Addict

God’s helped me in so many ways; it’s difficult to talk about just a couple of them. That’s like choosing just a couple of stars out of the sky. But God’s gifts to me have run through my life since before I was born, because the devil was always placing obstacles in my way. My mother was constantly ill while pregnant with me and not even two months after I was born, he attacked me with terrible fevers, whooping cough, and a hernia. No one thought I would live long. But God healed me of every illness that was thrown my way, with little to no help from a doctor.1

My parents were very involved in the church they were going to, Church On The Move, and were one of the first families to attend. My dad, a former pastor of his own church, was Willie George’s bodyguard. I was dedicated to the Lord before I was a year old, and as I grew up, I always seemed to have great faith in God. I remember one time that my mother won’t let me forget, when I was around four or five, I was sick with a fever of a hundred and five degrees. Everyone thought I would pass during the night and I remember my mom crying by me on my bed. I told her not to cry, that I was healed in Jesus’ name. And sure enough, I was fine the next day.2

When I was around the same age, my dad started to abuse me physically and sexually. He’d been doing the same with my older sister and was emotionally, mentally, verbally and physically abusive to my mother. Everyone thought we were a perfect family. My dad made sure we were all perfect and envied. My mom was a great housewife, my sister a good teenager and I was active in the children’s church alter call, praying with other children to get them saved. But at home I began to hate myself, and blame myself for what was happening to my family and I to the point that I began to hurt myself. Self-abuse was less popular in the nineties, but common in abusive homes. I started to slap myself and bang my head, elbows and knees against walls.3

When I was around seven or eight, my father finally confessed to my mom what he’d been doing to my sister and I, and she notified the pastor, and my father was banned from the youth building and children’s church. My parents separated when I was eight. And my mom, a former housewife, had to get a job. She had many jobs at one time, and then went job to job. But God always stood by us, he always provided my mother with money and supportive friends that I stayed with often. We left Church On The Move when my favorite children’s church teachers lied about us to get us kicked out of a dance group my sister and I were in. After that, we started going to Guts. It was something new, and very different than what I’d grown up with. It was a place I could go to to get away from the drama in my family.4

Eventually, after repainting it ourselves, we sold our house to live in a hotel for two months. My mom and sister started fighting around the time of the separation and my sister became rebellious but she had to take care of me while my mother was at work. She would take me around with her all day and night while my mother was at her jobs, and it became so that my only consistent socialization were my sister’s friends who were in their early twenties. We moved in with a family from Guts and slept in a small bedroom for another month or two until things got dramatic and we finally moved out and into a mouse and insect-infested duplex. 5

My sister and mother were constantly fighting and I began getting depressed. I started to hurt myself again, and started running away every week, even if it was just for a couple of hours. My sister moved out when she was nineteen and I was eleven, and with her absence, she took my socialization with her. I became even more depressed when my father got married to the woman who he’d been seeing while he and my mother were married. They got married one day before the divorce was finalized and then I had a stepbrother and stepsister who were very much against the idea of having a new father and two new sisters.6

I started to make more friends at church. Still, I was jealous of my friends who weren’t living in broken homes so I started lying about my life, making it seem happier than it really was. But I prettied it up to the point it was just silly and unbelievable. I started lying about people as well, just to get attention. Eventually, my friends realized everything I’d told them was just a lie and I lost all of them. I got teased a lot after my former friends told everyone else about the nonsense lies I’d made up. On my twelfth birthday, my favorite youth leader and generally my favorite person who’d helped me through many hard times left the church. One month after that, my sister moved to Florida.7

After that, I couldn’t handle anything and stopped going to Guts altogether. We soon moved again after giving away my childhood pet, now to a small apartment closer to my mom’s new job. I was extremely depressed and wouldn’t leave the apartment for months at a time. During those months alone, I began to write novels. When I would go out, I would start dressing much older than my age, and got a lot of harmful attention from older men. A man in his forties began stalking me, and came into my apartment one night. He left when I told him my age. I had to raise myself while my mother was working. I would only see her a couple of hours a day and the rest was up to me; when I would sleep, when I would eat. Everything was my decision and I had to grow up a bit too quickly.8

I began going to a therapist for sleep troubles and depression due to loneliness. So I began visiting my father’s church from time to time but I missed my church, Guts. My sister flew back home for my thirteenth birthday, which was unpleasant because we celebrated my birthday watching my father give her Welcome Home presents and doing everything she wanted to do. 9

