I am officially someone else.

I just accidentally posted just the title to this. Umm...sorry? Editing now.

I don't know what's going on with me.

I'm not myself. The brain that is fueling my actions is not my own. This has happened before, off and on, but this time...

I was tentatively prescribed Strattera a while back, if you recall, if you've read that far back, for my ADHD. After taking it for a few days, I decided that the side effects of the drug (which gave me horrible flashbacks of what it was like to be addicted to meth) were not worth the trade-off. Stopped taking them. The only upside to those pills was the appetite suppressant effect. Kept them in my bedside drawer, for a rainy day, if you will.

It's sunny out. Hasn't rained for days.

There's this thought, this random, unsolicited temptation, that's been rolling about in my head for a few weeks, and today, I acted upon it.

"Snort that shit."

What? W..t..f..

Who in the hell thought that was a good idea, who whispered THAT into my brain?

"You won't be hungry for days..."

True. But lack of hunger doesn't usually keep me from eating when the binge-monster attacks. We all know that I could've just finished a five-course meal and I'll still eat another, plus three desserts, if that's what the bingeosaurus commands at that moment.

But still. It was there. I can't even begin to describe the horrors of my life during that time...17 years old and addicted to meth, trapped in a house with a man who never loved me, but somehow always held me in such a way that made me hope, believe that it was possible to make that happen... If I would just do everything right, he would love me. I had to keep trying.

For two years, I tried. And I never succeeded. He said he always loved me, he was just "bad at showing it."

Yeah. Beat me daily, but leave no bruises on my face. Force me to wear turtlenecks in July to hide the thumbprints on my throat. Yeah, you loved me.

I hate him.

Anyway. So. Why would I want to return to that? No, not the meth, but the snorting of mind-altering chemicals at all? I hated that part of me. I am a strong, intelligent, responsible woman, with a life so full that it deserves all of my presence of mind, all the time...

Why?

I don't know. As I sit here at school, skipping chem again because I hate it, my heart is skipping as well, just lightly, just softly, because I only did the tiniest bump anyway. I finally got my regular Wellbutrin back today, so I'm on that again, too...I was never fully off, but I was forced to take SR instead of XL (doctor said that most people don't notice much of a difference, but I think I'm not most).

No one can answer that question: Why did I do that? I think it comes down to wanting to escape. We all have something from which we feel the need to escape sometimes, it's normal. What's not normal is feeling so overwhelmed by daily life that you feel a constant need to be altered in some way, emotionally or chemically or physically or all of the above simultaneously, so that you are not forced to be completely conscious of the world around you, the life that's probably not all that bad at all, but that your mind has somehow turned to chaos and pain.

I used to drink. Daily. Every morning, noon, and night. For months. To escape. To not be...here. To not...feel. I gave up on that when I realized that I had dug myself into full-fledged alcoholism at 21; my daughter deserves so much more. Now I can't even get myself to enjoy drinking anymore. Too many calories, makes me feel unhealthy and dehydrated and fat and lazy and tired. I drink a shit ton of coffee and energy drinks because they make me feel sped up, in a way, and that has been, for now, my little escape from the constant exhaustion in which I find myself languishing...But now...

I can't let this happen again. I mean, as I type that, I think, "How did I 'let' this happen in the first place?" Just about 30 minutes ago, I stood in the bathroom stall and looked at the bottle of pills in my hand. Watched my hands go to work, effortlessly, chopping a neat little line of soft, snowy powder, just as they used to, as if they remembered it all by themselves. Rolled the dollar. Stared at it. Remembered N's voice in my head, his short, strong, muscular hands hitting my flesh hard, fast, when I couldn't load the pipe quickly enough...I was never enough.

Drugs are bad.

Now I don't know what to do with myself. I don't feel like eating, and that's a good thing, because I've eaten nearly 1,000 calories today already. Yes, by 11:41 AM. Yes.

I feel guilty, and ashamed, somewhat, and I'm worried of what you'll all think of me when you read this, but at the same time, I feel compelled to confess this somehow, and I've no one else. Nowhere else to turn, to go and spill out all of myself, because you're the only ones in my life who understand.