To say I was a troubled teenager would be a severe understatement. When I was 18, after spending two long years in drug rehab (Kinsman Hall), I was finally released two days before Christmas. Was I excited? Yes! I was filled with what I thought were endless possibilities. But I was more afraid than I was excited. Those two years kept me alive, but it did little else. When I hit the streets, I was armed with absolutely no tools for a drug-free and drama-free existence. How can anyone cope when they're left up to the their own faulty devices? Two years of not having to think for myself weighed heavily on me especially when I was suddenly faced with a real life filled with real problems and real decisions to make everyday.
Towards the end of my two years at Kinsman Hall, I got involved with a staff member who was about ten years older than me. Oh, we had big plans of living happily ever after, but that happily ever after never happened. Bruce left the program a few months after my departure. The plan was for him to come get me in Florida and we'd start our life together. He got as far as New York where he was from and never made it any further. Denial works great for awhile and then reality sets in...Bruce and I were never going to have anything, but some sheltered memories of a relationship that was never put to the test of surviving in a life away from Kinsman Hall. I knew I made the wrong choice by getting involved with Bruce to begin with and instead of choosing with my heart, I chose with my head. If I had chosen with my heart months earlier Bruce wouldn't have been in the picture.
Shortly after my departure, life slapped me in the face twice. The ferocity of the slap left me questioning everything I thought I knew. First, I lost my closest friend, Charlene. When she left rehab, she started shooting dope again. Although I knew what the writing on the wall predicted, I wasn't prepared to deal with a death...any death. Charlene died a week before her wedding. As Bruce broke the news of Charlene's death to me, I felt as if someone had reached into my chest and ripped my heart out. I could barely breathe. I could barely think. Yet with as raw as my emotions were I couldn't seem to cry. I just teetered on the edge. I just wanted the hurt to go away, but before my wound could form a scab, I found out Bruce had started using again. He, too was shooting dope, but was lying to me about it.
Another one bites the dust! There wasn't going to be any happily ever after for us. Drugs had won out again, so I tucked my tail between my legs and went off to lick my wounds. All I wanted to do and felt like I needed to do was insulate myself so no bad news could affect me again. Instead of tuning in, turning on and dropping out, I tuned out, turned off and then jumped into emotional obscurity. My first instinct was to hide and to fade far enough away so pain couldn't find me. I adopted a true fuck it attitude. What's the point of getting close to anyone when all they're going to do is break my heart?
That summer was a memorable one. It changed my whole trajectory. After being away from my hometown for 3 years, I foolishly returned. My first year of faux emancipation, I spent living on the streets. I was 15 and got one hell of an education. The next two years I spent in drug rehab. Oops! That was a completely unplanned detour. I was probated there until I turned 18. I knew going "home" would put me in harm's way, but I went home anyway because like a person who needs to physically cut themselves repeatedly, I was an emotional cutter. I needed to beat myself up until the pain subsided and I was comfortably and completely numb. I thought about returning to the drug rehab from which I had just been released because I felt I had unfinished business there but I didn't return for fear of rejection. Fear paralyzed me until it won and I too started getting high again.
Each summer during my mother's vacation from work my family would go stay at my Aunt Leah's camp on Eddington Pond. My family wasn't fortunate enough to own a camp so we had to rely on her generosity. As I got older, my brothers stopped going to camp and opted to stay home so they could have legendary parties. While the cat's away the mice will play and play my brothers did!
I hadn't reached the "I don't want to go to camp" stage yet. The highlight of my days at camp as I got older were the boys who had a camp next door. As with any 13 almost 14 year old girl, I immediately developed a crush on one of the boys named Jimmy. I've always had a run of bad luck with guys with that name, but I finally learnt my lesson after marrying one. This "ginger" Jimmy gave me my first real taste of what rejection felt like. How humiliating it is to feel like the ugly duckling and the odd man out. I hated feeling not good enough. I hated being me. Why couldn't I have been born a small, dainty beauty instead of a lanky-legged, awkward ugly duckling?
I've always had self-destructive tendencies as far back as I can remember. Although I've only halfheartedly tried the big "S" a few times, I now wonder what was my actual goal when I downed a whole bottle of aspirin chased by a massive amount of straight whisky. Did I have any idea that it could have killed me? More importantly, was I disappointed when it didn't kill me?
My mother brought a whole gallon of Canadian Club whisky to camp that summer and now I wonder why she did that. My mother wasn't a drinker. Did she have plans of entertaining after the children were tucked snugly into bed in the loft overlooking the pond? If so, I never saw any evidence of it. Were my actions a cry for help or was I just looking for the attention I obviously wasn't getting? So many questions in hindsight, but never any beforehand.
After going on a very animated teenage tirade that probably resembled the Tasmanian Devil going after Bugs Bunny and ingesting the only things available to me at the time...a bottle of aspirin and whisky, I remember continually vomiting until all I could do is dry heave and heave and heave. At that point the desire to die was more than just a fleeting impulse. I felt so bad, dying would have been a welcome relief. The next morning when asked about my "illness" I passed off what was wrong with me as being some type of intestinal ailment when in reality I probably should have been in the hospital.
It always amazed me how strong my mother's sense of denial was. She was a nurse and never "saw" all the classic signs I exhibited of a teenager in crisis. All my stunts went unnoticed until I eventually overdosed on barbiturates at school less than two years later and was rushed to the ER. Since she worked at that hospital, it was out of the question for me to try to cover up that one. Oops! I got too high and forgot how many pills I had taken! Actually, that was the truth. In those days, I ate pills like candy. If 3 were good, 6 or more were spectacular. Who knew how many drugs I had in my system at any given time? Like an alcoholic, one could never be too high unless it resulted in being unconscious or comatose. Oh, what a wonderful gene pool from which I come!
My ears rang so loudly for the better part of a week that I could hardly hear anything, but the ringing. I felt like I had a severe case of the flu. I hurt all over and I couldn't keep anything in my stomach for several days. My best friend, Margie witnessed my descent into a dark, dangerous place. She had accompanied me to camp that summer and fretted over me. When I look back, I wonder how close she came to ratting me out. It must have been difficult for her to watch me be in so much pain and to self-destruct without saying a word. How frightened must she have been for my well-being and ultimate survival. (I'm sorry for doing that to you, Margie! I'm sorry for doing that to myself.)
Now, I look back and wonder where my mother was during all my brouhahas and why she had left Margie and I unattended that evening out in the boondocks in a place without a phone. The unattended theme carried through the next summer as well. By that time, I had a boyfriend (BTW, his name was not Jimmy) and that boyfriend was allowed to come stay at camp with me. Oh, what a summer that was! Skinny-dipping, frolicking in the summer sun and lazy nights and early mornings spent listening to the loons echo their cry across the pond while wrapped in each other's arms. For awhile, I got the attention I needed and wanted and then poof! It was gone and so was I. I stayed "gone" for quite a long time until I eventually allowed myself to start healing, but to this day, just a faint aroma of whisky still makes me nauseous.
