Penelope Ray
DOB: 4/11/63; Kent England. I guess that my parents were dysfunctional, you watched what you said around them for fear that somebody would fly off the handle.
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They didn’t drink but they didn’t talk. They didn’t communicate. There was no feelings in our family, no hugging, no kissing, no telling them that we loved them.
The first thing I remember about my childhood is moving here to California. My parents moved here to San Diego in 1969 and I was six years old and I remember not liking it. My parents were older.
My mother was almost 40 when she had me and I have a brother who is 11 years older than me. I just remember being really different, I guess because I had an accent when I moved here and I just really didn’t feel like I fit in. That was the first feelings that I had of not fitting in anywhere.
I don’t remember much about my childhood except that it wasn’t very happy. I guess that my parents were dysfunctional. You watched what you said around them for fear that somebody would fly off the handle. They didn’t drink but they didn’t talk. They didn’t communicate. There was no feelings in our family, no hugging, no kissing, no telling them that we loved them.
My mother and I frequently went back to England to try and live there but we always ended up coming back. My parents separated when I was 11 and I remember being glad about it and once again we went back to England. So, we couldn’t make it there and we came home.
And that was when I started to drink and started dis-covering drugs. It helped me to fit in. I just remember drinking and smoking pot. Everything was okay then, like I didn’t feel so different. I felt like I was okay. I frequently switched groups of friends because I never felt like I fit in with any of them. And the drugs — I just experimented with anything anyone put in my hand. I hung out with older people because I was tall and I am skinny and I tried to act older because I like to be around kids my age.
I went home again to England when I was 15 to go to school but I ended up working instead. And I came back a year later and was into punk rock and I went to a beach high school in San Diego and there was just me and two other girls in school that were into punk rock. We just got into the scene which was about 50 people strong in San Diego at the time.
And it was a blast. Life was a party. And I just did as many drugs as I could and worked. I always worked, drank a lot. And that’s the first place I ever felt like I fit in. I had friends. I had a good time all the time. I went to a lot of shows. I felt like I was outgoing. I was able to meet people. I didn’t care what people thought about me. I liked looking trashy as possible.
I met my boyfriend when I was 18 and he lived in L.A. so I moved to L.A. with him. Our using drugs went from different drugs until we found heroin. That was our drug of choice in the end and the relationship turned into a co-dependent relationship on both our parts, a using relation-ship, and we stuck together for seven years through it, because it was comfortable.
I always tried to stop using drugs. I didn’t want to use or want him to use because I thought he had a problem. I didn’t think I did. I tried all kinds of different things to stop — went to Europe a couple of times. I thought I was clean because I wasn’t using heroin but I was drinking every day.
Just was real uncomfortable with life. I haven’t done anything for seven years. I worked the same job in the last four years. I stopped going out, I stopped having friends. Friends — I only had friends that used drugs. I surrounded myself with people that used. I just didn’t do anything, nothing at all.
I finally went to a recovery meeting because I heard some friends who were clean were going to same meetings. My girlfriend and I decided that we would go. I thought it would be good for her because she was on methadone. After that first night we went to a meeting we saw a lot of people there we used to use drugs with, friends we hadn’t talked to in over a year because of their using. We were both loaded, but we must have seen something we wanted there.
I went home and finished my tenth and went back the next day straight and that was almost seven months ago. A new life, definitely a new life — discovering things. It’s like being a kid again, like being 13 or 15 or all those feelings of how passionate life was or just discovering going out, going to clubs, making friends, realizing that I have friends that care about me and caring about my friends. Just changing, totally changing.
I moved out of the relationship so I could find out what I wanted because I didn’t know. Because I don’t know what I like. I don’t really know what I’d like to do, what I would really like to do for the rest of my life as a career. I don’t know what my paths are. I have no idea. I feel I am discover-ing life on a daily basis. Like things blow me away, just life and feelings and being there for them and caring about people and knowing that people care about me.
I don’t really have a path because, I am still finding out what I like to do. I don’t know what it is at all. Just having the support around me, knowing that I have got people to turn to, trying to get comfortable in my own skin but being able to talk about it.
Feeling totally alienated at times but then again totally engulfed with friendship. Friendship blows me away. Learning to be outgoing. That’s what I thought I was when I was a teenager, I thought I was outgoing. When I got clean I realized I wasn’t. I was totally uncomfortable around people. I fear people. It’s like I live in a paralytic sort of fear most of the time, but every time I go through the motions of walking through a fear it blows me away.
It’s great, being clean is great. It gets hard, it gets really hard, but what keeps me clean is being too scared to use drugs again because I don’t want to go back to where I was. Because I know what’s there.
I want to move forward. I don’t have a spiritual path. I don’t feel real spiritual at all. My Higher Power is clubs and chasing little boys right now. But that’s okay. Right now I am still clean. I think as long as I stay clean one day at a time, that’s okay.
I’m sure that this will get old. In fact, I know it will get old. I’ll get burned out on it. But I know that when I do get burned out on it and tired of it that there is something there. There is a program, I can turn to my program. I can turn to my friends. I don’t have to turn to drugs. And I will find something different to do. And I will ride that wave for a while.
But it is just as different, everything is just so different. It changes from day to day and that’s what’s great. Absolutely. It just isn’t the same thing every day like it was for so many years. I guess I’d like to be more spiritual but I am not. Perhaps that will come in time. I don’t have any destiny or path or any light I am following. I am just going with what’s in front of me at this moment and I am having a ball over it most of the time. Just having a blast. I know it changes but that’s okay too.
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