She returned to Florida around the time I came back to Guts. I came back to a church completely different. I didn’t know any of the leaders or the kids; the people in general were foreign to me. Guts had changed and I didn’t like it. I became hostile towards everyone there, and was still teased for the things I’d said when I was eleven by the teenagers who remained since I’d left. 10

After awhile, I made friends and formed a new crush. I felt I needed to change to get this person’s attention so I started to make myself lose weight. I started working out fanatically and began taking energy/diet pills. I stayed up for days at a time, mostly working out and writing. I got addicted to the pills and lost weight dramatically, and the side affects ruined me. I became suicidal and became delusional and constantly dizzy to the point I’d pass out on a regular basis. All this went on behind my closed door, everyone was unaware of it all.11

During this, I was participating in The Nightmare. I was always in the hell room, but took two weeks off when I fell from the Hell-O-Go-Round and got sick again. This time was another nearly fatal illness. I was convinced I was going to die in the night and began saying my goodbyes to my mom, but she wouldn’t stop praying for me and stayed with me all night, and I recovered the next morning. 12

When I had my fourteenth birthday party in May, I didn’t take the pills because they had no more at the store and the next day I was deathly ill again. I went through a terrible withdrawal. I got a extremely high fever, with cold and hot sweats and started shaking uncontrollably. It went on for a day or two but God helped me through another one of my sicknesses. Afterwards, I realized why the pills were no longer sold in stores. I had studied heroin, cocaine and marijuana and their withdrawals for a book I was writing and I realized I’d gone through something just like a cocaine withdrawal. I read up on the pills I had been taking and realized they had ephedra, the same thing put into speed, heroin and cocaine.13

That year, my sister moved back to Oklahoma after a relationship gone bad. She moved into our tiny two-bedroom apartment and the drama returned. She and my mother still couldn’t get along and I was caught in the middle again. My mother was diagnosed with high blood pressure and was extremely fragile. I couldn’t talk to one of them without the other getting mad. I eventually stopped talking to both of them so that they could get along, which worked for a day or two. But the constant yelling and badmouthing they did to one another in my ear was driving me insane. And my self-abuse tendencies returned. Near Christmas, I began cutting myself. It became as addicting as the pills. Anytime I felt something I didn’t want to feel, I could cut myself to get my mind off of it. I turned to writing unnervingly dark poems to stop but they didn’t help much. I didn’t feel I could turn to my church, because I didn’t feel like it was my church anymore. It lasted until January, when my sister asked me if I was hurting myself and I confessed hours later after denying it several times.14

After that, things got harder. I was always on watch and the popularity with self-abuse was growing so I was always reminded of it. But I’d let go of a secret that was keeping me on edge. I was better when I turned fifteen. My friends were of constant support and I began to study the problem by having my father buy me books. I told him it was to understand some problems my friends had, which was true but yet it wasn’t in a way. I learned that self-abuse was something I’d been dealing with for about ten years. I began to help people with the same problems but eventually, the problems returned to me. My sister and mother were still fighting. It got worse and I couldn’t handle it. I began to grow my nails longer and scratch myself.15

Soon, everything became too hectic. I was disowned and cussed out by someone of my family and my best friend was about to kill herself. I had to give it all to God. One night I broke down and just apologized for everything I’d done to myself and to Him, thanked Him for giving me the life I have. I poured my soul out to him and asked for His help to get through all the battles I was facing and the depression I could easily dive into once again. I was tired of leaning on myself and turning to myself for support with everything, which only turned hazardous. In that moment, I felt lighter. I knew he’d heard me and I felt like I could be a kid again, forgiving and open to learn rather than cynical with everything. He’d been protecting me all this time but I wasn’t allowing him to do all the protecting he wanted to do, I tried to do it myself.16

Since then, I’ve let him do the parenting and guiding and I’ve just been the child, obeying what he’s asked me to do and I didn’t have to turn to pills or inflicting pain to get rid of emotional pain. That’s His job and allowing Him to do it has helped me to let go of a lot of hostilities towards my family and the church. Now, what’s important is that my relationship with Him is secure and unwavering. He’s helped my mother and I a lot lately. I’ve gotten so many offers from talent scouts about my writing and my mother has been working in one job for the past five years, and has stayed there even as many coworkers have been laid off and fired. I’m so thankful for all he’s given me, and he’s helped me realize that whatever happens with me or the people around me, he’s always going to help me through the trials and tribulations and to be happy with the peaceful times he gives me. I’m not meaning to sound cheesy, but now he’s the only addiction I allow myself to have.17