I never dealt with pain very well. I never tried to deal with pain at all. Every time negativity impacted my life I made a choice to shut down and suppress all the unwanted feelings beneath me. I'd pretend as if nothing ever happened, but then something else would occur worsening the damage that had already been inflicted. In reality, I was being abused. I would go about my day smiling in front of the world as if my life was impeccable when in all actuality I was dying inside. I was ready to burst like a ticking time bomb and I needed to cope. The only way I thought I could do that was with drugs and alcohol.
I drank and drugged myself for nearly a decade to forget. Forget a childhood packed with consistent mental, emotional and physical abuse and a six year relationship that kicked me down and punched me till I was blue in the face, among other things. No one is blessed with the perfect life, but we all handle stress in our own ways and I handled stress by zoning out and partying when the world slept. Everything was great until I started blacking out. I was taken in a car jacking (from which I escaped), I was arrested multiple times for drinking and driving and I woke up in a man's bed I know I never consented having sex with.
Bad things happen when you are not fully aware of your surroundings and under the influence. No one ever taught me how to handle stress appropriately and in my mind I always thought I had things under control. I thought I was ok, but looking back on a life filled with so much chaos, I should have stepped away and researched some help rather then to self medicate myself through my abusive relationship.
So much was going on in my life to where I felt the need to disappear so I decided to disappear mentally. I clogged my thoughts with a consistent dose of dopamine thinking I had found the answer to my prayers, but I was wrong. The high was no longer the intense euphoria I had discovered in the beginning, which only led to me ingesting more toxins till I became ill from obvious overdosing. My tolerance had built and my sadness remained. I could no longer chase my bad thoughts away and I had to learn how to deal with them on my own straight faced and sober.
I was in love though and when your in love, no one can tell you anything. But I was killing myself so I could deal with my relationship. I couldn't live a day without being sober. I was a high drunk and yet I was functional. I could work, go to school full time, take care of a child and take the back seat in between. I was a functional addict, as some would call it. Then I got into legal trouble.
That legal trouble helped me seek the help I needed for not only my addiction, but for my past as well as my present abuse. It changed my life, my perspective and it helped me learn how to deal with stress appropriately. I am forever grateful for the help I received as well the support I had in order to leave my abuser for good. Leaving made me a better person and it made me realize how abused I really was inside and out. You don't realize it till you have been gone from it for quite some time and you learn how to heal without fear.
If this is you, you are not alone in this. I know hoe difficult it is to cope with an abusive relationship. The man makes you crazy, angry, deranged, conflicted, pitiful and at times can make you want to die. His words hit like a pack of razorblades because it is coming from the one man you grew to love so much, someone you trusted to love you back unconditionally and failed miserably. He not only failed, but made it your fault. Everything is your fault, even his past is your fault.
The truth is, is there is nothing you did to make the man who he is. He was that way before you fell in love with him. He just hid it very well, pretending he was Casanova when he is far from it. I promise you that drinking and drugging your thoughts away will never help. It may seem like it will at first, but then he hits you again and calls you worthless again. He will always do what he said he will never do again, AGAIN. His ways have blinded you from seeing what is really there and there is nothing you can change.
There is no point in killing yourself by self medicating your pain away because there are always ways to help you with what it is you are going through. There is so much we all have in common...we loved the wrong man and we are paying for it in ways we never imagined. All we need is the strength to leave. You are a woman who deserves more than what you have received. Don't drown out your thoughts the way I used too. I have a hard time remembering the good memories because I was too focused on blocking out all the bad ones. I have forgotten most of my past and yet I still remember every single bad thing that ever happened to me. It didn't work for me nor will it work for you.
You have too much potential to throw it away and I have lost too many friends to drugs. I have lost several friends to heroin overdoses, to a suicide caused by drugs and I lost friends as well as my baby brother to prison because of drugs. I have had friends murdered because of drugs.
My brother was my best friend and I lived ten years of trying to save him. Id pull him out of crack houses 3 to 4 nights a week, Id pay his debts so he wouldn't get hurt and I was there by his side when he was shot from stealing crack from his dealer. It is painful living with an addict and loving an addict nearly killed me. There is nothing to gain from this. There is only loss. Trust me! My abuser was an addict and I almost died.
Thank God I am still here to tell you. If you are in my shoes just know there is help you can seek, there are support groups and counselors free of charge and there are treatment centers that will help those financially unstable. There is always a way. But there is only a way if you are ready to quit, otherwise it will never work. You have to be willing to change and there are always people standing by ready to help you when you do. Just never give up!
Find Alcoholics and Narcotics anonymous meetings all around the world by clicking on the link below....Find a meeting near you!
http://meetings.intherooms.com/
If you are seeking treatment, please call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Service at 1–800–662–HELP
(4357) for information on hotlines, counseling services, or treatment options in your State. Drug treatment programs by State also may be found online at www.findtreatment.samhsa.gov.
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