When I was a child, like many other children, I learned that drugs are wrong. They are not something to be played with. They ruin lives. That notion has stuck with me, unwavering, in my 16 years of life. I know that belief is embedded in my mind. My problem lies within the fact that the person who placed it there turned out to be a drug addict herself. How can the same person who taught me that drugs are wrong, be my own personal example of the impact drugs can have on your life? And more than that, how can you love drugs so much, that they become more important than your own children? You tell me I don’t understand, that you are “sick”, that you can’t control it.
I DON’T understand. I never will understand. And the thing that I understand the least is that the person who I’m supposed to trust more than anyone else in the world is the person that has done the most damage in my life. Even now, I’m constantly torn between hating the person you are and desperately wanting you to get better. You’re supposed to be the one who supports me, who places my needs above all else, the person who makes me feel good about myself, who makes me feel capable and strong. You’re the one and only person expected to nurture me. I watch other people interact with their mothers and I can’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy. I have to wonder what it feels like to always have someone behind you, supporting you, lifting you up, and guarding your heart. I know that I’ll never have that. I have people who have picked apart those jobs, who have filled in where they can. But there is such a void there. A craving to be loved and nurtured in only the way that a mother can. That was taken from me by heroin, and by your CHOICE to do heroin. Your CHOICE to do heroin rather than be a mother. Your choice to meet the needs of an addiction, rather than the needs of your children.
And again I’m torn. I’m torn on feeling hatred and disgust by your incompetence as a mother, or feeling weak and broken and neglected. Neither are healthy places to be, but I aim for the ladder because those moments when I feel weak, those moments when the memories of you strung out and the burnt tinfoil you cooked your heroin with was on the sitting room table like nothing and I just want to fall apart all over again. And I can’t fall apart. I’ve worked too hard to pick myself up. To put myself back together on my own, with out your help. Because, again, the one person who’s supposed to be there to help me put myself back together is the person who is doing all of the tearing apart. I want to hate you, and sometimes I almost do.
But I know deep down, you will always hurt me. I will never be at peace with who you are, with what you are. I can go weeks, or months being content in keeping my life separate from yours. I’ll think of you and feel weak and broken and neglected again. I’ll write about it, I’ll surround myself with the people who love me, I’ll focus on all the beautiful things I have in my life, and I’ll get stronger with out you. Maybe it will get easier in time to become indifferent towards you. Maybe one day I won’t feel a thing when you cross my mind, but for now I focus on the getting stronger part and I turn the page while you're putting yourself into a early grave over such a evil drug.
