This year was a year to top them all!
Life had not been going well for a long time. I stopped taking naps at 6 months old and I threw toddler-type temper tantrums with my parents well into my teenage years.
It also seemed like things were going so well, only to have everything go wrong within minutes.
I started slitting my wrists, and smoking pot in grade 9. It helped me cope with the emptiness that (I didn’t realise until recently) I was feeling. I went to a private boarding school for high school. I loved it; it was so much fun. I made friendships and connections I still have now…but I was manic for the first year I attended. This manic period began to trough halfway through the next year, grade 11. I began to binge, and purge more often, and my grades dropped dramatically. In the months of February-March, I barely spoke to anyone. I completely isolated myself.
I started first year in chemical engineering at the University of Ottawa, and I smoked pot every day. I started in the summer, and just never stopped. I studied, I smoked, I studied and I smoked. My academics were still suffering immensely, but I told myself I could do it. It was as though I thought I was invincible.
That summer my Granny passed away. I made the decision not to let pot affect my mood or my life anymore. I successfully quit smoking pot from July to November-ish. After that, I was able to handle smoking socially once or twice every month or two.
After second year, I began working coat check in the bar scene. I allowed the lifestyle to consume me. I was binge drinking 2 to 3 times a week. After I was raped by a taxi driver in November, I began binge drinking 3 to 4 times a week on top of still working in the bar scene. I worked Friday, and Saturday nights and drank on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays (Pier 21 wasn’t open for Wednesdays like it is now).
The drinking lead to drugs; I began using MDMA 2 to 3 times a month and soon 2 to 3 times a week.
I tried cocaine for my first time and then again 6 more times this summer.
I took MDMA every single day for three weeks in March/April. I never told anyone; it felt normal. The come down was the worst. I didn’t have Internet and none of my friends wanted to, or even could hang out with me. I was so alone, but I pulled myself out of my addiction. All on my own!
Then, one night, I was having casual drinks with some friends and we were playing Save the Queen. For those of you who don’t know what that is, when a quarter is dropped into your drink, you must chug the rest of your glass to save Queen Elizabeth. Needless to say, I was getting pretty tipsy. Later in the evening a friend’s friend joined us. He began making jokes about rape. Not long after that, I spent time in the foetal position under the kitchen table, running around downtown, and eventually I was taken home. I was screaming to be left alone. I screamed for MDMA.
I am convinced my recovery has been adversely affected by my drug usage.