Michelle C.
DOB: 3/11/70; Concord, Massachusetts. The next morning I took about 85 Tylenol, and I knew down deep down inside that I didn’t want to die.
The thing was that I just didn’t want to live, and I planned that.
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I was going to take all this stuff and if I was lucky, I would end up in the hospital, and end up getting help, and if I wasn’t, I’d end up dying. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with the shit any more.
With Mom and my father I had an older sister and older brother. We moved to a farm in Maine and lived there for a couple of years, I don’t know how long, and then we moved to Halifax in Canada.
And there, when I was three years old, my father killed himself. He was an alcoholic and he attended a recovery program for a while, but I don’t know what happened. He lost it and he ended up killing himself.
And his death has played a large part in a lot of my life and a lot of my disease and a lot of my problems. And slowly I am beginning to realize how much of an effect his death and his absence really does have on me.
After Canada, we moved to another place in Canada. Then we moved to D.C., and when we moved to D.C. I was in first grade. I was living with my Mom, my younger brother Joshua, my older sister Jessica, my older brother Ian. And we lived in a small house right near Adams Morgan, and it was pretty fun. There was a whole bunch of other kids on the block, so for the first time I got to really be friends with people.
Let’s see, my biggest memory of childhood, the thing I remember most, was just being unhappy and being overweight and always feeling frustrated. Always feeling angry, always feeling lonely, and always feeling like nobody ever gave me enough attention, and that nobody ever loved me. And that . . . those seemed to be the predominant feelings I had in my childhood.
In sixth grade I moved to a suburb of Philadelphia and there things seemed for about the first year didn’t seem too good. Then I entered the junior high school and there I met Natty Hammond, who became my best friend. And with her we started doing stuff that led to my active addiction. With her we always just had the best time. And we always had lots of fun and I don’t know what it was about her. I remember the moment I saw her, I decided, at that moment I made a conscious decision, that I was going to become friends with her. And I did. And we ended up becoming best, best friends for about three years.
And we did a whole lot of stuff, we . . . God, we were crazy. We used to have so much fun. We used to steal our parents’ cars all the time. Usually we took her parents’ cars. We would spend the night at her place and at about two or three in the morning we would wake up and go put the car in neutral and push it out of the driveway and then go out and drive around. We would do stupid stuff, like we would steal a whole bunch of “For Sale” signs and put them on somebody’s yard and it was fun for a while.
It was with her that I first used. I drank two screw-drivers at her house with her and her older brother Mark while her parents were out to dinner. And I remember that feeling of feeling like totally wild and totally crazy. It was always how I wanted to feel. It was fun. Natty was an amazing person. She would . . . Everybody always liked Natty, and that’s why I wanted to be with her, because I remember that as long as I was always with Natty I always thought that I was going to be happy, that I was always going to have fun, and I couldn’t be happy or have fun on my own, and I had to be with her and she was my security blanket.
I felt comfortable and I would go out in social situations with her, and when she wasn’t around I learned to use drugs and alcohol to make me feel comfortable. And I always remember wanting to be the wildest and the craziest and have the most fun and be with like the nuttiest and doing the weirdest things, funest things. That’s what Natty and I spent our three years together doing.
After that we . . . my family moved to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. It was right before tenth grade and a few weeks before we moved my Natty took me out to dinner. It was like a going away present. Natty and her older sister and her older sister’s boy friend and I got all dressed up and we were going to go into Philadelphia and go to dinner and go dancing. And we stopped on the way at a friend’s house, and we started drinking there, and they gave me a bottle of vodka because that was my favorite drink.
And I ended up drinking about twenty shots of vodka and a couple of beers and a couple of rum and cokes. And I woke up later that evening with IV tubes sticking in me and in an emergency room in a hospital in Philadelphia. And I found out later from my Mom that evening that I had almost died, that my blood alcohol level was point two points away from being dead.
