Soon into junior high the drugs and alcohol started. Next would be the boys. None of this was because I wanted to, in fact I was terrified of it all, especially the boys part, but it had to be done. It’s what all the other girls did and I knew I had to. Funny how the feeling of had to would last for many years, coupled with the shame and embarrassment of my faulty body.

The drinking and drugs seemed to be the ticket. I absolutely loved the way they made me feel, it was like magic. A little bit of beer or wine, some pot or acid and all the negative feelings about me would vanish. This was what everyone else felt all the time, I imagined. I had finally found the solution. Drinking was the best though I did get sick each time, it didn’t matter at all to me. It seemed as if that was part of the deal. So what if I had to experience a little sickness to suddenly feel pretty, thin, funny and popular. The price was minimal compared to the product… the product was a new me. It all made me not care one bit about what anyone thought, I had finally found a way to make the voices stop, the fear go away. Crazy things took place and sooner or later I found myself experiencing what all the girls were talking about with the boys. They all seemed to have done it and loved it. It was time I did too and found out what it was all about. Every single thing I learned about life and sex I learned right there on the street. It was a dirty mix and it did not feel good, but it was the price that had to be paid to stay in the group that was making me feel so much better. The group had become everything. Chasing that feeling of freedom from doubt was the constant goal. I felt on top of the world.

It didn’t show on the outside though, as my grades began to fall, my chores were falling by the wayside and my home life was becoming a problem. It began to stand in the way of my chasing this new way of life. Nanny was not happy that I was gone all the time and did not like the state of mind I would come home in. Often she would mention smelling the booze or why was I acting so funny. I simply brushed it off and started to consider her and Tommy a hindrance to my being free and my new life. Anger began to build and I pointed every bit of it toward them. I was disappointed when a boy picked someone else over me or broke up with me because I said no to having sex. I started feeling like I had to comply to be a part of, there was no choice left, it is what had to be done. I got angry but that too was pointed at Tommy and Nanny. They got the blame for it all, undeservedly. Someone had to pay for all this anger and it certainly wasn’t going to be my new found friends or way of life. It didn’t take long before my grades were all failing, my teachers were always sending me to the Dean of Girls, I was becoming angrier and starting to be violent. I started to be a bully at school, it got me attention and what I mistook as respect. The friends I spent the most time with was the older ones that had failed out of school and could beat up the others. They became my best friends and that was an intentional move because I knew that if they weren’t on my side I’d be facing them in a fight and I didn’t want that. I knew if I didn’t bully someone that someone would bully me. I knew that if it came to that, that I would lose and be so embarrassed. There was not one doubt in my mind. So they became my comrades and together we bullied the weaker kids. I did whatever they wanted and together we all went about the business of causing havoc wherever we were and basically destroying our lives and the lives of those nearest us.

It just got worse and worse and I was extremely violent and angry all the time toward my own family. They were the ones I loved the most. They had been there all along but it didn’t matter to me as long as I kept my mind drugged and I stayed high all the time. The images were totally skewed in my mind they were the enemy. The only time I saw it differently was in those brief moments when I drew a sober breath…..then the guilt rushed in along with the shame and self-loathing. That is what I began to try to be free of…eventually my drinking and drugging was to drown out the voices of shame. They got louder and I simply drank and used more substances to getaway. Eventually, I had to stay high and I did that by huffing gas along the way, then lacquer thinner nonstop. Nanny hated that smell. She knew every time I came in when I had it with me and would yell and plead with me to stop. It fell on deaf ears, I continued with a vengeance and could feel my brain turning gummy. The truth is it is amazing to me today that I have any brain cells left, and I’m sure to some that are questionable.

My tolerance for alcohol was very high from the beginning. Always seemed I could drink more than others and I saw that as an asset. So for a few very long years I used alcohol and any drug I could to change how I felt about me, about life and about the way I thought others viewed me. Hanging with the older kids always got me in trouble. To impress them I would shop-lift and give them all my entire stash of stolen items each day. Often they would go with me and point out what they wanted. I didn’t see it as me being used. I saw it only as them being so impressed by my “skills” that they just wanted me with them all the time. I was paying for their company and believing it was friendship in my mind. The day came when I was caught shop lifting in a mall. I was thirteen or fourteen the boys were eighteen and nineteen. They slipped out as if they didn’t know me, I had all the goods on me and I was the one that was disciplined. Banned from that store we drove across town laughing all the way about how stupid the security people were. After all, I still made it out with a few items they never discovered. We drove to another big department store and I was to go to the second floor and begin super power of stealing. I was caught again, yes the same day only hours later at a store miles away. They sent me to the police station and the boys simply drove away scot free. Oddly enough one of the boys was a ministers son and I was condemned as a bad influence on his eighteen year old son. Kicked out of the church and told not to come back.

Most of my peers parents had determined I was the problem and barred me from their homes. Once again I was not wanted but as far as I was concerned it was because I was so cool. Cool is not what I felt inside though, sad, angry and confused about my life is what I felt. That felt the worse and more drinking/drugs would cure that. To say I was carefree was an understatement. I did what I wanted, when I wanted and no one ever had control of me until the day they did.

Often as I think back on those days I am filled with a sadness and sense of shame. Although many years have gone by and I have changed in so many ways and helped so many other people to change their lives….it was what it was and I do regret the way I hurt those people around me. My brother and Nanny got the brunt of my wrath which looking back was really how I felt about me and life; rage.

The damage I was doing to Nanny and Tommy was visible each and every day. The fear in my brother’s eyes and sadness and bewilderment in Nanny’s eyes is painful to remember. Almost as if I was possessed, in a sense I was, with rage, envy, and self-pity. The idea that I had it worse than anyone formed and did not change for many years. I was, through my eyes, a victim again and again. Life was not fair, at least not for me and it never would be. I gave at the time very little thought to how my brother, nanny, grandpa, or uncles felt. It was only about me. MY MOM HAD LEFT ME. I HAD NO FAMILY. LIFE WAS NEVER FAIR.