The Truth about Me and Drugs!

We do not get along!

I can't coexist with drugs. None of em. I know this for a fact!

Before I tell you all about this, I have admit that the good girl part of me doesn't want you to know this. When I started this Blog project I had to ask myself, "How much am I going to reveal? When I get that brilliant novel published, are all of my readers going to crack it open and say, yes, we know about that, that's definitely something that happened to Heidi in real life. I know it because I read it on her blog. So I know that this fictional character is really her."

Okay I didn't really expect to have this many readers a year later. (Thank you.) But I did consider this public perception problem.

And you know what? Let's cut the crap and not be ashamed. I tried drugs of the illegal variety. Someday there's a possibility that all 6 of my beloved Aunties will read this and be horrified, but I want you to know...I'M GLAD I TRIED IT BECAUSE NOW I KNOW I DON'T WANT ANY PART OF IT.

I've been on precription drugs. They were just as bad- for me- than the illegal kind. This is just the way I am.

I smoked the dope when I was 14. I don't know what happened but I got quite sick from it. I came home and confided in my "Big Brother" who lived in our apartment on the farm. I told him that I felt pretty bad about it and I wanted to fess up to my parents because I couldn't carry the weight of the guilt. I asked him if he thought that was a good idea. He told me that it was better than the alternative possibility. His dad once found a bag of weed in that he hid. Dang. Bad. I decided to fess up and tell my parents before somebody else's parents found out and called them first.

After I'd pried my mother off the ceiling I told them that I couldn't promise I'd never do it again.

The second time I pulled mom down off the ceiling I told them that I just wanted to be honest with them.

...because I wasn't just honest. I was stoooopid. Y'know, if one pot smoking experience goes bad, try try again?

It didn't get any better.

I tried smoking. I almost puked. I tried it again. And again. And yet again. Never got over that feeling of impending puke. Now I'm so thankful that I couldn't do it. It's a nasty addiction that I've watched countless friends and loved ones struggle to kick. Blessed with my delicate body chemistry, I was spared that addiction.

I can't even drink Coke. Or Mountain Dew. Or tea. I can bomb down a chocolate bar but there's a chance I'll get heart palpitations from it.

I never got past the dope experiment. Some of my friends moved on to hash and acid and at one particular famous bush party I stood outside a Chevy truck, looking in, while three guys rolled up a five dollar bill reeeal tight and snorted coke off of a cassette case.

If I'm really honest with myself, it wasn't just the bad physical reactions that left me cold for drugs. It was everything. What drew me to it in the first place? It was a combination of the lure of something illegal, bad, and potentially dangerous. It was the teenaged need to break out of the warm and comforting nest that I was raised in- something that I never really wanted to be without, but just needed to know what else was out there. It was, I admit, the need to shock people.

At 14, I was tiny. I wasn't quite 5 ft tall, and was under 100lbs. I got lost in crowds and treated like a child. I wanted to be big. I wanted to be loud. I wanted people to respect me, dammit, and this was a quick way to shake up the perception of little me.

So basically I was a short, flat, squeaky voiced stoner for a few hours. It really wasn't worth it.

I was drug free for twenty years. Then, one day I went to see my doctor about those pesky little chest pains that were paralyzing me (that would be yesterday's story) and he wrote me up a prescription for drugs. Yay. I was on an antidepressant for a year. Actually it was about three different ones; the only way to know if it's working is to take it. One made me jittery and hypersensitive and sent shooting pains under my skin. They all made me slightly nauseous at all times and turned me off of my food. And everything else. These drugs all sort of acted to level me out but also made me want to just stop breathing. Isn't it ironic that a drug meant to keep you from killing yourself can give you suicidal thoughts? I should have known. I was on the birth control pill for four years in my early 20s and it made me miserable. I've already written about this. I've described while in the middle of it, exactly what it was like.

Then I decided, with my pshrink's approval, to get off the drugs. The result? Last Christmas and New Year's, as I weaned myself off of the little white pills, I was more miserable than ever. The withrawal was hell. My skin was so sensitive that my clothes drove me crazy. I was either too hot or too cold. My eyes hurt; every step I took sent another searing pain through the back of my eyeballs. It was nasty. And that was only from getting off of an antidepressant. It made me consider why addicts stay on drugs. Just to avoid this.

I cut down the dosage just after Christmas last year. It took until April to feel like it was all out of me.

So why am I spilling my guts about this? Mostly because I've decided I've done enough slinking around and hiding. Here it is, world, the way it happened for me. I know people who like to smoke a joint every now and then; I don't do it and I don't want to do it but I don't care, as long as it doesn't affect the way they function, and as long as it isn't a part of my life. I also know people who are on prescriptions that have made a huge positive change in their lives. They're alive, functioning and thriving because of their little white pills- who the hell could argue with that?

I know a few who've opted to self medicate their depression and anxiety with illegal drugs, and let me tell you, after what I went throught with the legal kind, I wonder sometimes if that'd be healthier. At least I would have felt like eating! But I made a decision years ago to just stay away from that shit and I'm sticking to that choice.

I still carry a small bottle of anti-anxiety pills in my purse, just in case I take a panic attack. I don't need them as much as I did. I have homeopathic remedies as well. And I take St Johns Wort for depression. If I don't take it in the morning, I feel it by 5pm. I used to feel it by 2pm.

So there ya have it. The whole sordid truth. Think what you will.