This memory has been haunting me for years.

[skull_candy]

When I was seventeen I fell in love with a drug addict. We were only together for about three months but for some reason, this short part of my life still seems to get under my skin.

I often think about it when I try to sleep or when I'm alone for hours on end. Sometimes, the memories come in flashes if I'm intoxicated. This leads to me crying hysterically and rambling about random and specific moments from that summer.

It's starting to feel like time can't heal what had happened. I've seen counselors about this but nothing has changed.

I don't know what to do, it's been over three years. I really think I need help, but I'm not sure how to get it.

[skull_candy]

It's funny that you mention music, I actually can't listen to Pearl Jam without getting very upset. Same thing with a few Red Hot Chili Peppers songs like "breaking the girl" and "under the bridge", Adrien requested I play them during his withdraw.

But there is other music that reminds me of that time, that seems to strengthen me, like Judas Priest.

The right music most definitely helps, I also draw and paint to help deal with those feelings. It's becoming a little bit tiresome having all my paintings pretty much mean the same thing though. I guess like many artists my work is driven by pain, but I have no knew hardships to inspire me with.

I wish you the best of luck with the withdrawing of your medication by the way. I've never been an addict but I when through some nasty withdraws after I stopped the morphine. I can imagine how hard it must be for you.

[trdofbeingtrd]

Well, don't get me wrong, I have not healed completely, just enough so I can move on, but I still want closure, and that will only come when I find out that she is happy and with someone who treats her right, oh, and off drugs of course. I mean, yeah, I have my issue with these pain medications, but it's not the same as when I was addicted to speed. This is a "took for way to long and the WD's are scary like I will die" thing. Once I get through the WD's, I won't have an issue. Although I am sure that people on here would say I am fooling myself. I have been around the block five times more than the average person my age. I have been abused, cheated on, and done almost all the drugs out there. This is by no means bragging, in fact, I really do wish in the long run I never even smoked pot. I could have been out of my first year of college at 17, instead I wasted time getting high. My doctor appointment is today, and he will help me get through the WD's so I can stop the medication. Lyndsey still hasn't messaged me back, and I doubt she will. Her family is really paranoid because of how many people she pissed off. They really think I would drive to another state even though I am happily married, just to try to get back with her, or cause them trouble. They are not that important.

With your situation, it's more of a forgive but don't forget thing. You can understand that no matter how wrong he was, or what wrong he did to you, he is human. This does not excuse what he did, and this does not mean what he did was ok. I had to forgive my mom for leaving my sister and I when we were teens for a man. I had to forgive that man for abusing my sister and I. When you forgive, you are not saying what a person did was ok, you are saying that you understand that some people are just assholes or mean people and while you will never trust them or want to see them again, and your not saying what happened was ok, they are human, and if you believe in GOD, GOD will judge them. Weather it's karma, GOD, or just life, they will get theirs, and it won't be pretty when they do, it's not pretty when I got mine.

Oh, you know what else helps me, listening to songs that remind me of them, as they REALLY were, it keeps those delusions away. For example, I listen to Seethers "driven under" and it reminds me of what I am so thankful of what I got away from. I guess, that might help you out, think about what you got away from and what you have now, and be thankful.

[skull_candy]

Wow, the stories really are similar, more than I even expected them to be. It's an incredible story, I mean I just can't imagine going through that for years. Going through what I did was crazy enough just within a few months.

You know, I'm sure you are right about forgiving them. I'm just not sure how I will, I have forgiven Blake, he was a pathetic dying man, I doubt he's even alive now.

But with Adrien it's much harder.....
After I forgave him for the lying, stealing and of course pretending to love me, he went home like I told him to. He asked to stay together but I broke things off because I couldn't handle the one sided love. I came home with him and met his family, after I was sure he wouldn't be doing anymore drugs and was safe, I broke down and pretty much became completely insane. I was taken back to my home city had put in the ward for a good month or so. We promised to always remain the best of friends.

Time had passed and we never got to see each other do to the fact of him living hours away. I longed to see him all the time, I missed him so much and still was in love with him.
Finally, one day the following November he showed up at my door. I was ecstatic and gave him a huge hug. He looked so good, much bigger and healthier, he also had shaved his long scraggly "junkie" hair as he called it.

