I'm heading out - I've got some ends who say they care

Purgatorio

Every day was becoming more and more routine. I often spent all night going on jobs with Callie and fighting with Ninja. I started noticing that drugs were no longer curing my constant nausea and I had chewed a large hole in my cheek from tweaking. One afternoon Ninja and I were over at Brett’s house. Jackson was there and said his ride fell through and asked if I would give him a ride so he could go sell to a few people. I agreed to if we could go a little later.

We left and drove over to Baker's house. He surprised us with some drugs and we all pulled out pipes. While we were smoking, Jackson arrived ready for me to go. I was having a good time and told him to find a new ride so he borrowed Brett’s mom's car instead.

A week later, Callie came over to Baker’s and asked if we'd heard the news. The day Jackson wanted me to give him a ride, he had been parked in a parking lot measuring out some dope when a police car parked along side him. He was arrested for having 10 grams of methamphetamine on him with intent to sell, along with 2 sawed off shotguns in the trunk. He got 20 years. I was so relieved that I hadn't given him a ride.

Baker pulled me aside and told me he was worried about me. He said that I didn't look right, that I looked off balance when I walked. I told him I was fine and blew him off. A few days later, Callie and Ninja told me the same thing. Baker told me I was too young to ruin my life like he had done his. He was feeling guilty for providing me with drugs. Callie was feeling the same way. I was angry with both of them, even though I knew they were right. I started spending more time with Ninja. One afternoon, I was driving to Baker's and popped an Eve 6 song into my CD player. A song called Promise came on and I broke down. The lines:

I promise not to try not to fuck with your mind
I promise not to mind if you go your way and I go mine
I promise not to lie if I'm looking you straight in the eye
I promise not to try not to let you down


made me think of what I was doing to my mom. We had always had a pretty good relationship, even through all my rebellious teen years and the guilt tore me apart suddenly. I realized that nothing in my life made me happy anymore except drugs. I use to be such an animal lover and suddenly could not remember when I last pet my dog. I dried my tears when I arrived.
We spend the night together after I went on what would be my last deal, although I didn't know it at the time. I showed him a letter I was trying to write to my mom asking for help. Admitting to being an addict. He told me he agreed with my decision to quit. The problem was, I didn't know if I would have the courage to quit. I was deathly afraid of the thought of not being able to use. The next afternoon, I had to go home because I had a doctor appointment. I promised Ninja that I would be back as soon as I was done.

I arrived home and my mom told me that they would probably want to do some blood work since I was a new patient, so I had better not eat anything. I panicked. They would certainly find the drugs in my system. I ran to the kitchen and started eating. My mom tried to stop me but I told her that I was starving. I weighed myself. I was 81 lbs. I knew they would at least hospitalize me for anorexia,  so I pulled on my rain boots and searched my room for things to hide in them to weigh me down. As I was looking, I suddenly became exhausted. I laid down on my bed for just a few minutes. I accidentally fell asleep. When I woke up, I looked at my clock. It was almost time to go. I stood up and headed down the hall. When I opened the garage door to find my mom going through my car. My heart sank into my stomach. she had found my journal and confronted me. She asked me to tell her, without lying, if I was a drug addict. I was trapped, so I confessed. The rest of the day was a blur. I vaguely remember trying to plan my escape from a moving car. I vaguely remember trying not to cry when the doctor comforted me and told me they would get me help and I vaguely remember my mom talking to my nana and cancelling my graduation trip to Hawaii. The only thing I remember with great vividness was standing in my driveway while my mom and nana talked as I stared at a flower in the garden and feeling the worse feeling I've ever felt. This feeling of utter terror. It's so hard to describe. I looked at this pink flower and nothing felt familiar. Like I had never been at my home. Like I had never seen a flower and I didn't know those two women standing there talking about me. This feeling of a wild animal in a cage. My only though was freedom. I wondered if I started out running, if I could make it to Baker’s house.

The next day, we visited my psychiatrist I'd been seeing since the Adam incident. I still had the same terrified feeling. I heard him mention sending me to detox. I couldn't breathe. Something was suffocating me. On the way to detox, I begged my mother not to take me. To just let me go to rehab somewhere. I told her I HAD to tell Ninja what was going on. She drove me to Baker’s house but Ninja was not there. I knocked on the door and opened it. I told Baker that I was going to go away and get help. Tears filled his heavily made up eyes and he squeezed my hand and wished me luck. Then I got back in the car.

I spent a week laying on my couch. I would fall asleep for hours. When I woke up, in a pool of sweat, I was starving. I ate until it hurt and then I passed out again. Over and over...

