letter to poetrylady
8:30 p.m. - 08.08.02
this is a leter i just finished to a new friend. i haven't been able to talk about my past,,, or my present, in a while, so i am posting a copy of this letter to my new friend:
mel,
thanks so much for the letter. thank you for opening up to me. i haven't checked the links yet, because i just got online again, but i will this evening, as i will be writing tonight, and i love to read others work.
i completly understand the quandry: which came first --- addiction or mental illness. i believe that the mental illness comes first and that is what makes us powerless over substances. i am 31, and i only started to use regularly since 1997. i was only diagnosed with BP 2 years ago. my father was an alcoholic, severly mentally ill, and a vietnam veteran. he left when i was 10, so the first 10 years of my odd behavior was attributed to his destructive behavior. when i was a pre-teen and started setting fires in the house, mom just chalked it up to me seeking attention. i was known throughout the family as the Ultimate Drama Queen. i was also a straight A student, so no one guessed i had a problem. EVERYTHING was blamed on Dad. I now agree that he and his behavior DID have a lot of influence on us, but we all develop or have always had our own deviations. I was fat, too, but that was rationalized as a refusal to cooperate. (sorry that i'm jumping around a bit, i know the importance of topic sentences and organization, but i really don't feel that organized right now,,,, i'm just writing and thinking as i go along. or else, this letter could take me hours to write)
i remember one time i went to see a 'doctor'. i don't remember how old i was, but Dad was still living with us so it had to be before i was 10. he had me draw a picture of the family. when i was a pre-teen i was setting fires in the basement. mom says she doesn't remember.
i drank beer about 4 times in high school. i was a 'theatre geek' and was never at the 'cool keg parties' also - it really just never occured to me or my group of friends. perhaps if someone in our group had an older sibling it would have been different, but we had fun doing other crazy things like having scavenger hunts at the airport and talking with people who just came in from out of town.
in college i smoked weed exactly 3 times. i remember them all because i was a senior, and all my other friends in my sorority and guys who partied were kind of 'surprised', but welcomed me with open arms to party with them. i certainly did drink a lot more in college, and i do have my 'tales of drunkeness" but i never worried about it. i never drank during the week except on an occasional thursday when i did not have an exam on friday or i knew i could blow off my early classes.
i can now see where and when i had my 'bipoar moments' in high school and in college. my grades and energy level fluctuated each semester, to the point where one of my teachers asked me if i was on drugs. i was so surprised, and offended. i wasn't at the time, but it made me be more aware of my 'wierd' behavior.
anyway, i graduated and my emotions and self-being did not improve. my depression grew deeper when i could not find a decent paying job in my field, journalism. i finally did get a reporting job that paid $7 an hour. i still had to live at home and wait tables part time. i was at an after hours party once when the restaurant closed down, and i really liked the people i worked with. when the diswasher told me that he smoked pot every time he took the garbage out and was making $8.50 an hour,,,, my thinking began to change, and i picked up.
that was in '94 - '95, and i was still too afraid to drink too much or smoke too much because i was very anxious to be a successful woman of society. i desperately wanted 'mary tyler moore' status. i didn't want to get married, i wanted a life of adventure, travel, art galleries, etc.
it was only when i acheived a professional position when i allowed myself to get hooked. i discovered that sales paid a hell of a lot more than creativity, and i wasn't being that creative to begin with. i was writing front page stories entitled '24-hour fire proposal too hot to handle." there was no rush. i had no idea at the time that i was bipolar, and that i cycle during the seasons, i did not know my pattern yet. i always looked for a job during the summer and that was when i was most 'up' and on top of the world. i finally got sales jobs at radio stations and magazines. i made it!!! and that's when i allowed myself to start using
i felt like i earned it, and that it helped me be 'on top of things.' i'd write tremendous ad copy when i was high. i was a hit at corporate lunches and after-work cocktails. i was convinced that pot made me a better person, and that i deserved to smoke whenever i wanted to because i wasn't addicted yet, and it helped me to be more social. i rationalized it like hell, but then i just thought i was being intellectual. i thought that if i wasn't addicted already, then the curse had past me, and i could do what ever i want, and i did pay my dues, and got my good grades. so, what else was left in my life except a job that i really didn't believe in (i was an anti-consumer way back when), and a 'ritual' that relaxed me, made me think, and made me want to write more and be more creative.
i thought i had everything, including my sanity, but that would only last so long. i was so proud of myself tat i got a SENIOR sales position at a TOP RATED magazine, and i did not give myself credit. i gave the credit to smoking pot, because that was the 'magical potion' that got me out of bed in the first place. so, for the first 6 months on the job i was TOP SALESPERSON. the next 6 months, i hid behind my closed office door, stoned out of my mind, telling myself that no one can tell (yea, right -- the user is ALWAYS the most stupid one in the group, especially if your boss was an alcoholic and has been in the program for 10 years).
anyway, my pot smoking led me to a very poor choice of a boyfriend. he drank as much as my dad did, and threw me around as much as dad did to mom. i was eventually date raped. i had the courage and ability to break up with him, but that and my drug use had cost me my job.
then, my father comitted suicide. the last time we heard he was either a bounty hunter in south america, or living as a bum on the california beaches. the last time we heard from him on the phone was the day of the O.J. Simpson verdict. my mom answere the phone and he said "you're next." mom called the police and they put him in jail on telephone harrassment.
mom told us for years after that that she had no idea where he was. it turns out that he was living (and eventually died) about 3 miles away from my new apartment that i moved into after my own domestic horror. (in another story where i meet the people he lived with, i find legal documents with his address, and the carbon copy sent directly to my mom. she knew where he was. maybe she didn't tell me and my brother to protect us, but she claims tat she didn't beleive it at all and just couldn't remember)
i was finally admitted to the hospital and diagnosed a few months after Dad's death. for the past 2 years i have been living with my grandmother on mom's side of the family. mom lives down the street with my bro. i know and i feel and i love that my mom's side of the family has ALWAYS been there for me,,,, no matter what. my dad's side did not even send a birthday card to me or my bro for 20 years. but; since dad's funeral, i have been the only one to accept their apoligies and invites. yes, they have their problems,, just like my mom's side. they may be different in name, but i realize it is all just the challenge of relating to family. my mother and my brother (whom i have always deemed as my best friends) regularly refer to my dad's side of the family as "THOSE PEOPLE."
well, that is my background. i admit that i have had influences, but no one had forced me to take a drink or to smoke a joint. i never felt peer pressure. the pressure and the choice was always on my own. and i will be honest here: pot and booze are the only things i'm addicted to,, with alcohol (good wine, i have 'good' taste lol) a distant second to my first choice: bud, bud bud, glorious bud.
the only other drug i ever tried was acid - first time in 1997, which was a BLAST, and the second time, jan. 24, 2000 -- the night i got raped.
some people tell me that i am not an addict. sometimes i want to believe them. the ONLY reason that i don't try coke or anything else is that i KNOW i'll get hooked. people say that weed is the least addictive drug ---- even people in my meetings. i just have to stay focuse and realize what i have always feared: i i have lied, stole, cheated, used part of my rent money, whatever, to buy a stinking bag of weed,,,, then i am COMPLETLY vulnerable to EVERYTHING else; and, if i try anything else, I WILL BE DEAD FOR CERTAIN IN THE NEXT YEAR OR SO.
thanks for your time, and i would love to chat with you again. even though i have only drank and smoked pot, i know FOR CERTAIN that i am a COMPLETE ADDICT.
letter to poetrylady - 08.08.02
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