounts of meth to keep myself up through the week. My anxiety was so bad that I refused to leave the house for any reason other than to go to work. If I walked out the door I was already having a panic attack. I started hearing people talking about The Tweaker at work. This was the beginning of a really bad psychotic episode for me. Every day at work I heard more and more things being said about me. I started to get paranoid and thought that people were watching what I was doing on the computer.
I started typing messages to them to communicate with them. I heard voices that repeated phrases over and over for my entire 8 hour shift. Most of the time I though there was people laughing at me. I heard people talking about me. I started to realize that this was in my head and I had a serious problem. But I was too far into it and I had no idea how to ask for help. I started to tell my mom and other people that I was going crazy. They just laughed and asked what I was talking about. Nobody seemed to understand that I really was going nuts. I had to run out of the building at work some times because the voices in my head would get so loud I couldnt concentrate on anything else. I heard an echoing in my head one day screaming to KILL, KILL SOMEBODY.
It only got worse.
Until one day at work I had a total breakdown. I was going through the daily routing of burying my head in my arms so that nobody could see me. Silently crying to myself and arguing with the voices in my head to shut up. I would yell at them and tell them that they arent real. That day I just couldnt control it. My heart rate was so high that I thought I was having a heart attack. The voices in my head were telling me that there was blood coming out of my eyes and that I was dieing. Naturally I believed them. I logged out of my phone and went to call my mom to pick me up. I was terrified and thought I was going to die. It just so happened that my mom was on the other side of town and said it would be 45 minutes before she got there.
I freaked.
I was walking in and out of the building and thought that my heart was going to jump out of my chest. I couldnt wait an hour. I went to the security guard and told him to call 911 because I was dieing. Naturally he asked if I had taken anything and being as scared as I was, I told him meth.
The ambulance showed up and they hooked me up to all those heart machines. My mom showed up while they had me hooked up to the machines and she came rushing over as they loaded me up into the ambulance. When I got to the hospital, they injected me with some tranquilizer to calm me down. My official diagnosis was a meth overdose which caused a panic attack.
----------------------
To be continued...
Day three, I slept most of the day just like the last two, and the voices were few and far between. They werent so much distinct voices as much as they were paranoid delusions by then. I was extremely lucky that my psychosis went away so quickly. I returned to KCI and found the chat room for the first time. I spent all night there when I couldnt sleep, when I was in so much pain. It wasnt a physical pain but every fiber of my being was telling me that I needed to get high. It was best explained by grumps when she said that your survival instinct kicks in and your brain is telling you that you need to use to survive.
Rachel helped me work up enough courage to go to an NA meeting. I had some phone numbers and had been to a few meetings before. But my anxiety kept me from going on a day to day basis. When I walked into that first meeting, I made a promise to the chair person that I would be back tomorrow.
).
