been here….haven’t done this.
Well it’s time I think to finally admit that I am not strong enough to deal with the complicating and sometimes obsurdly awkward situations in my life. Yesterday I had my second anxiety attack in a week, before them I had none for almost 3 years. What is bringing back my anxiety, triggering my depression to amp up and cripply my mind and body? Could it be my 7 month separation from my husband? Raising to toddlers as a single mother? Going back to work and leaving my children home with strangers or good friends. So many things could have triggered these bouts of anxiety and depression.
I have decided, however, to go seek help with all of the above issues and so many more. I am leaving my children in the care of good family and friends while I enter a mental health facilty to treat my anxiety disorder and post partum depression as well as learn to deal with a mental illness and be a single mom. I look forward to the new adventure in finding my demons and hopefully extinguishing their hold on me or at the very least learning to cope in a healthy manner.
I would appreciate everyone’s thoughts and beliefs, comments and considerations.
Spotless Mind….
Tonight is one of those nights that I sit here wishing I could go into my brain and erase some memories.I know my addiction to drugs and alcohol didn’t start when I was 16 but I feel like that was when I truly started understanding that a person can use drugs/alcohol to numb feelings, be ‘happy’, be ‘sexy’, or be whatever they wanted. Tonight I am remembering the deeply routed pain that surrounds my addiction. Tonight I can see her… with pale blue skin and a tube in her mouth. I can still feel the heartbreak and sorrow as painful as it was that day. It hurts even now to write these words, fighting through tears of grief and shaking in the memory of her loss. I feel anger the my life with her was so short, sadness that I was once so much like her and now feel nothing like her. I remember sitting with her as she got cold and changed in color. The room felt stale and icy…dead. I can still feel myself holding her hand, still warm and so soft, I remember thinking of how her hand was getting cold and that I should go…but I couldn’t leave. I layed on her stomach, still holding her hand, taking notice of the stiff blue gown she was wearing. I wanted to lay with her with my arm around her and never let go. I talked her silently in my head and at times out loud. Telling her how much I loved her and how I wanted her to come back. I begged her spirit to reenter her and sobbed into the cold gown that clothed her. I told her I would pass on “The Christmas Story” about the doves and the stars in the sky that night that Christmas begun. I promised her I would be good and make her proud.
I didn’t do any of that. I forgot “The Christmas Story” she told me. I wasn’t good, and she certainly wouldn’t have been proud. That very night I starting cutting myself, losing sleep, and started a pattern of hiding my feelings. I started skipping school, using pot, and drinking alone in my room. I stopped talking to my mom about anything of importance, closed myself off from her completely. That day haunted me, the realization of my aunt’s death was too much for me to bear and I used drugs to cope. They never made me happy but they had the ability to make me laugh and forget. Forget that I was devastated, forget that my mother pretending nothing ever happened, forget that I wanted to die to be closer to her…forget how to feel. Some people never know where their addiction truly started…I do. So now that I am sober, how do I forget? How do I laugh and smile and remember her fondly without feeling that heartbreak? Tonight with her memories haunted my thoughts and surely my dreams tonight, I deal with it with loud sobs and tears streaming off my cheeks and clouding my eyes. But with the memories and tears comes the demon of my addiction. I want so badly to find that high that makes it go away, even if its only temporary. Will I ever be able to feel anything like ‘normal’ people, or will I always have that need to hide it with intoxication from drugs or alcohol?
Who are you…really?
Insert from my novel:
No one saw it coming. Losing my job, moving in with a band, hanging out with my estranged half brother, rehab. I wasn’t even careful about trying to hide my drug use, deep down I wanted someone to find out what I was doing so they could help me. I was addicted to crack, ecstacy, cocaine, alcohol, meaningless sex as well as various other prescription and over the counter drugs I was using. My addictions were killing me and it hurt me so badly inside to know that no one I loved could see the pain I was in. My mom, sister, and father just thought I had become this angry, mean and heartless girl who hated the world and everything in it. I still have so much resentment toward my family for thinking such things and not realizing that something had happened and was continuing to happen to make me become this person they had grown to fear. I wasn’t that ball of anger completely, Natasha was still there. Somewhere. When I would see my niece and hear her laugh, that’s when I could feel Natasha trying to come through the hard shelled zombie the drugs had created.