And I remember a little bit about what happened when I was in the hospital. I remember that there was a cop there who was talking to me, and he was telling me that I needed help, that I needed somebody to talk to. And I was still drunk as shit so I just blew him off, yelling and screaming at him and all the nurses. But I also later found out from my Mom that Natty’s older sister refused to take me to the hospital, and an undercover cop found her trying to wake me up in the car and he made her take me to the hospital.
He escorted her with me to the hospital and once we got there she wouldn’t tell them that I had been drinking, what my name was, what my number was, or anything. God, just thinking about that, that’s really fucking scary, that I almost died because some bitch wouldn’t tell these people what I had been doing.
So I moved to Chevy Chase, Maryland, and I entered Bethesda Chevy Chase High School in tenth grade. And I started playing field hockey there.. And all my life sports had been a great. I had been given a tremendous gift of being able to do sports and doing really well. All my life I have been doing something. I think the first sport I played was ice hockey. I used to play on an all boys team and I loved it. It was great. I used to play softball and basketball and water ski and fish and just do everything. I used to run a whole lot.
So I moved to Chevy Chase and I started playing field hockey and when I was in tenth grade I made the varsity team and I ended up being the highest scorer of the team and the third highest in the county. It was really weird, because at that point in my life I had moved to this place and everybody liked me. I was really popular.
I was dating the quarterback of the varsity football team, who I went to Homecoming with, and on the outside everything seemed to be great. I was making honor roll every semester and everything was really good, but I was a fucking nut inside. I was losing it, I was insane, I hated myself. I thought I was disgusting, I thought I was fat, I thought I was ugly, I thought I was dumb, I thought nobody cared about me, and all I wanted to be was happy and like the center of attention, have everybody like me.
I remember getting my friends stoned for the first time, and getting them really into like smoking pot and doing shrooms and a whole bunch of stuff like that, and which I regret now. I mean now a lot of them still smoke a lot of pot and they have tried shrooms and ecstasy and a whole bunch of stuff a couple of times, which I regret now.
I remember I was walking home one night from a party with a friend of mine from school, and he was telling me that some girl had told him and they were talking about me, how lucky I am, and how like I am perfect. God, when I heard that I nearly lost it. I thought I was absolutely insane, and I thought nobody liked me. It was just wild to hear somebody say that about me.
I started to . . . things really started to get out of hand around Christmas time. The predominant part of my disease at that time was my bulimia. And I started binging and throwing up in about the end of seventh grade. And it had gotten better and worse, and up and down for a while, and at that time, around Christmas time, it was just flaring. I ended in February, I ended up being . . . I couldn’t handle it.
I stopped going to school, and all I would do was, for about two weeks I would take my Mom’s credit card, I would go to the, store, buy food, eat and throw Up all day long. And I would drink at night and rarely go out, but if I did go out I would get totally fucked-up. I lost it, I couldn’t take it any more, and February 19th I decided that I was going to kill myself.
And I stayed up just about all night that night, and what ended up happening was the next morning I took about 85 Tylenol, and I knew down deep down inside that I didn’t want to die. The thing was that I just didn’t want to live, and I planned that. I was going to take all this stuff and if I was lucky, I would end up in the hospital and end up getting help, and if I wasn’t, I’d end up dying. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with the shit any more.
Anyway, so it seemed like a good plan to me. So after about a half an hour after I had taken all these Tylenol, I went in and told my Mom that I had taken a few too many Tylenol and that I felt sick. She asked me how many, and I said about fifty. She took me to the emergency room of Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, and there they pumped my stomach, and a few hours later I was admitted to the psychic unit of Holy Cross Hospital.
I spent a month there. That was an experience. The majority of the patients there were older. Pretty crazy. A lot of people there just seemed nuts. So I got a lot of attention for being the youngest. And it was kind of like a vacation. I didn’t know what the hell to make of it, I was so fucked up still. I remember one counselor — his name was Carl — who paid a lot of attention to me. And we got to be really close. He was an older black man who was thirty-six years old. He was married and he had I think it was two kids and we got to be really, really close. I used to have this biggest crush on him.