We went out just the two of us, he thanked me for saving him and reuniting him with his family, he also promised to return the hundreds of dollars he had stolen from me, though I told him it wasn't necessary. He had a honest job at Walmart and was planning on going back to high school. No more drug dealing and gun smuggling for him. We laid in the park for a few hours just talking and laughing about the time we had together. Then it began to get late and we went back to his hotel. He reassured me before we got in that he wasn't "trying" anything with me. We sat down on the bed and started chatting. I'm not sure how it happened but he ended up very close to me the leaned in and began to passionately kiss me. I was so happy, I thought to myself "finally he sees me the way I always wanted him to, he finally loves me". We made love and then he drove me home, he explained before I got out that what happened was a mistake and he was sorry. I was of course crushed but I acted as if it wasn't a big deal and said I understood. He promised to come see me next time he came down but I had a strange feeling it would never happen. I watched him dive away and I never saw him again.
Shorty after he relapsed and cut off all contact with me. He moved back to my city and started dating a girl I knew from high school, she had a problem with cocaine. I heard he beat her, I'm not sure if this is true. He later left her for another girl I knew, she was only seventeen, just like I was when I met him. A mutual friend of ours warned her that he was an addict and what he had done to me and his last girlfriend.
But she replied with "Adrien told me about them, said he they're liars and *******".
I was very hurt, I later found out he bad mouthed me a lot, probably still does till this day. He also tells everyone that I'm dirty and have an STD.
I'll never understand how he could say all those things after everything I did for him. After forgiving him for everything and fighting for him after his own family had given up on him.
I had forgiven him in the past, but that was the last straw for me. My intense love for him slowly became a burning hate that I sometimes have a hard time containing.
I've tried forgiving him since but it just doesn't seem to work. I never tried so hard for someone in my life and bent over backwards the way I did with him. I'm not sure how to forgive the person that has hurt me the most in this world.

I love my current boyfriend, he loves me and doesn't have any past with hard drugs which is important to me. I'd always had a paranoia of my spouses becoming addicts or alcoholics or perhaps not really loving me and possibly abandoning me since the whole ordeal. I'm getting better with that though, I'm realizing now that not every man I love is like Adrien, or even close.

Thank you for telling me your story, it really helps knowing someone like me can heal and finally let go like you have.

[trdofbeingtrd]

After that night, she tried to talk to me, and I would say hi, bye, and be on my way. He ended up stealing more than half of my poetry and any other item I left behind there. I found out he got cancer after that, but beat it, and to this day, while I forgave him and her in my mind, we see each other as sons of b*****. He told me we were broken up and I should be happy for him to get someone that age and full of life. He knew as well as I did, that was a bunch of bulls***.

Sorry to tell you the whole story, but I thought maybe if I told you, you could understand better how I was able to get over it. Want to know a trip, and a half? I had searched for Lindsey on myspace and facebook, and never found her. Just now, after I typed "it." I real fast did a search on facebook, and I found her. She looks evil LOL.

I got over it by finding my wife that I am married to now. She is everything good that Lindsey was not. I got over it..................by forgiving them. You don't have to call the person, you don't have to meet the person face to face, you just in your heart have to forgive them. I know people would think I am crazy, but I would get a sick feeling when I still lived on the mountain right before she would "appear". I would get panic, and I would kinda freaked out. After I forgave her, that stuff went away.

Feel free to add me as a friend if you want. I have a feeling that the animals being hurt and abused has a lot to do with you holding on. If your man you have now is a good guy, then it's not really the boyfriend that is keeping you stuck there. You went through some crazy and trippy stuff, it messes up anyones mind. I'm sorry you went through it.

[trdofbeingtrd]

Well, I can tell you the story, and don't mind about "rambling" it is really interesting how much our stories have in common. I can tell though, you are not her LOL

I met this young lady let's call her "Lindsey", we "hit" it off from the very begining. I had known the older guy from the trailer park I lived in. At the time I met her, I lived in apartments and she was graduating highschool. It's kind of funny, but before I would do anything with her, I ID'd her, I even thought the ID was a fake but I guess hair dyes can make a person look younger.....thought it was a myth. Anyways, we had fun, and then just one day, we decided to not talk to each other, but that changed one night she got into some watermelon drenched in vodka. She called me up and we hit it off again. So we were together, falling in love. She had told me she never did speed, it is (even though I don't do it anymore) my drug of choice. I did it at the time I knew her. I had moved out from my dads apartment and moved in with "Frank" we will call him. He had me getting pain killers, tranquilizers, and speed, in return, I gave him company. A lot of people thought I was gay, the fact was, this guy was just lonely and really wanted someone to be around him. So, I move in with him and her and I are together. I didn't let her do speed for a good year. One night, she was drinking and wanted some. Frank asked me if it was ok and I told her "you are your own person, but I am letting you know, it's bad stuff to get into", she said she was a big girl and could take care of herself, so she did it. This was the begining of the end.

About three years into our relationship, after I had proposed to her, and we had shared basically everything we could to each other, it started falling apart. I would go to work, and I found out that  there was a reason she started accusing me of cheating, well, I found out much later. So I would come home, or I would be just partying, or even I would be loving to be around her, and out of nowhere, she would flip out and start a fight with me. She would get me the maddest I could get, and then use that to tell me I was psycho and to get out of her house. Basically, she played me, and did it good too. I only caught one time where a guy came by to see her and she said it was just a friend. He smiled at me and then left. I didn't know it then, but she must have cheated on me with about 20 to 30 guys.