Many nights I would get stuck in angry thoughts inside my head…thinking to myself “how did I get here?” I was 19 for f*ck sakes! When had I become this person of pure anger and disgust? I asked myself this over and over in my head as I paced angrily back and forth across the unfinished plywood floor in the shitty basement suite I called home. Who did THEY think they were!? I screamed inside my mind, cursed in a rampage in my head, cusrsed THEM all! I didn’t care what they thought of me. But then, why was I so angry at them? I lashed out deep inside, the anger within me was unbearable, but I could not stop it. It boiled inside my soul; I could never have controlled it even if I had tried. The anger controlled me; I was just its toy…a puppet. Many times it overcame me and hurt me along with those around me. I can’t imagine how it must have felt to have been on the other side of my rage, my outbursts controlled by anger and fear and self loathing. I still feel shame for the things I said to the people I loved…the things I yelled and names I called myself in my thoughts.
It seemed I was always angry about something even if it was really nothing. I hated it, the rage that was Natasha. I was disgusted with everything and everyone including myself…mostly myself. I felt out of control, felt as if I was watching myself do all these things but I was not the one moving my lips, hands, and feet. A zombie inside myself. Looking back I see that it was my addiction taking control but at the time I thought there was something terribly wrong with me, or that I was going insane. I felt truly mad (insane) most days and I believe it showed.
Sometimes the hardest changes are the most important…and life changing.
I have finally stopped thinking about everyone else and I am taking charge of my own life. 23 years of doing what is expected, desired, and trying my hardest not to step on toes and hurt feelings. That person is gone and Natasha Loren Coroluick is taking control of her life, dreams, desires, and expectations of herself! I have decided to end a very toxic relationship that was hurting my chances of recovery as well as my opportunity to be the person I want/need to be. This has been one of the hardest decisions/changes in my life that I have had to make recently but I know that it was necessary. I am sick and I will continue to be sick and suffer if I stay in the relationshop allowing myself to be victimized and taken for granted. I am not doing this for my children or anyone else. I am doing this for my well being, sanity, safety, and health. In turn I believe my children will benefit as will the people in my life that matter the most. I am hoping to see a positive change in myself in the near future and I anitcipate others will see a drastic change in me/my life as well. I understand that some people will look down on me with pity, disappointment, anger or even try to make the situation worse with their own version of what has happened…but I DON’T CARE! Of course everyone’s opinion/feelings are warranted and accepted but I do not have to feel these feelings or have these opinions. I am happy about my decisions and plan to continue making decisions that will better me not burden me. I have lived the life of hardship, guilt, disgust, and dispair for long enough. Sobriety is my number one goal and to acheive that goal I must think of me…how can I be a better person? How can I make myself happy and motivate myself to live a meaningful life without drugs? I must first accept that I am who I am…I did what I did…the past is in the past…the future is not here…and I have to make the present count. This is me, wipe the mud off your boots outside because I am not the mat anymore (cheesy but that’s how I feel). Love me for who I am because I am not changing for anyone 
I think I can I think I can…
324 days 12 hours and 44 minutes of sobriety. I am starting to crack! Right now I am in the “poor me” and “this sucks” stage in my sobriety. Everything seems to be getting on my nerves and wearing my patience thinner. Everything I do, listen to, look at, read seems to remind me of using and I go into a craving panic attack. I feel like I can’t breath or think. I find it so frustrating that I can’t even listen to the music I love some days because I have feelings of utopia where I remember my highs fondly instead of negatively. The past two weeks have been exceptionally hard for me. Lack of sleep, being off of my meds, stress, and children (a two year old that find’s everyone of my buttons and pushes hard!!). I feel I am at the breaking point in my sobriety, I have been here before and I know I can overcome it but fighting through this chapter is difficult and taxing on me mentally, physically, and EMOTIONALLY! I was recently at a function where there was alcohol present and marijuana was being used in close relation to where I was and I had to fight with the addict in me to not use. The addict was coaxing me and taunting me with the thought of being relaxed if I had a drink and how much easier it would be to socialize if I had just one drink. I had to find and tell myself “no, think of your children, think of how much time you have clean, think of your last relapse and how you felt!”. I eventually had to step out of the house and sit in my vehicle listening to very heavy angry metal to block to addict out. I find it especially hard to be sober when the people who I want to be there for me and help me through this are some of the people who are using drugs and alcohol. This past Friday was one the hardest days I have had in a very long time, I was set on using and I couldn’t talk to my husband and I wasn’t able to reach my sponsor. I had decided in my head I was going to call and ask a friend to find me some pot. Luckily for me and my sobriety, I am a mom of two children under two and of course I got too busy and distracted with them to make the call that would have thrown years of hard work away. The thought of wanting to use faded in the commotion and I was able to grab onto a small thread of sanity. I have also pre warned the friend months ago not to sell to me or give me any weed or carry it on him when he is around me. I have not asked him for any yet but I would like to think someone is on my side and wouldn’t give into me. Although I am skeptical, as the person I counted on the most was the one who help me relapse the past two times I had sobriety. My husband. I feel betrayed by him and alone in my quest for sobriety without him to support me. Although he says he supports me I am most afraid of him destroying my sobriety. He is still an active addict and it constantly interferes and threatens my clean time. But at the same time I am a fault for putting myself in the situation with him. We were married in a drug binge and were high while we said our vows. We have both noticed a huge change since I found sobriety in our relationship. We having nothing in common except our children, and our love of metal. He recently disclosed to me that he is afraid to get clean himself because he believes we won’t like each other anymore. I agree, this is a possibility. But I also think its important for both of us to find this out now, before our children are old enough to see the impact of our mistakes. Don’t get me wrong, my husband and I both love each other. But there comes a time when you have to reevaluate your priorities for your best interest to yourself and your safety. My sobriety is above everything, yes, even my children and my husband. I know without my sobriety I would not be able to care for my children or have a family so it must be #1! I think my life is about to get very rough and I am going to have to fight hard against my addiction demons, but I have the will and determination. I can be strong for myself and my children and I will keep fighting!
