The Dread Disease ...

"If some new and terrible disease were suddenly to strike us here in America - a disease of unknown cause, possible due to noxious gas or poison in our soil, air, or water, it would be treated as a national emergency, with our whole citizenry uniting as a man to fight it.
Let us suppose the disease to have so harmful an effect on the nervous system that [millions of] people in our country would go insane for periods lasting from a few hours to weeks or months and recurring repetitively ...
Let us further suppose that during these spells of insanity, acts of so destructive a nature would be committed that the material and spiritual lives of whole families would be in jeopardy ... Work in business, industry, professions and factories would be crippled, sabotaged or left undone ...
Finally, let us imagine this poison or disease to have the peculiar property of so altering a persons judgment, so brainwashing him, that he would be unable to see that he had become ill at all; actually so perverting and so distorting his view of life that he would wish with all his might to go on being ill.

The dread disease envisioned above is actually here. It is addiction.

- Dr. Drew Pinsky

Childhood Trauma ...

I wanted to write about childhood and some of my tough memories as well as the more serious trauma's of my childhood. I'll start with the bad memories and save the trauma for last? Ok...
I love my mother but I resent her so much. I resent her for ever giving me that first pill. How could she be so careless with her own daughter? If your child couldn't sleep, would you give them a shot of heroine? Hell no, right? My mother should have known better because she was already addicted to the stuff. Why make me a victim as well?
It wasn't clear to me why I resented her until today. And after all the anger, I'm still worried sick about her. She IS my mother and she IS an addict.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked mom about her reasons for staying on the prescription meds and she had no answer. I asked her if she had any pleasant memories over the past five years ... she did'nt know. I asked her what she wanted to do with herself in the next ten years ... she didn't know. I asked her what she liked about herself (No, that's not a dumb question) ... and she snapped back and said "I like myself!". She didn't have any answers for me other than she "didn't know". It hurt me to see that someone I loved has absolutely no joy in their life. As far back as I can remember, my mother has been depressed and isolated.
As a child, I was lucky to have both of my parents married and living in the same home with me. Many people say that's enough to be greatful for. I beg to differ. Some households are better off broken than in tact. I don't remember my parents hugging except for one on Christmas. I have never seen my parents kiss or hold hands. Never. We did things as a broken family when I was a kid. We stopped doing "family" things by the time I was about 11 or 12 years old.
I was now older and I began to take notice of the behaviors around the house. I am not exaggerating at all. My parents spoke only to ask what was for dinner or to complain about something having been done wrong. They slept in seperate rooms. My mother was on the couch. She liked it there. She liked being alone and she even told me that she didn't like having friends nor did she want any friends. She trusted no one ... not even family. She didn't like herself at all. She would cover her mouth when smiling because she didn't like her smile. She would walk and talk with her head down, unable to make eye contact. She was always sucking in her stomach even though she was skinny. The list goes on and on. It took a lot of analyizing to get an idea of where my deep insecurity came from. I'm taking a luck guess: My mother. When my father lost his temper (which would be often if not every day), mom would put her head down and take it. She would not stand up for herself but she might answer back about once every few months. I love her but she was and is a doormat.
When I first heard that children, teens and even adults learn their behaviors from their parents, I thought it was ridiculous. I would say to myself that I knew exactly what I was doing and I'm old enough to make my own decisions. There is nothing worse than lying to yourself. I wasn't honest about how deeply things affected me. And it wasn't just mom. I picked up my anger and violent traits from dad. He would slam, break and bang things every time he was pissed and almost anything would piss him off. If he asked me to do something and I made any noise hinting that I was annoyed or unhappy about it, he was pissed. Yelling, banging, denial about the severity of his actions ... Yep, all handed down to me. So I came out of my mothers womb destined to be a depressed, angry, violent, insecure Addict.
Since we're talking about childhood and childhood "trauma", I'm going to write about something only four people in my life know about. Two of whom are my parents and one of which is the ... Wow ... I can't believe I still cannot say or write the word. The other person is the "predator". I guess saying that word makes it too much of a reality. It's almost as if saying that word means I have to deal with it. So here goes ...
I was sexually abused as a child. I was about 4 years old and, at the time, had no idea what was happening. The sickest part of my situation was that the "predator" was my very close family member. (Someone is going to kill me for writing this). I still can't go into details but it went somethng like this ... He would tell me we were playing house. He would have me close my eyes and he would pretend to feed me fake food that he made in the pretend kitchen. I would close my eyes and open my mouth. I knew something was wrong. I know I did. Otherwise, why would I remember that this happened? My worst fears came true when I confronted my mother about my suspicions (on some level I didn't want to believe my memory was serving me right) and mom said that I had told her what happened as soon as it happened. At the time, this family member was living with us. Mom said that she confronted my father about what HE did and my father basically said that wasn't possible. He pulled that classic "children make things up all the time". Mom kicked them both out of the house but in a couple of days, she let my father back in. The family member packed up and left shortly after. He had no choice. Now this is the story my mom tells me. Do I believe it all? Nope.
So resentment is haunting. It's something most people do not know how to deal with. Sure, most can forgive but can you ever truly forget? Can I ever stop feeling the what if's? Why didn't my father believe his 4 year old daughter? How could my mother not take further action against HIM for what he did to me? How could they overlook something so terrible? What's really hard to grasp is that my mother was also abused ... far worse than me and by someone much closer to her. So why would she allow HIM to get away with sexually abusing me? No one even thought about sending me to a counselor. No one ever spoke to me about it again until I confronted the situation a couple of years ago.
It's hard to think that HE knew what he was doing. He's about 7-10 years older than me ... my numbers could be off. So at the time of the abuse, he was a teen ... a pre-teen at the least. Didn't he know that sexual behavior of that kind is inappropriate? For years I convinced myself not to say anything because I didn't want to ruin his life. And what I had to say could potentially ruin his life. BUT, was he ever thinking about ruining my life? During or after the acts? No he wasn't. He may not realize the impact his actions had on me but hey, I guess he will now huh?
I'm sure I'll want to get some more things off my chest about my childhood but I think I'm going to stop while I'm ahead. I just took a huge, scary step toward recovery. I never would have imagined that I'd be sharing so freely ... my childhood was damaging. It wasn't nearly as bad as the many others who are abused. But abuse in any form is traumatizing. If anyone ever hurts or touches you the wrong way, you have to tell someone. Resentment is not something anyone should live with so deal with the things that have a negative impact on you and the things that are just not right. Face them head on. That's something I never did and I have to now. It sucks. But that's life right? I'll tell you what it is ... "It's a recipe for addiction."
I'm Stephanie and I'm an addict.

