In 2011, I graduated near the top of my class from a small high school in a blue-collar working town in Michigan. My graduating class was 127, and our graduating ceremony was held in the football field. I had plans of attending community college for two years to get my prerequisite classes, and then transferring to a larger university to finish my degree in political science. I didn't work that summer, and my parents didn't make me. We all knew I had big plans and goals ahead of me, and we all agreed that I should take some time off between high school and college to prepare myself for what would be ahead of me. Of course, life doesn't always go the way you want it to.
I was born in December, 1992. My biological mother put me up for adopted, and I was taken home from the hospital by the couple that would, in a few short months, legally become my mother and father. This couple was the niece and nephew of my biological mother, a couple who was settled down for ten years and desperately wanted a child. When my biological mother became pregnant with me, her fourth child that she couldn't afford to care for, she saw an opportunity to give me and my parents a better life.
So, I suppose you could say my life has been anything but ordinary from the start. My parents, however, never made it seem that way. They loved me unconditionally and gave me everything I could ever want. We lived in a picturesque home in the midwest. My mother worked days and my father worked nights so that I would never have to be with a babysitter. They made sacrifices for me so that I would grow up in a happy and healthy household. For this, I am very grateful. I got to spend a lot of time with both of my parents while I was growing up. A lot of children spent the days with their mothers while their fathers were gone at work, and then when their fathers came home they were too tired to spend much time with their children. I got to spend all day with my father, and then all night with my mother. Because of this I gained a lot of insight and wisdom from both of them, but most of all, I gained amazing memories.
When it was time for me to go to school, I was nothing short of eager and imaginative. From my first day of kindergarten, I was a quick learner. I had an incredible want for new information, and I soaked everything up like a sponge. I was adventurous, always willing to try something once. After school I participated in dance, karate, gymnastics, volleyball, hockey, basketball, Spanish club; you name it, I did it. My parents always encouraged me to try new things and to try my best, but they never made me do anything I didn't enjoy.
Throughout my school days, I was stuck in the middle of the crowd. I always did well in classes, but I wasn't overly talented in sports, I wasn't gifted musically, and I never had a lot of friends. I just sort of passed through the hallways, knowing everyone's names, but not really knowing much more than that. I went to school and then I came home. I did homework and went to bed, and not much else. The few friends I had were never really good friends, just friends that were kind enough to invite me to their house for a birthday party in the middle of the summer.
Then, in high school, I finally found a best friend. This was the kind of friendship where you instantly knew that the two of you were really going to be the best of friends. We started to do everything together. We had all of our classes together, went to the mall together, spent weekends together, were at one another's homes every night. We were inseparable. Our teachers knew us as a team, and tried to separate us during group activities so that we could "work with others," but never really succeeded. Then, suddenly, a year and a half later, everything changed. Suddenly, this person who was my best friend, disappeared from my life. Yes, we saw each other at school, but she wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't return any of my text messages, suddenly, I was all alone.
Being alone was something I was used to. I grew up alone, aside from my parents. I was an only child with no close friends in my neighborhood. My family all lived far away, so I spent a lot of time alone. After growing used to having a companion though, a best friend that I could always rely on, I found the transition back to loneliness to be a difficult one. I became deeply depressed. One night I was lying in bed, thinking about how miserable I was going to be at school the next day, and how all I wanted to do was scream from the frustration I had built up inside me. Media has an odd way of showing stress relief management for teenage girls, and it usually chooses to show the worst ways possible. That's when I found myself with a razor blade against my wrist for the first time, and that's when a monster inside me was created.
That first sight of dark red blood on my ghostly white wrist changed me forever. Day after day I would slide that blade across my wrist, looking for some sort of escape. I managed to hide my new secret addiction for nearly five months, as the weather was cold and long sleeves weren't questioned daily, until one of my teachers saw my arm at school. She shared her worries with the school guidance counselor, who shared her worries with my parents. Suddenly, I was sitting in the counselor's office with my father trying to explain to him why I was doing such terrible things to myself. I couldn't find the words to explain what I had been doing.
We went home that afternoon and had a "talk." I went to see a therapist a week later. That was all. My parents, as wonderful as they are, didn't believe in therapy. They couldn't see how telling a stranger your problems was going to solve them. So, they just had to trust that I wasn't going to self-harm anymore and that was the end of it.
The next year I graduated high school. I finally saw myself escaping the hell-hole that turned me into the monster whose face I hated to see in the mirror each and every morning. I spend the summer at home, depressed, with no job and a few classes scheduled at the community college. Not really the dreams I had when I was at the top of my class at the beginning of my junior year. It was what my life had become, though. I hid it well. Nobody knew a thing about me. That summer, just before I was scheduled to start college, I got a job working as a transporter at an outpatient medical center. My dad got me the job through his friend's wife. As much as I dreaded getting up early in the morning for work, I was looking forward to having a purpose in life.
