Post 13

As a little girl I always wished my life could be like my friend Jill’s, with a mother that cooked dinner and helped her with her homework.

That wasn’t my life though. Everyday my mother and her dope friends would shoot up Heroin in the living room. I remember bringing my little sisters into my bedroom and turning the T.V. up real loud so that they couldn’t hear mom and her friends partying. When I had gotten to high school mom decided she was going to try and quit doping it up and ended up at Hall Street where the Methadone clinic is. It didn’t help though, she just ended up even more addicted to the Methadone than she was to the Heroin. She drinks it, you know, the Meth. She once said the addiction to Methadone was like liquid handcuffs, the Meth made it so that she couldn’t get high if she shot up and it shackled her back to Hall Street pulling her there every day as soon as she woke. I used to try really hard at school and when I would come home I’d clean the house and cook for my sisters, thinking if I was a good daughter it would be easier for her to stay clean. I really believed my love would be enough for her to be happy.

Mom didn’t stay clean long. Since it was harder for the Heroin to make my mother high, she’d combine alcohol and Benzos such as Xanax or Klonopin, then she’d get high just like as if she were on Heroin again.

One day I came home and opened the door. I walked into my kitchen. The trash was knocked over and all the cabinets were open. A bag of flour was busted open and thrown around the kitchen like a dusting of freshly fallen snow. I walked into my room, it was in shambles. All the contents of my dresser were thrown onto the floor and there my mother was going through my closet. I said “Mom, are you ok? What’s going on?” I was shocked and scared at the same time. I have never seen her in such a frenzy before. She was sweating and angry. She took me and shook me and pushed me up against the wall and said “where are my fucking pills, you took them, didn’t you? You wanted to know what it felt like to be high, just like Mommy.”
Then she went to the window and started throwing my stuff out. I was so scared. I just stood there and watched as my pictures and awards crashed down and splintered against the cold concrete sidewalk. Then she turned to me and said “Get the fuck outta here and never come back.” I begged her, I said “Mom, I love you and I want to help. You can’t live like this anymore.” She shoved me to the ground and stood over and said “leave before you end up like me.”

Crying, I turned around and walked away, not knowing where I was going or even if I was going to be safe. I was fifteen when I left home to go live with my friend Jill. The sad thing is I really believed I could do it. I believed that love could change an addict.