If the circumstances were different

I just finished reading the book "Tweak", which is a memoir by Nic Sheff about his addiction to drugs and his way to recovery.  I found it during a four hour shopping trip at Chapters, and it intrigued me immediately.

I've always had an interest in the human condition.  And usually the darker side, I guess. I love watching Intervention.  I'm not sure exactly why.  Maybe because it's an area I always fought against in myself, blocked out and believed was "wrong" or whatever.  Maybe it makes me feel I'm not as wrong as them.  Hearing about others experiences maybe make my problems seem less intense, maybe makes me feel better about myself, or I can identify, and not feel so alone.  Maybe all of those reasons, maybe none. Maybe the even sicker thought that I have this fucked up fantasy of experiencing it.

Anyway, back to the book.  I flew through it in a couple of days, a couple of days where I also worked and was job hunting.  There's no other word to describe it other than addictive and nearly impossible to put down or get out of my mind.  His writing is so honest and really gave insight into the mind of an addict, and the vicious cycles he ended up in.

All throughout that book, I kept seeing parallels between him and myself, in regards to his feelings and thoughts and mental state.  It's uncanny, and terrifying in some instances.  He's incredibly sensitive, probably considered "overly" sensitive by general society.  He has problems with depression and anxiety and fear, and a hard time feeling grown up and adjusting to the real world.  But the one thing that really struck me was when he said that he was always afraid to really let people in because he didn't want them to see the horrible, disgusting person on the inside, and reject him.  I don't remember the exact words he used right now, but it's dark, so I can't look back in the book.

Wow.  That's me.  That's me in those pages right there.  That's my first thought on reading it.  But then my second thought is, if circumstances were different, could that have been me?  Is the only reason I'm not a drug addict the fact that the opportunity to do drugs never presented itself to me?  I hung out with the "good crowd", the geeks and the kinds in the student council.  I went to a dry grad.  I had never smoked anything, not even a cigarette.  Until recently, I didn't even hardly know a person who had done anything other than drink alcohol.

But I've got the self-destructive, self-depreciating, addictive behavior.  I don't drink all that often; I don't like the taste of alcohol unless I plan to get drunk, and then I'm drinking enough so that I don't taste it anymore.  Once I start, I can't stop.  Not on my own.  And now that I've had the opportunity, I've smoked weed, and hash.  Just no one has offered me anything else.  And the scary thing is, I don't know I'd say know if someone did.  I'd like to say that I would, but I'm not so sure.

Instead, I eat, and overeat.  I don't leave the house unless I have to.  I spend way too much time on the internet; I know that I'm sure everyone can say that, but I lose days on the internet and have no idea how it happened.  I don't cut myself, because people can see the results of that; I bang my head against hard surfaces, cause myself pain that I can comprehend when I can't handle the pain I can't comprehend.

I suppose I should feel grateful that I never ended up on the streets, whoring myself out to get my fix.  But instead, I feel scared.  Were the opportunities and situations different, that could have been me.  Could it still be?

Oh hey there.

Nice to meet you.  I'm Karen.  How's about a little introduction?

I'm 28 years old, living in the aptly-referred-to on our licence plates "Beautiful British Columbia", Canada.  I am married to my high school sweetheart, and we have a funny little cat.  I'm highly emotional, something I am working to reconcile.  I chew my nails.  I'm a bit of a hermit, not getting out of the house as much as I perhaps should.  I am a child in many ways.  I have green eyes that see the world through black thick-rimmed glasses. I'm the epitome of an introvert, and maybe just a bit neurotic.  Okay, maybe more than a bit.  I pick earthworms out of puddles and am afraid of the dark.  Books and blankets; these are a couple of my favorite things.  I've got such an intense empathy that sometimes it hurts.  

I'm not new to blogging.  I've been doing it for almost five years.  I have another blog (two, actually) that you'll likely never know.  But I'm new to this one.

I'm a recovering Facecrack addict, and want badly to get back into blogging.  But lately I feel restricted on my main blog.  Like I've gotta censor it.  I can't say fuck; no swearing at all.  I can't talk about my anxiety and depression and the fact that I've been in therapy or drinking or insecurities or strange thoughts or my someone recent experimentation with smoking pot.  I also can't talk about anyone that I know on my blog, because what if they see and they don't like it and they get upset?  How can I complain about someone if there's the chance that they might read it?   

For a while, my cousins and I had a secret blog.  We wrote things and shared things with each other that we never would have with the rest of our family.  It was a place we could yell and swear and tell dirty jokes and complain and not worry about the judgement or the talk that would inevitably happen, whether intentional or not.

But a year ago, I wrote a post about how pissed off and upset and hurt I was when, a couple days after my husband's best friend was killed by a drunk driver, a customer at work kept pressing me as to why I was "just okay" and told me to just smile and that it was all in my head.  I spent 15 minutes in the bathroom bawling on the shoulder of a lady whose name I still don't even know.  Might I also mention that I had recently just started going to therapy at this time?  And what happened?  I got fucking judged, in the one place where I felt safe.  Now, I can't post on it.  Can't comment.  I still check it periodically, though the posts have been pretty infrequent.  

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my family.  But there's some things right now that I don't want them to know.  Fuck, most of those things I listed up there?  Not even my parents know.  For a lot of reasons, I don't know when, or IF, I can tell them.  I'm also sure that my family, they don't always mean to be judgmental, but it happens, regardless.  One thing gets around, and it just keeps going and going, and soon it's being talked about in hushed tones at family gatherings, and then before you know it, my grandma has heard.

Maybe the brave thing to do would be to just write on my existing blog and accept the judgement, the thoughts, the behindthebacktalk.  But right now, I'm not sure I can be that brave.  I can handle the judgement of complete strangers (though I hope you'll keep reading and we'll be more than that), but not that of my family.  But right now, I'm much too insecure.  For the time being, this will have to suffice.