All About…Me? (insert from my novel)
I have always wanted to be a writer in some way but I never really knowif I could limit myself to being an author of one type. Should I be a poet, a novelist, maybe write children’s books? No, I want to do it all. I always believed I could reach the masses in every genre of writing. I have beent rying to write a semi-autobiography for almost six years now and I still haven’t finished a complete chapter. I have often heard that you should ‘write what you know’, so an autiobiography should be easy right? In my case, not so much. I guess I don’t really know myself all to well. I just know how I feel and I suppose I wanted to write about that. How I feel and a little more, what I went through while I was actively using drugs. That always seemed like a seller. People thrive on anothers pain and discomfort, their struggles with life and much more.
I guess I’ll start where I feel the end of ‘me’ began…as contradictory as that sounds, that’s how it was. It began with two girls sitting in a room with some cocaine. I remember that day vividly. I was just a deaker back then; I only used cannibis in various forms. I had dabbled a bit with cocaine years earlier while in Quebec but nothing like I was about to get myself into, not even close! I was only going to drop off an eight ball I had never planned on staying or even sampling my own stock. I knew the purity and never felt a need to taste it each time I sold it. Things changed and I ended up staying in her small one room apartment listening to music and watching her ‘cut’ up the coke. Small, very finely chopped lines adorned the table. She had definately done this before; she was so quick and yet very precise with how she worked the blade over the white powder. I remember praying she didn’t ask me to have a taste; I have never beeb the best at saying ‘no’ to drugs…or anything really.
Then came the words, piercing my thought like a knife, “you wanna do a couple with me? I feel bad doing them in front of you…” I felt my heart race faster and felt scared as I uttered the words that started it all, “sure. I’ll have a few”. And so it began, my first cocaine binge. It wasn’t the best high for me, it was pure enough and tasted great but I couldn’t dig it. I liked the feeling of the ‘drips’ running down my throat…the sweet taste of the cocaine on my teeth. The high was dull for me, I just felt hyper and on edge and didn’t really enjoy it. But the taste…the taste was what hooked me and kept me wanting more.
Later on that night, after doing rails for a few hours, Lisa* asked me if I had ever tried ‘crack’. I had never, I was scared because I knew what was coming next, a new drug that I couldn’t say no to and if I had known how much this drug would affect my life I would have walked away then. I shook my head and she went across the room to grab a brown paper bag. She asked me if I wanted to try some with her…of course I didn’t, but I had to. It was in me to want it. I am a walking addiction.
I watched closely as she took a syringe and some baking powder out of the bag. She grabbed a teaspoon and a half empty glass of water from the night stand. She carefully eyed up enought coke to satisfy the first batch and scraped it onto the spoon. She then added a small does of baking powder and a few drops of water from the syringe. Ever so gently and precisely she moved the spoon back and forth over the flame of her lighter. The whole process intrigued me; I remember thinking to myself how great it would be to be a drug user with ‘skills’. I loved watching the misxture cook and bubble.
Once it was prefected she lit a smoke and put the ashes on top of a straight glass pipe. Methodically she placed two large yellow ‘rocks’ on top of the ash. She motioned for me to watch her as she took the first hit. My eyes were glued to her as she turned the pipe straight in the air, getting her lips underneath, and lit the rocks. Turning the pipe clockwise and then counter and slowely bringing the pipe down until it was straight down, she inhaled harder with each spin of the pipe. She sat back o the couch and let the pipe fall beside her, eyes half open and a devilish grin coming over her face. I couldn’t wait to feel how she looked!
