Pain and Perplexity
by Jae Pemberton
It is time to start a new year, the biggest year of my life, in a new town, with new people, and all the opportunities I could ever wish for. As my parents drive away in the car once full of all my belongings, they were waving frantically and wishing only the best for me. A rush engulfs my body at that instance. This moment marks the beginning of the next chapter of my life, college. I begin to ponder everything to come as I drift back to the foreign room that has now become my new home. I realize that no one knows me here, no one knows the person I used to be, and I’ve decided that, from this moment on, I will become the person I have always dreamed of.
One problem sets in as the day begins to wind down...who is that person? Not just the silly outside glamor and appearance, but what type of person do I want to be? I know it is someone not like everyone else because I have always been my own unique person. But, what path do I want to explore? How do I want others to think about me? More importantly, how do I want to think about myself? As my eventful day comes to an end, the lights are turned off, and I smile as I drift off to sleep. Tomorrow is the day that this new person will start to evolve.
Never in a million years did I think, that first night, happily drifting off to sleep, the person I was soon to evolve into was going to be a pill popping, marijuana smoking, cocain snorting, ecstasy user. It boggles my mind every time I wonder back to that part of my life and realize I was lost in a world beyond imagination. How all of this came about and how I allowed myself to live a lifestyle that most people can never imagine living, is a simple question to answer. When I was searching so hard to find the person I wanted to be, I met someone who already knew who they were. Confidence flowed out of her every pore. It was easier than I thought to morph into a replica of that person...Shelby.
Lonely and a bit scared, the second day is coming to an end. Everything I hoped to come true hasn’t even been touched by the day. As I come to a halt in front of my dorm I lite another cigarette hoping that a friendly face will pass by me and that a conversation will just magically ignite between the two of us. Well, even better happens; two girls, that are engaged in what appears to be like an interesting conversation, asks me for a lite. That weight that has been hanging over my shoulders throughout the day is lifted as the lighter goes from one hand to another. I come to find that they live in the same dorm as I, actually just down the hall. Better than I could have ever expected. The previous interesting conversation was brought back to life, once the exchange of names and room numbers were discussed. From this moment on I started evolving into that person I was searching so desperately for with, my new best friend, Shelby, by my side.
This was how the roller-coaster I wasn’t aware I was getting on began. The largest downfall I have ever experienced started at a slow pace. Before college, drinking had become the rebellious weekend ritual along with pot smoking, here and there. Nothing that could ever cause as much damage to me, my life, or the loved ones around me, as my year at college did. Those habits carried over to the beginning of this new life; frat parties, drinking in the dorms, going to clubs, and the so called "drives," that was our favorite activity to pass the time and get a few bowls of marijuana smoked before the day came to an end. Drives slowly evolved into an attribute of my everyday life and continued to hold that status throughout my college career. As the spent days grew in numbers, more friends were made as the time flew by without acknowledgment. At the same pace, of this rapid time, rapid habits were being developed as the destruction could officially be stated as beginning.
There was no more just going out and drinking. It had become a process of deciding which prescription drugs we wanted to pop, before we could get trashed, and before anything could really get started, who had the pot to smoke? The rebellious but innocent weekend drinking I remember from highschool had transformed itself into something that could never be associated with the innocent. The occasional pot smoking quickly faded into an old memory from highschool as it formed into that everyday celebration that usually came about three times a day.
Shelby soon became my other half, we practically spent every minute of every day together. The more endless nights we spent together, the more we learned about each other. There was a life that Shelby lived that I had never been introduced to before. The never ending stories she divulged flooded my mind with ideas about how fascinating a life could be when you surround yourself in a world full of drugs. How excitement would just follow you day after day and how your life itself would entice you ever minute. Before I knew it, I was more than willing to start enjoying every aspect of that life. Up until this point, that type of life existed within the boundaries of my imagination. Even better, through Shelby, I had a teacher to make sure I learned all the tricks of the trade. She supplied me with a path to follow, which was much more appealing than wondering aimlessly, alone, in a world never explored before. So, now, there was no more who I wanted to be or what I wanted to do with my life, it had become an us. The path our lives had begun to take became clear to everyone but our own eyes.
