By Eileen DeClemente
Does a girl in her school years from the ages of 14-18 really start to look at her future and what kind of decisions she need to make to be sure she becomes someone? What is a someone? What do we have to do to become a someone? I literally did not have an idea nor did I care but I always felt like less than a person because I never thought about those things as important. I watched every year go by, freshman grade through to a senior, as my grades in school got worse my priorities got less but most importantly, myself respect was going downhill fast.
That did not feel good at all, in fact it was very sad at times. I would actually cry at times when I was alone but I didn't want anyone to think I cared about anything. Alcohol and different drugs helped me so I experimented with them for a short time thinking it would help. Drugs like marijuana, speed, cocaine, and prescription pills like sleeping pills and tranquilizers; I didn't care what they were as long as I could get a hold of something. I was not afraid to try any kind of substance at time went on because in the beginning I would be afraid if I drank too much alcohol that something would happen to me but that didn't last long.
Once I started to drink and mix with drugs I stopped being sad while I was feeling the effects but the next day I would physically feel sick and try to remember things I had done which made me feel even worse about myself. It would make me feel very embarrassed to hear about what I did that it made me want to crawl in a hole and die. My method of coping with this terrible feeling is to begin drinking again so I could get myself to the point of not feeling sadness again. This was a vicious cycle that continued seven days a week. Eventually, that feeling was the only place I wanted to be.
I floated in that place in my head for years and years but it was a very dark place. My head was the dark place and the reason why I know that is because for the first year of my sober life I finally started to see the light. When I wake up in the morning I saw the light and over time that light would stay in my head and for quite some time I was afraid of it.
I've always been afraid of the unknown. The light was the unknown to me because I had never experienced the light lasting for any length of time. It was always complete darkness to me but when I opened my eyes in the morning to me it was still dark. I brought that darkness to my head at a very young age, about age 13 which was two years after I began drinking. That was the beginning of my depression, but I put on a good act to the rest of the world. I was always smiling and pretending things are fine which became exhausting at times because it was always an act I was putting on.
When I got sober the first time I experienced the light was in rehab after being there about three weeks. Many things had happened in those three weeks and they were all life changing. They were unknown feelings to me because they didn't feel bad, which is what I was used to. Then the light came back the second time a few days later. I had fallen asleep for the first time as soon as I went to bed in rehab one evening, I must have been asleep two hours and I sat up so fast I felt breathless but when I opened my eyes I saw the light, and not just the one in the hall. I saw the light all around my face and the sides of my head and I felt like smiling. I couldn't believe it, it actually felt good. I laid back down and stayed awake for awhile but all I thought about in my head were all the things I was finally being honest to my self about and to my counselor. Then I realized that if I continued to remain honest and made the right choices that this light was going to stay. I was in control for the first time; finally it was all in my hands.
For me to be able to describe the depression I was in for years tell me that I was never completely numb, as this was the constant goal for myself, to avoid feeling. I was always feeling so much sadness and I hated myself, my life and what I was doing to my family. It had been so long I was numbing myself and living absolutely fearless of what I was putting in my body. I just existed in a day to day life of unhappiness, accidental overdoses, and all this time I was oblivious to what I was doing to my family whom I loved so much. All this doesn't sound like the actions of a woman who cared about anyone but herself. I did learn as a young child how to block out the world around me because I thought that this is what I needed to do to survive.
This ability to see this new light in my life was exciting but also petrifying at the same time. A lot of change was ahead of me, but I was on the right path to sobriety after rehab. I was aware that tough times were ahead of me, but I really didn't understand the changes that I was about to face.
Eileen DeClemente was 11 years old when she took her first drink. Alive is her courageous story of an addiction so consuming it nearly killed her and destroyed her family. To anyone who has ever battled an addiction, and to the people who have loved them. This story is for you, Eileen is Alive.
Source:www.isnare.com |