It was now my turn, I was going to smoke crack. Surprisingly I wasnt nervous, but how could I have been? I had already been snorting coke for hours, all my nerves were calm, All I could think was, “I hope this can get me high”. The pipe was ready for me. I did exactly as Lisa* had. Spun in back and forth and inhaling deeper and harder bring it face down until I couldn’t inhale any longer. It hit me before I could take my lips off of the pipe. I felt it…I felt every bit of it all through my body, I was one with my body as shivers ran through my spine, arms, and legs. My brain was pins and needles and I smiled childishly. I felt that I had filled the hole that had made me so unhappy for so many years, I had found my ‘God’ and he was everything I needed. I closed my eyes and felt myself melt into the chair. I sat there for what felt like hours just enjoying the feeling of calm that was rushing through my body. When I finally opened my eyes I was cold all over and my hands were clamming and white. Lisea grabbed the pipe and loaded it again, like the gun that end the misery of a suicide lover. I could see she was happy with my results, glad to see she had made me feel the high.
I couldn’t wait to do it again and again. she passed me the pipe for round two of many. I was hooked and I will admit that to anyone who asks. I wanted more and more and could never get enough. For the next four hours we took turns on the pipe and even mixed it up from time to time with a line in between hoots. I didn’t have a care in the world. I just wanted my turn to come sooner every time I took a hit. In less than ten minutes I had become a full on crack addict and I loved every minute.
Hard Day….
Today, as in many others, has been a hard day. I recently had to stop taking my current antidepressants because ALL of my hair is falling out from them. Needless to say…I am grouchy, sad, and easily pushed to my limits. I have also been talking to old friends, with whom I used to use with. I cannot tell a lie, or should I say….will not? Anyway I have been going down some roads that I know will lead to me using. Wanting to indulge in behaviors/actions that I know I cannot without being drunk or stoned. I know I should stay away from these people and stop these actions and what not but its hard. Temptation gets the better of me. Loneliness is also a HUGE factor! How can I be lonely with two children and a husband, you ask? EASY! I cannot talk to my children about adult things, they can’t peak my interests and communicate with me on a level that I need to feel comfort. And my husband? When he’s not a work….he’s not here. Well his mind is never on the same wave length as mine. He too, is like a child sometimes. I never really feel like he can or wants to talk about important, adult topics. I want things, NEED things! And for some reason I feel that the people from my past and people I know I shouldn’t associate with can give me these things. Maybe I am like an adrenaline junkie….I know I am in danger of losing my sobriety so maybe it gives me a rush? Maybe it gives me something exciting in my life. I’m not really sure. I want to stop but I need these people to talk to, they give me comfort.
I have been thinking about using over the past week. I am searching once more for the feeling of belonging, wanting to fit in with my peers. I want to sit in a room with the boys and pass a joint around talking about stupid unimportant things and laughing. Making jokes and feeling like they really think I am funny and interesting. Maybe I am just bored with myself. I feel like I am so predictable, someone who was once spontaneous and fun is now…a mom and a wife. I miss the excitement of not knowing where I was going or who was coming. I miss the unscheduled days, the freedom. But I also know that spontaneous freedom was also a lie, it was a prison and I need to remember that. I need to remember I am not that person. I like organization. I love having food in my cupboards, a warm clean bed to sleep in, knowing my children and myself are safe. I’m not really sure where this post is aimed I just know I am feeling scared and overwhelmed and I’m not quite sure who/where to turn. I feel like any millisecond I will lose it all and give into the demon.
Giving up and getting a miracle…irony.