Burning Desire

I am 65 days clean. Just when I think I have this recoery thing in the bag, that miserable feeling creeps up on me. I was psyched that I wasn't feeling so sick anymore and because of that joy I paid less and less attention to the internal recovery I would struggle with. I'm beginning to believe what they say ... this IS something I will struggle with for the rest of my life.
For the longest time, (almost all my life), my mind has been plagued by self hatred, depression, anxiety and anger. I have always attacked myself about my appearance. I don't think there was a day in my teen or adult life that I didn't criticize myself. Downing myself caused me to be depressed and reclusive. My depression and low self-esteem caused me to have anxiety. I would have minor anxiety attacks when I had nothing to wear because I "didn't fit into anything". I would have anxiety attacks when I was around to many people. I would have anxiety when people were disrespectful ... All of these issues combined caused my toughest issue to become unmanageable.
I have always been an angry and violent person. At one point, I was even proud of the fact that I wasn't scared of anyone. I was proud that I had no fear of confronting and provoking someone with aggression or violence. I took pride in the idea that people saw me as harmless when, in fact, that was far from the truth. Now, I'm not saying that I could kick anyone's ass. But I am saying that I would argue or fight whoever was becoming a bother to me. At this point of my life, I am far from proud of my actions.
I became much more careless when I was using. It's amazing how much you realize about yourself when you get clean. Nearly every day, I would throw myself into a harmful situation. But I didn't care. I'm guessing that is why I was so self- destructive. So what if someone cut me? So what if someone found me and jumped me? I didn't give a damn. In fact, I was so angry and depressed that I had a suicide attempt when I was just 18 years old. As far as I remember, I wasn't trying to kill myself, but I was trying to get as much attention as possible. I wanted people around me to understand the severity of my situation. No one really took my anger and depression seriously. I'm sure everyone thought I was just being a rebellious teenager. No one had any idea things would ever get so bad for me.
About four weeks into my recovery, I wasn't feeling so sick anymore. I still had some shakes, anxiety, aching, insomnia, and much more BUT it was manageable. I felt better and better every day. Now I am 65 days into my recovery and I feel like I'm slipping. For the first time in over two months, I can actually relax on my couch and watch a movie without completely jumping out of my skin. I am finally sleeping more. I can finally take naps. But now that I'm healing physically, inside I continue to struggle. Without my beloved pills, I can't seem to manage my emotions most of the time. I can't get myself out of this rut. I want to start working again, going to school again, exercising again, living life again ... but there is always something in the way. I have no motivation to go back to the gym. My motivation should be that I want to be healthy and look better but somehow, that's not enough. That's a strange thing because my biggest issue is that I do not like myself. I want to go back to school but I have to pay them over two thousand dollars to go back. I don't have that money because I have no job right now. And for the first time in my life, I am having a hard time finding a job. So it's a never ending cycle. I have no idea what to do first.
Without something to do, I am getting restless and anxious again. I'm coming down on myself HARD. I don't feel accomplished. I have nothing to show for the time I spent on this earth. The sad part about my feelings is that I have a daughter and husband who love me very much and I still feel as though I have done nothing good with myself. I love my family but I don't feel as though I am good enough to have them.
So all I have been doing is kicking myself in the ass about what I am not doing and then doing absolutely nothing about it. Why is this disease so tricky? It's almost as if Addiction has played a cruel joke on me. Addiction let me go for about a month and then came back to laugh in my face. It still has me. I'm locked into this disease and I still do not have the tools to hack my way out. Where do I start the change? It's so overwhelming. My mind is spinning. I want to use to take away the pain. My craving doesn't go far enough for me to pick up but it's definitely stirring things up inside. How can I feel good sober? Does anyone know where to go from here? I sure don't.

I'm Stephanie and I'm an addict.