So, that fateful day I came home from work, I had been up a night or two before going into work so I was REALLY tired. I went to open the door and noticed the screen door was locked. He never locked the door unless he was in the process of making lines. I knocked on the door and he came and opened it. He right away asked me if I wanted a shot. I told him no thanks that I just wanted to go to sleep. I went into my room took off my shoes, and had to use the bathroom that you had to go through his room to get to. So I go to the doorway and see Lindsey on his bed and it looks like she is passed out. So I ask him what is going on, he says "well, she came over here to talk to you" (at the time, we were "broke up" for like the 40th time) "and she wanted to wait so I offered her a shot and she drank half the bottle". So I go over to pick her up, and not only did I notice that she was like dead weight but I also noticed that she did not have her bra on under her shirt. So I pick her up even though it was like she didn't want to move somehow and take her to my room. I put her down on the bed and cover her up with the blanket. Frank from the other room asks me "are you sure you don't want to have a shot", and I go to say no again, and I hear Lindsey say "baby". I said, "I am right here, what do you want", and she got quiet again, then he said something and she said "baby" again. I said "I am right here,, what is your problem", and she starts saying over and over "baby, baby, baby" and starts crawling to his room. So I sit there for a second and try to calm myself down. I am thinking at the time, there is no way it's what it seems like it is. So after I calm down enough, I go to his doorway and there she is sitting on his lap smiling while looking at me, with the bottle and he has the mirror with lines all made out. She was never asleep in the first place and her calling out "baby" was her way of letting me know, she was with him now. I got pissed off and got my shoes on. I started walking out the door and up the stairs because I knew that they were not worth me spending the rest of my life in prison over. I got a little up the stairs and then she came out and said "I'm sorry, it was a mistake, I don't want to be with him". I went down to her and almost lost it, I shook her once and told her that it was over. She lied down on the ground, and I started back up the stairs. We lived in the mountain and it was freezing outside. I turned around, saw her laying there, and all the good times we had went through my head.......I couldn't let her just lie there. So, I went  down the stairs and picked her up, took her to the door, and knocked on the door. Franks brother opens it and sees her at the foot of the door, I said "tell Frank to come get his woman", his brother says "what did you do to her" I said, "I didn't do anything to her, she is drunk and lied down in the middle of the walk way".

I went to walk up the stairs, looked down one more time, and then thought of how, I got into this lifestyle, so easily, so naive, so...........openly without thinking for a second what kind of hell it really was. I saw what speed did to my head and what it did to people around me. I saw what people can and will do because of it, I also saw the woman I fell in love with betray me with basically my best friend because of the atmasphere that drug created. Something clicked in my mind, I was never going to do speed again. Since then I had been offered it a couple times and had it in front of me ready to snort, but was easily able to say no. I stopped being around anyone and everyone that did it, and will never do it again. The young lady that I fell in love with, became the most hurtful person to me. I can say I will never do that drug again because I won't. Don't get me wrong, I can still remember how nice and almost orgasmic like it was taking in a big ol warhead cloud of smoke, but I won't do it again.

[skull_candy]

It feels so good to have someone understand the situation. I've never met someone that's really had that happen. Though I'm sorry that you had to go threw it.

By far I think about the betrayal the most, it was hard having that happen when I was so convinced I had found my soul mate. But when I think about it hard, the animals were truly the worst, after all they were the ones that truly loved me back.

It was very hard for me to take losing all of them in the end in some way or another. They were really all I had at the time and I wanted to save them so much.

One of the cats ran away which was probably for the best. The shih tzu also ran off. I was worried because he had brain damage from eating morphine off the floor. I once watched him after eating one. I wanted to take him to the vet but my boyfriend and landlord just thought it was funny and laughed at him.

Then there was Kella, she was a border collie mix. I was the closet with her and had her the longest. She also was a little messed up from finding morphine on the floor but she was bigger so there was less damage.

When I met her she was very wild and afraid of everything, the only thing she was, was house trained. Despite being at least a few years old I taught her how to sit, stay and shake a paw very quickly. She was very smart, Adrien and Blake would go on about how stupid she was but that was because I was the only one she listened to. She later was hit by a car and put down as Adrien told me over the phone after I let him and his family take her. I'm not sure if it's true or not, I can never know with him.
It was such a helpless feeling having those creatures slip through my fingers.

I feel so silly that my whole world was turned around the day everything about Adrien and Blake came out.
I can't believe I didn't figure it out right away, it was right in front of me. But they both put in a team effort of giving me the illusion that we were some kind of happy mismatched family.