So, in a month's time, I was working three days a week and going to school two days a week. I was carrying a 4.0 in my classes, and working twenty four to thirty six hours a week. I wasn't doing bad for a kid who spent her summer eating lying around eating ice cream and waiting for the world to end.
In three short months, at the end of the semester, I got a promotion at work. My boss wanted me to be trained to be the doctors' assistant. I now had to step up my game. This was an important job that required focus and dedication, and now, three years later, I feel like I have done a pretty good job. The thing is, the work I do, you're stuck in a room with two or three other people for six to eight hours a day. You really get to know people. I learned so much that I could never learn form any college classes. I was still going to school, now in the afternoons, and working five days a week. Each day I immersed myself in work, eager to learn just as I had always been. What fascinated me wasn't just the job itself, but the people I worked with. I have the privilege of working with some of the greatest minds in the world with some of the most amazing stories one will ever get the pleasure of hearing.
In June of 2013, I began to experience some extreme lower back pain. Every time I moved, I felt a tight pinch. Nothing seemed to help the pain, not stretching or icing, sitting or standing or laying flat. The pain was making it difficult to work, and the long days on my feet weren't helping the pain, either. One day, in a desperate search for relief, I went digging through the medicine cabinet and stumble upon some oxycodone. Desperation will lead a person to do anything, so, I took one. It helped the pain a little bit, but it was still there. Day in and day out I took the pills, looking for relief. Little did I know it was a slipped disk, and two trips to the physical therapists office eliminated the pain. I still had the pills, though. My father had been prescribed an enormous amount when he had surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff, but he never took any. So, even though the pain was gone, I continued to take the pills. For a few hours, they made me feel like I was at the top of the world. The side effects, however, were terrible. I was hit with a wave of nausea that sent me to the ground. I was sick at work, sick at home, but it didn't stop me from taking the pills.
I opened up to one of my coworkers about my addiction one day. Me, quiet innocent me, addicted to pain killers. To my coworker, the admission seemed almost unbelievable, but loving and caring as she was, she sent me to get help. I started seeing a therapist to talk about my addiction, and to help me get over it. It surprisingly worked, mostly because I was being drug tested on a weekly basis. Talking about things, well, that didn't really get me anywhere. I found it difficult to admit to myself, let alone someone else, why I was putting myself though so much pain and despair. All I knew was that I was no longer dependent on the pills, and that was making my life a bit easier.
In December of that same year, I celebrated my twenty first birthday, an American staple for the ability to purchase alcohol. I was surrounded by family and some of my older friends from work that day. It was a fun night out in my small hometown. I had a few drinks, but I maintained control. My mother, after all, was the one who was passed out on the bar table at 9pm.
Now I could purchase alcohol on my own, but I didn't do much with this newly granted power. Once in awhile I would have a weekend drink, but I was trying to stay focused on work and school. Surprisingly, I was succeeding. My grades were good and I was working plenty of hours, still somehow managing to balance the two. I completed the winter semester and signed up for spring classes, all while still working five days a week. I had a lot of responsibility at work, and it was starting to become a bit overwhelming. My boss selected me to train new employees at a time where we had lost two within a month. At the time, I was a bit put out by this, but now I am grateful, because the person I trained became my best friend. Still, it was a stressful time, and I started to go to the bar down the street from work for a drink a few times a week.
It started out as one drink, and then I went home and on my way. Then, as the weather became warmer and the sun began to shine, my coworkers and I would often go out for a drink and enjoy the nice weather on the patio at the bar. On days we didn't go to the bar, we went golfing, which consisted less of lifting a golf club and more of lifting a twelve ounce bottle to our lips. As the summer passed, my best friend and trainee returned to college to finish up her last semester of nursing school, and I was back to my own classes, trying to focus on them instead of the urge to drink.
It turns out, I was unable to put much energy into my classes. My work ethic is strong, there is no doubt about that, so I tried to schedule my classes later in the evening so that I could work full days and still go to class. After just two weeks of doing this, I found myself to be utterly and completely exhausted, and I dropped my classes. I couldn't see myself making it through the semester and maintaining good grades, and I didn't want to waste my money like that. So, I withdrew my registration during the timeframe where I could still get a refund on my tuition. I didn't want to tell my parents that I dropped my classes, however, because I didn't want them to see me as a failure. All my life I tried my best to make them proud, but I knew that dropping my classes could only make them disappointed in me. So, for three nights every week after work, I had to make it seem as though I was attending class until 9pm.
All of the bartenders knew me by first name after about two weeks. Most of the other customers knew me by name in three weeks. It was a neighborhood bar, and most of the customers went there every night, including myself. My one drink a night turned into one drink an hour. I found myself driving home drunk on a near nightly basis. The bartenders all knew my drink of choice and what kind of soup I would be ordering for dinner. Six drinks a night seemed like nothing to me, and I thought that I could easily drive home with no problems. Shots were bought for me and by me. Often I would go into work hungover, nursing a headache with a bottle of water and a handful of Motrin.