One day, we went to a book store and I asked for a journal. When we got home, I tried to write my feelings, but I ended up falling asleep. I was much happier to sleep than to be awake, because when I was awake my only thought was escape. The terror never left me. Plus I was dying for a cigarette. It was raining heavily that night. I was so worried about Ninja. I took a shower and put on ripped up jeans, my black Coyote Ugly top, a floral long sleeved shirt and green Converse shoes without socks. I threw on a red raincoat too. I knew this was my night to leave. My mind was driving me crazy and I could no longer stand the feeling of terror. I knew that if I did not get rid of this feeling, that I would kill myself. I had already went though the possible methods. I was going to swallow pills. I was going to slit my wrist. I was going to steal a bike and ride into traffic. I didn't care how, I just knew I was going to die if I didn't leave. I had to die to rid myself of the feelings. I wrote letters to my family. At the time, I didn't know if they were run away letters or suicide letters, but either way they would work. I asked my mom to drive to Baker’s just to see if Ninja was alright in the weather. After much convincing and manic pleading, she agreed.

She told me to put my purse in the back seat. I did, but slipped my wallet into the sleeve of my raincoat. I stumbled around in the dark to his tent. He was in there sleeping. I woke him up and whispered that we had to get out of here. He shook his head. We walked out and my mom told me to get back in the car. I shook my head and ran in the other direction. I could hear my mom screaming and honking the horn. It broke my heart but I had to go. I knew I wouldn't survive if I didn't. We took several back alleys and finally crossed the street. We walked down a very bad side of town. A large man appeared and we began talking to him. He seemed nice and invited us to his apartment but we declined. On we walked. We crossed another big street. I told him we should go to Josh's house. It was all the way across town. We stopped at an ATM and I took out $5. That was about all I had in there. Then we went to an all night convenience store where we bough a cheap pack of disgusting cigarettes and a drink. On we walked. Finally we made it to Josh’s house. Brett was over there as well. Neither one of them had drugs but that was fine. I just wanted to sleep. We passed out on the couch at about 6:00 am. At exactly 7, we awoke to an irate woman screaming. She was Josh’s mom and ordered us to get out. Me, Ninja, Brett, and Jackson's two large pit bulls who Josh was caring for started off down the street. Several blocks later, I stopped to rest. I was so exhausted. I took my shoes off because they were hurting my feet and saw that large flaps of skin from my heels were torn off, because I'd been walking all night with no socks. Ninja carried my shoes for me and we continued to walk. I left small trails of blood behind me that the dogs licked up. I found one flip flop in someones yard and wore it on the foot that was the worse off. I put the other shoe back on. Brett wandered off by himself with the dogs and we decided to walk to Callie's boyfriends house that was several blocks away. We stopped at a store and used the payphone with the last quarter we had. I called Mel in hopes that she would give us a ride. I forgot she was in summer school. She didn't answer so we stopped at a laundromat across the street to rest. I sat in a chair and hung my head down and fell asleep. I heard a woman asking if I was alright and Ninja said I was but that I was tired. An hour passed and we got up to walk again. The woman bought me a bottle of water and gave us a few cigarettes. We walked a few more blocks and stopped at a park where I collapsed. We slept another hour in the grass. Finally, he told us we had to get there so we continued on. We made it to the house and luckily Callie was there. She made me a sandwich and gave us more cigarettes. She told us she would get us a ride back to Baker’s house. When the car arrived, she pulled me aside and handed me some change. "Call your mom and end this." she told me. The man gave us a ride back and we crawled into Ninja's tent. Baker wasn't home. There was a letter left for me from my mom asking me to call her. After a nap, Ninja gave me a pair of his socks so I could put my shoes on again and we walked to a pay phone where I called. I demanded that my mom meet me somewhere to give me some money. We argued for a while and I had a hard time standing up straight. Finally she agreed to meet me. I got off the phone and we walked to another store to buy a hot dog with the rest of the money Callie had given me. I felt bad about eating meat, I hadn't in years but I was starving. On the way back, I saw my mom. But I also saw my dad and papa. They had ambushed us. I was drug to the car and we drove away. I kicked and screamed all the way home. I had a breakdown when we arrived home and for some reason, they agreed to let me see Ninja. That he could come over for supervised visits, but that I wasn't allowed out anywhere. I took the best shower ever and dressed in all black. I felt a hint of nostalgia for my goth days. We drove back to Baker's where they explained the rules to Ninja. They drove him to my house and fed him.

Every day became the same, again. My mom drove me to pick up Ninja, he was quitting drugs too (because he no longer had me, the dealer and connection, or my money) so he was withdrawing as heavily as I still was. We ate a ton of food and then napped. But he did have cigarettes which we would smoke.

One night I weighed myself. I had eaten so much lately I wanted to see the result. I was an even 100 lbs. That night, my withdrawal was particularly bad and I spent most of the night throwing up. Immediately the next morning I weighed myself again. I had dropped to 96 lbs.
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June 17, 2006. The day I quit meth.