There were very specific procedures I learned to follow. It was necessary for my survival to learn the right words to say, the right people to talk to, the right way to live life that revolving around everyday use of drugs. Quickly, I discovered the golden rule that everyone knows but will never talk about: there aren’t many people out there that can be trusted. Non-users created the fear of being caught, so associating with them, at any level greater than small talk, was defiantly out of the picture. The users, ohh, the good old users. Well the majority will deceive any chance they get, it is just in their nature. Pretty much, Shelby and I decided to take on this world alone because it was better not to have to deal with anyone else but ourselves. We had each other, drugs, and a whole year to live.
How well can a year pass by when you allow yourself to trip every time you walk? There were aspects about this world that I wouldn’t let go. Things that I fell in love with, feelings I couldn’t survive without. The person I was growing into became stronger and more powerful every time I slipped out of reality and into the hands of my new best friend, ecstasy.
The rush of holding this little pill in the palm of my hand overtook my body. My heart starts to thump louder and louder as the curiosity of what is about to come, grows inside. My breathing quickened to random gasps of air and before I know it, I have to concentrate on slowing my breathing just to be able talk. The thought of putting this foreign substance into my mouth sends chills up my spine and puts a halt to the world that surrounds me. All that exists are two people staring each other face to face. Our eyes repeatedly glance down to make sure this strange pill hasn’t moved from our trembling hands that cradles it like a precious jewel. My heart comes to a complete stop as my mouth opens and I place this foreign substance, ever so gently, on my tongue. I move this tiny pill to one side of my mouth and rapidly began chewing, just as instructed to. The taste instantly hit me and I swore to myself that I am not going to throw-up. A taste that can never be prepared for and that will never be forgotten. Water is the only solution that would dilute this horribly bitter taste that has attacked every taste bud in my mouth. Gulp after gulp, only a little bit of that substance was left between my teeth. My heart begins to beat once again as the initial rush subsides and even more curiosity erupts as I wait to see what can come from my first night of taking ecstasy.
This became THE defining moment in my life without my own knowledge. I let go of the life I used to live along with the person I used to be. I welcomed this new life with open arms and a smile on my face. I barricaded the door to that little voice in my head that said I was jumping into a world that is far beyond what I could ever imagine, as ecstasy swung opened another. I stepped in without even a second thought or a glace over my shoulder for one last look at the life I was leaving behind.
That night was a night that can never be erased from my memory. It was the beginning of the roller-coaster I am on with Shelby, falling at high speeds. Ecstasy soon became our drug of choice, along with the lifestyle that followed. It was perfect the way things fell into place. People with the same interests seem to meet each other. Now, instead of just two people looking at life through they eyes of ecstasy whenever their hearts desired, it became a group activity. We placed ourselves every weekend with that little pill in our hands anticipating the evening that was about to fall upon us. Rolling, tripping on Ecstasy, became the center of the world in which we lived. We had a club to go to that played techno music (which was a must, for us, when it comes to rolling), the friends to do it with, and no restrictions on what we could or couldn’t do. One pill soon turned into two and two into three and so on. No longer was popping those little pills filled with chemicals, we had never even heard of, sufficient for our desires. We created a new and more destructive habit. Chopping our favorite little pill into a line that would soon be consumed through a nostrils. The second we got over the initial rush of what just took placed (snorting ecstasy), the effects instantly start eating away our brains and we fell deeper into the grips of ecstasy. In an single instance we creating an unimaginable high that before, we never knew could exist. A high that was more loved then the one we had grown accustomed to. This was a habit that was rapidly growing out-of-control. The more we did, the more fun it became, but why should we stop there?
Could I ever become fully content with myself? I had developed into a person that when I was high, I was on top of the world. The word "No" didn’t exist in my vocabulary. Anything I wanted I could get and everything I desired, at some point, would be fulfilled. But, the sad truth about life is, all good things will never last once taken advantage of. When I wasn’t high, the whole world collapsed on-top of me and how much fun is that? There was nothing I could do to stop this cycle I became so very familiar with. A brain that lives from pill to pill can only survive for so long. It became mandatory for my survival in this life to find something to bump a life that was slowly falling apart, up a notch. It became known, with little effort, by word of mouth, that there were still different worlds to jump into, different highs to catch, and new friends with different drugs to meet.