After a month in that psychic unit there, I was transferred to Taylor Manor Hospital in Ellicott City, Maryland. I ended up staying there for three months, a week, and four days. And a whole lot happened there. I went through a lot of changes there. The first place really didn’t help me, but I went through a whole lot up at Taylor Manor, and a lot of stuff that I learned there. I am just beginning to realize how it really helps in my life today. A lot of shit they told me, you know, it was like what the fuck are you talking about, but a lot of it really made sense, now that I have somewhat of a clear mind and can think.
So Taylor Manor, though, that was great. I really, really miss that place. And God, I would love to go back just to visit sometime. When I first got there I was really, really sick. I was throwing up and had really bad headaches. And I found out about a week after being this sick and feeling like shit that I was doing this all to myself, and once I realized that it was all hypochondriac shit, I stopped and I felt better. And it was just intense.
I remember the first day I checked in, this girl had to weigh me with only my underwear and my bra on. At the time I weighed about a hundred and seven pounds. I was just, I was covering up my body, and I told her not to look because how fat I was and how gross looking I was. She told me this later, about a week or two before I left, it just seemed so funny, because by the time that I left I gained a whole bunch of weight. I weighed about one twenty.
And so I remember when I first got there I saw this counselor, his name was Charlie. He had blond hair and blue eyes. He was kind of cute and he was a body builder. He had a fabulous, fabulous body. But he was really quiet and rarely spoke. And I remember that after I saw him that I was going to become friends with him, and that was the same thing that happened with Natty. I made that conscious decision that I was going to get really close to this person.
And so what I did to get his attention was that I totally ignored him for about two weeks. I would not talk to him. He would say “Hi” to me and I would walk right by him. Until finally one day he came up to me. He said, well, he asked me why I would not talk to him. And I started talking to him and after that we became really good friends, and God, he helped me a whole lot. We . . . I was able to talk to him better than I had been able to talk to anybody in a while.
We used to have these conversations. It would be fabulous. I would start talking about my father and I would start crying. He would tell me about something and he would start crying and it was really intense. It was nice, it was really fucking nice.
Also, when I was in that hospital I met somebody, this boy named Ben, who was in the long term unit of the hospital. We started dating or whatever, as possibly as much as we can in the mental hospital, and it was really nice. We weren’t allowed to touch each other, so it was purely an emotional relationship. It was really, really neat. I got to be really comfortable there. It was really nice. It was really safe and secure. I really liked it a lot.
Eventually, after about two months or something, I improved enough for them to tell me that I could be discharged. And I left there on June 23rd. While I was there I was attending the alcohol and substance abuse group. And they never told me about any recovery programs.
But we went just to this group, and there was a couple of people in the adolescent unit that had abused drugs before. And all we ended doing was that we ended up telling war stories and talk about drugs and this and that and which just made me want to use even more.
So while I was there they told me that I had a problem with drugs and alcohol. But I figured, what the hell, I was having fun while I did it, so it really wasn’t a problem. I ended up, after I left there, for about a month or so I didn’t do any drugs or anything. Then after a while I just said fuck it, and we started partying again.
My drinking got really bad, and that summer I started going to bars a lot with friends of mine. And it seemed that every night I would go, I would end up getting drunk and or getting high. And the usual routine of when this happened, I’d get fucked up and I would lose something, I would break something. Then I would fuck somebody.
And that was a continuing scenario of all the times that I used. And after a while friends began to tell me that they thought that I had a problem, and that they were afraid that I was going to get some kind of sexual disease or something. All the while that I was doing this it seemed it was all like a game. It was a way, it was a high, that to go out and meet somebody and fuck them.
I knew that it would always make me feel like shit. And now I can see the insanity of it, expecting different results. ‘Cause every time I’d go out I’d think that it would be different. I’d think that it would be better. God, it never was. It just got fucking worse.
So the, next year I went to a small private high school in D.C., and started playing soccer there. I was the second highest scorer there. I had never played soccer before. That helped a lot. That helped me meet a lot of people. And I started hanging out with another friend of mine, this girl from school, who again I made a conscious decision that I was going to make friends with.