I was just reminded of how I got my longest clean time (longest period of time off of drugs and alcohol….and cigarettes!). I was living with three of my closest friends, one of which was my husband. We were all jobless drugs users. None of us did anything but drink, drugs, and party with random users that came and went about our apartment as they pleased. Our house was filthy from top to bottom, we had no food in the cupboards or the fridge, no toilet paper or laundry soap. Somehow we always managed to have booze, pounds of marijuana, ecstasy, smokes, and the occasionally sheet of LSD. Our rent was never paid, our bills continued to climb and our fridge and cupboard remained bare. How did we get the drugs, the booze? My husband and I had welfare, another roommate had student loans (although he had dropped out several months before I moved in), and the third roomate managed to hold the occasional job. I think back to how we all starved and the weight we lost, how sick we were from all the party and lack of basic nutrition. It’s sick that we could have bought food but we spent everything on getting high. My best friend and I would cash our checks and head straight to our favorite lounge and be falling over drunk within an hour only to stumble home to find our other two roommates at the door handing us pills, ready to keep the party going. I remember drinking two litre bottles of water to fill our stomachs so we wouldn’t feel the hunger pains, I don’t remember thinking anything was wrong with this when I was actively using. But looking back I am disgusted by our actions, I am so sickened at the things we did and how we lived just to continue to be addicts. Anyway I will continue that thought in a later blog. I was trying to get to how I had given up on life, I was at the point in my addiction where it wasn’t fun for me anymore. I just did it because I had nothing else going in my life. No job, no future, living in the “black hole” (our cute nickname for our apartment). I thought I would use for a few more months and most likely die there. Then I started to get sick. I didn’t feel like drinking anymore and rarely smoked (cigarettes). I had strange dreams, as opposed to the nightmares I usually had. I was thin and pale, my hair was falling out, I couldn’t sleep and I had been throwing up (acid and water) for roughly 2 months. I had taken multiple pregnancy test, stolen of course, and they were all negative. I just thought I had the flu or that my body was finally shutting down from malnutrition. I stayed with my dad overnight so I could eat and get some sleep. He got me high to help me to stop throwing up, fed me soup and sent me to bed. When he drove me home the next day I asked him to buy me a pregnancy test. I went home and Ryan(my hubby) was the only one there. I told him I was taking another test and we anxiously waited for that extra long 60 seconds to count down. POSITIVE! ………..SHIT! We were both stunned, but excited. I was scared because I knew I had probably been pregnant a few months and I had been using some hard drugs, and starving. Ryan and I ordered food with some money my dad had given me and smoked the last of our roaches while we waited for it to come. I ate before the sickness came back and then I called my sister. I made plans to move in with her and get healthy until Ryan could find us a place out of the “black hole” and away from the life we had been living. I never drank and did any drugs after that day for 15 months. I was happy, being pregnant was the best thing to happen to me. My daughter saved me from the hell of my addiction. A miracle came to me when I had given up and was awaiting my end. I will always let her know how special she is, how she is a savior.
Where I Was, Where I Am…
I have been thinking a lot about who I was an active addict. But no matter how much I try to remember who that person was I can’t. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t a person, figuratively speaking, of course. I was a zombie encased in a skin of hate, self loathing, despair and misery. I don’t even remember most “normal” things from that time because I wasn’t really present for anything. I remember feeling such sadness, loneliness, and overall hatred for everyone and everything. My self included. I often get frustrated and angry with my family for criticizing me and treated me as if I am still that zombie of hate but when I take the time to look back at what I did to the people I love while I was active I can understand their distrust and anger towards that person. I understand that it will take years for the wounds to heal and scars to fade. I do, however, wish that people could understand who was hurt the most in the addiction. I struggle daily with the demons that haunt me from that time. I shake inside and gasp for air in violent panic attacks when I have “flashbacks” of being active in my addiction. There is so much that I did to myself, to others, and had done to me in that time that I still have not told and it often comes back to haunt me and interfere with my sobriety. Those demons (the addict) constantly picks fights with my thoughts trying to convince me to use again, tells me lies of how I will be better off to use because its easier to use than be sober. I used to give in to the addict (relapse) but this time around I am talking about everything and making sure I fight back, letting my addiction know that I am not the weak being it thinks and wants me to be! We I feel close to relapse I talk to my sponsor, who always find a way to make me laugh and forget about using. I also thinking back to the ‘person’ I was when I was active and its help to keep me sober. I know that no matter what life throws at me, how hard my day was, or how many people knock me down…I would rather fight through my sobriety and experience life. I would rather the pain of living my life than giving in to my addiction and becoming that zombie again. I also know I do not have it in me to ‘live’ through an active addiction again, I will not make it out of another relapse alive. I also have so much more to live for and stay sober for. Two very beautiful daughters that make me feel and laugh like I never thought I could, a husband I love, friends and family that inspire me daily. Today I am sober, I will always be an addict but it is my choice whether I am active in my addiction or not.
Awaiting Failure…day 310
I find it strange that when I was an active addict everyone wanted me to get help and get clean. Now I am seeking and receiving help and I am clean and sober, but everyone seems to be on my case still. Pressuring me constantly and continuously questioning every action and statement I make. Always thinking I am up to something if I don’t check in or call often enough. I feel like these people are just waiting for me to fail. Because if I stay sober they won’t have anything to save me from or complain about. I’m not saying they do want me to fail…that’s just how it feel to me. Sometimes I wonder if I am subconsciously waiting for myself to fail as well? What will I do if I stay sober forever, what if I am still miserable sober. I won’t have my addiction to blame for my problems and my misery. Its a scary feeling to have to deal with new problems and fears, to not be able to pin point what is making you feel that way. How do non-addicts cope with life?