Find the source. Call after call full of words that always have more meaning than just what is apparent on the surface. Bingo. We’re set, someone has what we desire, we know how much dough needs to be dished out, where to go for the drop, and the energy inside of us is bursting at the seams. The wait. Our hands fidgeting with anything in sight and comfort isn’t possible with what is about to come teasing us as the count down begins. Minutes go by like hours, the sun sets, and our evening starts in a panicked rush. Playing with the devil. Testing out the goods before the money goes from one hand to another is always vital. Shady doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the lifestyle we are dancing around in. One, two, three, we dive in, and lay a rock-star (or better known as a line) down or two. Four, five, sniff, sniff, our heads fall back to get the drip that has been haunting us ever since this game started. Six, seven, numby hear, numby there. Now, that comfort we have been waiting for falls over us in seven steps that will come again and again periodically through the night or day. It doesn’t matter because time doesn’t exist anymore, nothing exist. All that matters now is that sack burning a hole in either Shelby or my pocket, calling our name to complete those seven steps again and again until there is nothing left.
My life just got a bit more complicated. Coke, slang for cocain, now had a new meaning to me other than just a soda. Snorting coke, no matter how we tried to justify the act, could only send the roller-coaster Shelby and I were on plummeting at even more rapid speeds. Ecstacy was still our drug of choice but coke became our drug of necessity. If we weren’t flying high, dancing our brain cells away with ecstasy, then coke became our savior. Coke would save us from the demons that would crawl deep from within when the high faded and we were placed back into reality. We tried to rid the problem of coming down off of ecstacy with a solution that seemed flawless; do another drug that didn’t take you out of reality for those eight, twelve, twenty-four hours like ecstasy accomplished time and time again. We just wanted something simple, that just made those days go by a bit more quickly until we were able to pop yet another one of our favorite little pills. Flawless was far from what our plan turned into. There is no such thing as a casual coke user, which was what we were striving so hard to become. We created more fuel to the flame of our torment. The downs that came with coke were more often and grew more painful the more we did. Now, instead of just having one problem, we surrounded ourselves with an endless amount of them, just to send us deeper into the darkness.
Days seemed to mesh into nights, and nights last for weeks. We’d go to class, and the only thing possible for us to do was to write frantically the words racing through what was left of our brains. Listening wasn’t an option so going to class soon became just an old memory. Money, what money? Whatever money we scavenged up would disappear instantly into something that we would ingest, put up our noses, or smoked. Money doesn’t grown on trees and drugs are a drain without a plug. We had to sacrifice what ever morals we had left, proving just how pitiful our lives had become. Stealing, like everything else, became an trait of our lives where no consequences could exist in our minds. As long as our little world we lived in didn’t get disrupted, going to extremes didn’t even faze us. Our bodies? Well, health wasn’t an issue because our eyes never touched a mirror. The obvious was never allowed to be so obvious to us. Life continued meandering along this path until the roller-coaster was rapidly approaching rock bottom.
As every day past by, the harder it got to wake up for the next. That lifestyle took it’s toll not only on my physical body, but my mind and the way it functioned. Perceptions on reality became mangled. Depression was an attribute of my everyday life. Everything I thought I had, I didn’t, and everything I wished I had, couldn’t be reached. All that mattered was when could I get some sort of high to make all these demons go away that had permanently made a home in my life. Psychologically, I became extremely fragile. Dealing with everyday experiences became a battle between life and death. That feeling of being on top of the world turned into being six feet deep in a grave I dug for myself.
I could only live without facing the truth for so long. Who was this person I had become? That was the one question I didn’t dare answer. Drugs had grasped every aspect of my life. That girl, once trying to find the person she wanted to be, had turned into someone that couldn’t find the power within to admit to herself the type of person she had become. Mirrors became something I wouldn’t dare look into because the face staring back, wasn’t a face I wanted to recognize as my own. I had reached my limit. There were no more drugs to do that would make this world seem like a world worth living in. Still, I would trugde on, killing more and more of myself as every day slipped out of reach, while under my breath, I would wish for the next to never come. I kept finding myself falling deeper and deeper into a dark world that I never knew existed. Nonetheless, a world I had created on my own. Giving me what I wanted, yet another way to escape from the prison of my mind.