Nobody really knew of this secret lifestyle I was living. The lifestyle of an alcoholic. All of my coworkers thought I was still attending class as my parents did, and they thought my daily exhaustion was just from staying up late studying. One day, however, I had an extremely rough night at the bar. I was feeling incredibly sorry for myself, and I managed to rake up seven drinks on my tab from three in the afternoon to six in the evening. Another three drinks snuck in within the next hour. I went outside to smoke a cigarette with someone I had bet in the bar, a habit I don't often practice, and the nausea that instantly hit me was unbearable. I found myself in the bathroom of the bar, vomiting uncontrollably; the textbook alcoholic. One of the bartenders came in and asked me if I needed anything and insisted that I find a ride home. I don't blame her. I did have ten drinks in four hours. I tried to think of someone I could trust to get me, that wouldn't share my secret with the world. I called one of my coworkers who lived just five minutes away. She came and got me, and insisted that I went to the hospital because she feared I had alcohol poisoning. Looking back on it, I should have listened to her. She is a nurse, and she knows what she's talking about, but after a lot of begging and pleading, she took me to her home, gave me clean clothes and a bed to sleep in, and cared for me all night. It was the most embarrassing experience I had ever had.
That night changed me, but it didn't stop me from drinking. I still had three weeks left of the semester until I could quit the lying game I had enrolled myself in, so that meant three more weeks of drinking. As much as I wanted to, I just couldn't keep myself from going to the bar everyday after work. My birthday rolled around along with the end of the semester, and I quit going to the bar for hours and hours everyday after work. Now I only went for an hour or so. The days at work were getting longer, and that left less time for drinking. The longer days were also more stressful, which made me want a drink even more. Christmas and the holidays came around, and nothing makes a person want to drink like being surrounded by relatives they can't stand.
One of the doctors I worked for was very no-nonsense. She could see right through me. She knew I had a drinking problem, she knew I wasn't going to school, she knew I was making a mess of my life, and she cared about me too much to let me continue on my destructive path. She made me promise her that for my New Year's resolution I would stop drinking. Begrudgingly I agreed, knowing I had signed up for one of the most difficult tasks I would ever take on. This physician, one of the most brilliant women I have ever had the honor of knowing, also made me promise that I would attend every class I had for the new semester, made me promise to show her my grades, and made me promise to not give up, and to let her know right away if I felt like things were getting out of hand.
Well, I failed my New Year's resolution on day number two. I met my best friend at the bar for lunch and drinks during our week off of work. We had a few drinks and chatted with a few of the other customers there that day, and then we went our separate ways. It was early in the day, and I took advantage of the extra time by going over to my university and picking up my books for the upcoming semester.
On my way back home, I stopped at a bar across the street from the university, where I ran into one of the customers I knew from the bar where my friend and I had just had lunch. He bought me a drink and we were chatting a bit, he was an older man and I was always taught to be respectful, so as I got up to leave, I thanked him for the drinks and got ready to head out the door. He insisted on walking me out to the car, and seeing as how I knew him and thought he was being a polite older man, I allowed him to. As we got outside, he then insisted that I wait in his car while mine warmed up because it was so cold. I politely declined his offer and went to head for my own vehicle, but he wouldn't release my arm. I wasn't looking for a fight, so, stupidly, I went with him. As soon as I sat down in his vehicle, he attacked me. Lunging forward, pushing me back towards the seat, groping me, shoving his hand down my pants. I kept saying, "Stop, I have to go," but he wouldn't stop. I tried to push him away, but I couldn't. It took quite awhile before I was able to finally open the door and escape. I quickly ran to my own car and sped out of the parking lot to the expressway, and finally home.
I had my last drink that night. On January 2, 2015. I still find it to be completely depressing that it took being sexually assaulted for me to give up drinking. I only told a few people about what happened that night. I didn't press charges out of fear for having to relive the event in court in front of several other people. I didn't want to tell me parents. I didn't want to give them something else to be ashamed of. I told my best friend, one of the nurses at work, and the doctor who made me promise her I wouldn't drink again. I thought she was going to faint, but she just told me how proud she was. That gives me the inspiration to keep going.
You don't realize you have an addiction to something until it is taken away from you. The want become overbearing. Day in and day out I think of going to the bar after a stressful day and having a drink, but I resist the temptation. Knowing that I have people that support me on this journey is what helps me to carry on each and every day. Seeing all that I have experienced in my twenty two years amazes me everyday, but I know it isn't quarter of what I still have left to experience in my life.
I am thankful to still have a life to live. There were many times I felt suicidal, like it wasn't worth it for me to carry on. Many days I probably should have died in a drunk driving accident, yet God graced me and allowed me to live. I consider each day here on this magnificent planted a chance to grow and help others learn from my own bad experiences. If I can change one life as others have changed mine, it will make my untold, average, normal, middle-class American life story worth telling.
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