She was perfect for me. She was another Natty. She was what I always wanted. She was popular, she was beautiful, she was fun, she was exciting, she would try anything. She loved to drink, she loved to party, she loved guys, and she had . . . nothing held her back.
And she was lots of fun. And so when I got together with her we went insane. We just partied our asses off. We did have fun. I won’t say we didn’t have fun. I mean it was insanity in a big way, but we did have our fun.
It was kind of strange, because even before either one of us stopped using drugs, when we would spend long lengths of time together, like in car rides or something, we would talk about what was our favorite time together, and it always ended up being something that we did when we weren’t fucked-up. We thought that was strange kind of, something was kind of off, and we both felt uncomfortable with ourselves, kind of deep down hated what we were doing, hated the fact that we couldn’t stop drinking and using. But we didn’t see the need to stop.
And, let’s see, in the summer of ’87 we went to a camp that was sponsored by the Episcopal Church of Virginia. And there, one of the counselors there, was a recovering addict. And we went to . . . he held a seminar on alcohol awareness and abuse, and Carey and I went. We listened, and by the end of the seminar we both knew that those people he was describing were us. At the time my eating was real predominant. And so I thought that I didn’t have a problem with drugs. I thought that my problem was with food.
And so they sent Carey off to a rehab, and I was supposed to go to an eating disorders clinic. And I ended up not going, but Carey ended up going to the rehab. I remember before she left I decided that I was going to stop using drugs and I didn’t. I decided a week later I would stop using and I didn’t. And it went on and on. A week later, when she gets back, I’ll stop. Well, fuck it, she’s back, I’ll keep using, and I didn’t stop.
She mentioned something to me how she thought that I had a problem and I agreed with her. I thought maybe she was right, but it was nothing big. It was, people suggested to her at her rehab, that she attend a recovery program. And I started, going to meetings with her, just so I could hang out with her. And God, I really liked what I heard. And I kept going and about a week after I started going to meetings I stopped using and I made new friends. I started attending meetings every night and my life got better.
That was about a year ago this time. I was on fucking cloud nine for the first month. But it was great. I thought I was never going to use drugs again. I didn’t want to. I was really fucking happy.
Then eventually things got kind of shitty. So then like life sunk in. I was living at home at the time, and my eating was really bad again. Because my disease had no other . . . I removed the drugs and the alcohol from my disease, so it turned to other forms, turned to impulsive shopping and compulsive eating. I became really, really miserable. I felt, again I felt really lonely and frustrated and like nobody loved me, nobody cared about me. I went through a really hard time last year with school. For the first time I really had to work and I was really frustrated with that.
And by about December I just had totally lost it again, and I was going to go back into the hospital for my eating. And what ended up happening was I met with a shrink that I was seeing with my Mom and he suggested that I move out of the house. And I moved into an apartment with another recovering addict, and as soon as I moved out my eating got better, and I was much happier. I felt, I started feeling really good and really happy.
God, in that apartment, I’ve been through so much shit since I’ve lived in that fucking apartment. The person I moved in with is a recovering heroin addict, and she relapsed, she relapsed several, several times since I’ve lived there. She’s been hospitalized, she’s had a real, real hard time staying clean. Her old boy friend is a hard core heroin addict. Broke into the apartment several times and stole a whole bunch of money of mine and a watch of mine.
Another thing that happened when I moved out of my mom’s house was that my addiction, since I was no longer in the food aspect of my life, or the drugs and alcohol, or the money, changed to men. And I started seeing one guy after the other. I’d be dating one guy for like two or three weeks, and I started obsessively, compulsively seeing people and having sex.
And at the point where I am now in my recovery is that I hit a bottom with men in relationships and sex. I see now how much a part of this disease it is. It doesn’t do a whole lot for me, and I really see that I am the happiest when I am not in a relationship, and the person that I love most and that I always forget when I am seeing somebody is Carey, my best friend, and from her I get so much.
