Climbing Out of My Own Personal Hell: A Love Story
Three years ago in April, I fell in love with a fling from back in high school. It took me completely off guard and I opened myself up to him, despite my own and my friend’s hesitations. I had been in a bad spot having recently moving back to Texas and living at my father’s house. I was suffering and vulnerable and put myself into the relationship way quicker than I should have. Within three weeks we were in love and planning our future. I liked the comfort of knowing someone thought of me in that way, despite how quickly everything was panning out.
By August we were living together in a small one bedroom apartment with my then one year old while he went to school and I worked 25 miles away. Everything was still peachy as always even though we were bone broke and really only had each other. We made do, and we loved it. Then we decided that wasn’t enough. We needed more money, and as Biggie once said, “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems.” Never has a gangster’s sentiment rang so closely to home with me.
He decided to start dealing, an occupation he had before we were together. Just weed, seemed harmless enough. We started making so much cash and that was addictive. Even though I was scared all the time for my own and my child’s safety, I felt like it was out of my control. He would do whatever he wanted to do, no matter what I said.
Then I got pregnant. That is when the shit really started to hit the fan; I feel like our whole life imploded and all happiness was lost. He started dealing coke to deal with the money troubles we didn’t have. Really, it was his addiction to the game. Still I said nothing and let all this happen around me. We were able to get a big town house and a car and I became blinded by the materialism that had become our lives. So much that I didn’t see our relationship was slowly fading into a non-existence.
Moving into a the townhouse marks the beginning of the end, an end that would take over a year and a half to fully collapse. He started having vivid hallucinations that the DEA was following him everywhere and at one point even flushed seven hundred dollars worth of product down the toilet. At that point we made decision to stop. I thought it was a solid plan. He had gotten a real job, and with both our incomes it was completely possible and achievable. We would have to cut back on the “fun” things, but that was something I was willing to do in order to get out of that soul sucking life. Unfortunately, he did not feel the same way, and before I knew it everything was back to old ways, only much, much worse.
I always knew he was an addict, but it had never become a problem until about October of that year. Everything was spinning out of control with our relationship and my best friend died of brain cancer. At the time when I could have used a partner the most, I had none. Every day I remember begging him to please just be there and help me get through everything and he would just get angry and tell me everything bad that was happening was my own fault. I was the one that decided to keep the baby, I was the one who wanted a new car (needed actually, ours broke down), and I was the one that wanted to move. Therefore everything was my fault. At the time I didn’t even know he was talking sexually to other girls and exchanging pictures. I did not find that out until March. I also failed to realize the emotional abuse that I had been receiving for some time.
In March of 2012, I discovered him unconscious on our dining room floor with a needle in his arm. I had been so angry and had blocked him out of life that I didn’t even realize I had been living in the home with a fully fledged heroin addict. Maybe I just did not want to see the truth that had become our lives. That night we got into our first physical altercation, one where we both walked away bruised emotionally and physically. That was also the night I found out about the other girls. He went to detox at the hospital the next day and three days after that was admitted into a month long rehab program. I was left to pick up the pieces. I had to find a apartment in less than a week and move within the next all while keeping my job and taking care of two kids.
I began to miss him, and that is ultimately my down fall. I will always love him, but at the time I seemed to love him more than ever when he was away. We talked on the phone and I would go visit him every chance I had. Our relationship actually seemed to be improving, and by the time he got out it was like we were when we first met. He was going to NA meetings and working on himself.
Slowly things started to go downhill. He would randomly “find” pills on the ground and then we would fight about it. This happened more and more frequently. I started going out more and more so I would not have to deal with him. I wanted to avoid the toxic situation at all times, even though that was not possible.
Our roof literally collapsed and we were forced to live at my in laws for a month, a place I thought we would be safe from his drug use. Things took a turn for the worse. We were fighting all the time again due to the stress of not being in our own place and having to move again. A week after we moved into the new apartment, I received a phone call while I was at work from the leasing manager of our complex. A neighbor had seen him shooting up in our car in the middle of the night. I raced home and tore the house apart looking for the truth. He had been using again, and instead of going to rehab again we decided it would be fine for him to do therapy with a drug counselor and find a new sponsor. None of that really happened. Everything was peachy for about a month, then the downward spiral started all over again.
About a week before Christmas I discovered him yet again passed out in the middle of the floor. There was no needle but the marks were on his arm. He claimed he had been shooting his suboxone, an opiate blocker medication. I knew he was lying. I always know when he is lying. Before this, I was once again allowing myself to be emotionally abused daily by him. I hated being at home because the energy of the place made me want to be sick. A day later I approached him about everything and we got into another physical altercation because I wouldn’t let him go in the bathroom in front of our three year old and try to kill himself with a fully loaded syringe. He pushed me onto the bed and hit me when I tried to take it away. I called my mom to come get the kids and I called his to take him away.
Even after that I thought things could still be worked out, but now I am not sure that is what I want. I have not visited him during this rehab stint, and I feel like that has allowed me to mature emotionally. I feel independent emotionally for the first time in my life. Having now gone out and met new people and experienced new things, I realize that I like being me. I like watching what I want on TV and going where I want when I want without having to ask permission first. We have not set anything in stone, but we are separated and plan to stay that way. We may seek counseling if I decide I want to pursue anything with him ever again. As of right now I am looking forward to being young and living my life, independently.
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