The concept was fairly simple. I had chosen a way of life that had two distinct faces. Consciously I didn’t have to admit to myself or even recognize that I was destroying myself slowly day by day. Subconsciously, I was staring myself straight in the face, saying how much a fool I had become. I grew to hate myself without even knowing how this seed of anger, disgust, and pain got planted within. My only hope for survival was to hunt down a way to stomp out this weed that has taken over my life while still disguising the truth that lies deep within the roots.
Chaos is everywhere. The world in front of me is melting before my very eyes. There is no time to think, only time to act. My body moves rapidly as I escape from the torment of my life into a little room that holds sacred meanings to only the dark secrets I hide deep beneath the skin. I collapse to the cold tile floor that chills my body as I settle down, preparing myself for a rush no drug can give me. My body moves without thought, acts without reason, does what is necessary for my mind to escapes from the prison holding it captive. I have the power to create my own destiny as the blade pierces against my skin. I feel my heart stop along with all the torture inside as my muscles relax and the pressure against my skin grows stronger at my will. The blade is my tool for my survival. I create a sense of control as the blade draws a stream of blood that carries away more than just my blood type. The release is everything. The blood flowing from my body takes with it all the pain, sadness, anger, and the cold that has been growing inside. Now nothing can get in the way of gaining temporary freedom from the hell that surrounds me. A weight has been lifted off my shoulders and tomorrow is now a day I can face. I am rejuvenated. All that is left for me to do is rid any evidence of what just took place from spectators eyes and more importantly from my own. As I close the door behind me, leaving the sacred bathroom, I leave in there what just happened and swear that this will always stay buried deep within the confines of my mind.
I gave myself yet another false reality to live and added another attribute to my life that I had to hid. What was obvious to other eyes was disguised from my own. I was so naive, at the time, to think I could pass off a drugged up, self-mutilating person, as an innocent college student to anyone, especially to my parents. A visit seem so very innocent, but my parents eyes were more powerful then I could have ever expected and will forever be watching over my every move. Some will call it a cry for help and others will call it a momentary lapse of whatever intelligence I had left. Whatever it was, that day they saw someone who wasn’t their daughter. They knew enough to realize the year that was supposed to be about growing and maturating had turned into one of destruction. My parents became the devil to this hell I was living in. Their eyes looked me up and down seeing the signs that were blocked from my eyes for so long. For those moments of silence, when sadness painted my parents faces, the image of the person I had become started to emerge from the fog and became visible to my eyes. The image of the innocent daughter in control of her life is lost forever in the truth of reality.
The image of my parents faces, during that so-called innocent visit, haunts me with every dream. Oddly, for the first time, a sense of understanding sets a shadow over me. There was no more denying, no more mangled perceptions, no more confusion clouding my mind. All this clarity came from a choice that only became clear when I was cowardly wandering around, lost at rock bottom. A choice that had always been there, but the ride to rock bottom was going to fast for me to see it. A choice to either live painfully, crawling my way out of the darkness, up towards the speck of light that the real world puts off, or I could easily continue to die, lay in this grave and decompose into nothingness.
Gazing into a mirror I wonder who is this person looking back at me. My eyes trace the outline of what looks like a body, curious as to what happened to the image I see. Eyes meet eyes and I notice the ones staring back at me are empty and lost in a world that I would never dare to consciously set foot in. The mind that I once thought could never deceive me has twisted and tangled the boundaries of reality to the world I live in. I try to focus my eyes thinking that this couldn’t be right. Nope, this is the person I have become; a frail woman that has aged more in the last year than she had throughout her whole highschool career. Someone that spends more time hating life then actually living it. I am disgusted in what I finally allow myself to see and decided from this moment on, things are going to have to change. I know it will be a battle, but it is one battle that is worth the fight, a battle to live.
As the year comes to an end, a chapter in my life does the same. As I leave this place I learned to call home, back in that same car full of all my belongings, a silence settles in the air that couldn’t be broken. Memories flooded my thoughts as we pulled out of the parking lot and headed down roads that took me past places that will forever have their own meanings. The closer we got to the highway that will take me away from all of this, the more I question the choices I had made. The more I doubted how strong I could be and the more I wished I could just turn around and craw back into the hole I came from. Then I glanced in the side mirror and saw a person staring back at me. Comfort flowed over my body as all that questioning floated away. I realized, starred into those eyes, this will be the battle of a lifetime, but those eyes are ones I will soon be glad to call my own.