God, she gives me so much. She is the most wonderful person in the world. God, I have learned so much from her. She’s real sharp. She helps me a lot with life, and men, and just everything. She makes me feel cool, she makes me feel happy. She helps me learn to love myself. I am beginning for the first time in my life to really care about myself, and see that I am a good person, and to see that I am worth something today.
God, I can’t even begin to describe how much of a change there has been in me. I tried to be so fucking hopeless, so fucking miserable, lonely. God, I hated myself. I thought that I was disgusting. I thought that nobody ever cared about me. Today I know that I am a beautiful person inside and out, and that I am worthy of love, from myself and other people. God, it’s the best fucking feeling in the world. Just to care about yourself. I have learned a hell of a lot since I have been clean, and which it is a continuous process of growing. It’s so goddamn neat. I can’t even begin to explain it.
Right now my life . . . I am about to move back home to my Mom’s house, and I am really worried about that. I am really scared that my eating is going to start getting bad again. Then I am just going to fight with my Mom the whole time.
I am trying to have faith. I know it works and I know it will get better. I know that I won’t be living at home forever. There is not a whole lot I can do about it right now, since I am not there. So I am not going to try to worry about it.
I met this guy a little while ago, about a month and a half ago. His name’s Spike. He’s fucking beautiful. He blows my mind. Oh God. I met him at the club called The Fifth Column, and he is a bouncer there. He’s really big. He’s about 5’9” or 5’10”, 205 pounds. He plays football. He started going to SMU. He got a full scholarship there. God, he is the sweetest fucking person in the world. He’s half white and half black, and he looks more black, and he dresses great.
I am giving up men for a little while because it hurts too much, and it’s fucking me up, but I swear to God if he was back here I’d be with him this second, but he is in Dallas right now. Spike, he sent me a letter about two weeks ago. The letter said by the time you get this letter I’ll be dead, and shit, like that. Apparently he tried to kill himself. Which to this day I am totally baffled by. I think it was a joke or something. It was fucking weird. It seemed so not like Spike. He, Spike, seemed just so full of life, so beautiful, so content and so serene.
But hopefully one day I would love fucking one day, I would marry this man. It was wild, just getting fucking shocked, getting the letter from somebody, and for a second after I read the letter I had this picture in my mind, I could see him lying in a coffin, and for about a fucking minute I thought this man was dead, and I almost threw up.
God, I have never been so shocked in my life. For the first time in my life I see the importance of Michelle living on her own. Not being enabled by a man or by my mother, because all my life I have been enabled by each of them. Especially lately with men. I am so self-centered, my relationships with men, I go in for the primary purpose of getting things out of it, materially, thing or things like that. And I see now how that’s another form of prostitution.
I did that a lot when I was using. God, I had sex with so many fucking people. I lost even fucking count. I see today how much more I am worth than just prostituting myself for, just to get things, because it doesn’t feel good any more. It doesn’t feel comfortable.
I feel like a totally different person. I feel like I actually have a life, I have a future, the ability to make decisions. I don’t feel like a little girl any more. The majority of my life I always felt like an incompetent little child. I couldn’t make any decisions. I couldn’t do anything.
And I thought that I was going to be in a mental hospital for the rest of my life. It’s nice to know that if I stay clean I never have to go in the mental hospital again. I feel that’s really nice. Even though I have low self-confidence, I still care much more about myself than when I was using drugs. That’s improvement of like fifty nine per cent.
Recovery is great, recovery is awesome. Now, as I see how much there is a Higher Power in my life, it makes my life so much easier, like letting go of everything and not having to control everything. And I’ve read that surrender means not having to fight any more. That’s what I have been doing my whole life, is trying to fight things and trying to control things.
So I am beginning to see how freeing it is, just to let go, let something grow in myself, than to take things. Life rocks, life is awesome. Life is just so cool there is nothing to be bummed out about. I have a place to live, I have food, I’m clean. Life is too fucking cool. I can’t bitch about anything. Life is great, people are great. I totally love people.
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