I think it was just plain denial the day before Blake left. I remember us all in the car, Adrien staring down at the floor almost in tears over something I can't recall. Blake kept saying "your nose looks hungry" and was suggesting we have a hydro (morphine). Those words still disturb me so much. It was just so creepy the way he said it, the way he was acting that last day before he abandoned us.

By the time of my boyfriends withdraw, I began to lose concept of time. I think it was two days, but I'm really not sure. It seemed to go on forever, there was no food left, we were starving. The place was a mess with garbage and flies all over place.
At first Adrien was angry with me because he had spent hours finding empty capsules and putting what little bits of morphine that was left in them together. He was so weak he made me crush what was left together and make him a line. I was scared and crying as I did this since I had just recently come to the realization of everything that had been going on for the last few months. Then once he bent over and he was just about to snort the line, I blew it off the table as hard as I could. I just couldn't stand to watch him kill himself anymore. He was practically a skeleton, even thinner then when we had met. It was painful to even hold him because every time I did he was smaller, it was like he was slowly disappearing, both body and soul.

I'm probably going to deep into detail and ranting again, I have a very bad habit of that.
I'll try and rap up...

It was just so strange how fast it all happened and how much happened.

In the beginning before it got really bad, I loved them both. I looked up to Blake being older than I was, I looked up to him because I thought he was taking care of us. So I took care of him.
You see he was diabetic and also dying of a heart condition. This I know was true because of the hole in his chest from surgery, they had to do another one soon so they never replaced the parts of his ribcage they had to cut out.
I would go out and buy him diabetic and heart healthy foods and come home and make them myself. I even paid entire trailer fee once when he was broke, even though I didn't have a job.

My boyfriend and I would bring him to the hospital back and forth. I guess all that said, explains Blake's way of obtaining the drugs he had.

I'm not sure what else to say, I pretty much covered all the bases of the story.

I just need to find a way to overcome it now. I'm not sure why it still eats at me. My life is good now, I don't do any hard drugs anymore I don't even smoke weed, I drink socially. My current boyfriend is perfect, he treats me like royalty. I have good friends most of which don't do drugs anymore either. I live in a decent apartment and have two lovely cats. I want to look to the future but yet something is still holding me back.
It seems these metal scars I may have are well over do to fade. If I may ask, tell me how do you deal with what happened to you?

[trdofbeingtrd]

Well, it's no problem, but what is kind of spooky is if you were to take certain details out and leave certain one's in, that is what my ex and I went through. My ex had a mom and sister who were watching out for her, I lived with an older guy although I never abused animals, the drug of choice was speed, and he lying or not wasn't part of the KKK/HA.

Yeah, your name is not starting with a C right?

Cause that would just be awkward LOL

J/K........well, it would be odd.

Anyways, I can understand from reading your story why you are haunted by memories. Is it the animals being abused that gets to you the most, his betrayal, or the being frightened that haunts you the most?

I have no problem helping if I can.

[skull_candy]

Sorry for the late response, I haven't had much time to myself to write back.
I'd be fine with talking about it, after all it's supposed to help.
I guess I'll first give you the base of the story with some names rearranged.

Well it was near the end of grade eleven that I met "Adrien" within a month or so we started dating and I moved in with him.
He was friends with the landlord, he lived up stairs and sold us weed. His name was "Blake" and he was about forty.
Anyway he let us move in with him and I adopted the two previously abused cats and dogs his alcoholic son left behind.

I was aware that Adrien did drugs but I had no idea he was an addict.
With basics out of the way, I guess the parts that stay with me and won't leave me alone are...

When the first cat died deep in a vent it crawled in because is was so scared from being abused.

When I became paranoid that Blake might kill Adrien and I because of all the things he said about being in Hells Angels, the KKK and jail.
(This of course now I believe were lies to scare me with)

When Adrien told me he was a drug addict and had been pretending to love me and stealing money from my bank account the entire time.
He also told me both him and Blake had abused the last dog we had left when I wasn't around.

That Blake wasn't our friend but a drug pusher using Adrien for money and attempting to also get me hooked.

I forgave him and held him through worst of the withdraw. Blake phoned and told us if we weren't gone before he got back in a week or so that he would kill us.

After I convinced Adrien to go to his home town and reunite with his family and try to clean up.
I had a metal break down from a combination of not taking my anxiety medication, the stress of what happened and the use of morphine and ecstasy.
I stayed in a psych ward for about a month afterward. I was temporarily insane, my own mother and sister thought I'd never be the same. When I remember how crazy I became, I have no idea how I got my grasp on reality back.

There are probably many details I missed but there's a lot to tell and I don't want to give you too much to read.

Also I just wanted to say thank you so much for responding to my post, it means a lot to me.

[trdofbeingtrd]

Time does heal all wounds, it's just the time it takes can vary. What part haunts you the most?

If you are comfortable with talking about it here, we can do that, or you can message me. I have my own experience with a similar situation.

Also, there will be people posting to your question.