::Identities have been concealed with different names::
His name was Ethan. We worked together at a retail store at one of the local malls. We started hanging out outside of work and smoking weed together. As time went along I was giving him hints that I liked him by caressing him while watching a movie, or just listening to him talk about his worries and troubles while we smoked weed in my car. I told him that I liked him and he told me that he was having ex problems, and for some reason I wanted to wait for the ex drama to cool down and we would see what was between us after. Cause after all, we were just friends. We kissed and did other things. That threw me for a loop every night that we would get intimate and I would have to drive home. I would leave really confused on what we were. I had never done intimate things with someone that was just a friend to me. I would bring my friends to come and hang out with him and it was fun. All of us got stoned together, went on drives and parked somewhere with a great view of a city and we would smoke.
He was really into reggae music. He would make sure that he got to listen to what he wanted whenever he was around people, including me. I would try to listen to other things, but I let him listen to whatever he wanted. I didn't understand reggae music. He would ask me if I knew what they said and I would try to pay attention and really listen, but it was no luck with knowing what they said. There were three reggae artist that I loved to listen to when I trained my ears to hear what they were saying. They were Alton Ellis, Dezarie, and Stephen Marley. I was always a fan of Lauryn Hill and he told me that she is reggae, and I was stoked that we liked the same genre, but hardly the same artists.
I wrote poetry as time was dragging on for him and I to get together. Here is a poem that I wrote during the confusion:
Untitled
I hate you
because I want you
You have the ability
to make me weak
I let you
take my heart
without letting
myself know it
and you don't
even care
Ethan surprised me one day by telling his mom right in front of me that I was his girlfriend. I was ecstatic that he claimed me. After that, I started to dress cute and really care about how he looked at me. He would have me hang out with him and his friends that were girls and I saw that they were not the kind of girls that wore just jeans and a t-shirt with flip flops. They were definitely girls that cared about their appearance and wanted to wear things that flaunted what they had. I observed him while he looked at them, and sure enough he would: look, observe, and then flirt. I wanted to say so many things at those moments but I thought I would wait until she left or us.When I got the chance, I would lash out on him about it and he would turn it around on me. He would tell me, "Well, you see how she takes care of herself and she seems like she knows what she wants. I want my girl to know what she wants and will go for it." I felt so ugly. My comfortable outfits were a t-shirt, jeans, and flip flops. I always thought that I rarely ever needed make up because I saw it as a waste of time to doll yourself up. I felt like I wasn't good enough to be around him and his friends because I was too laid back in my style of clothing and my lack of wearing make-up.
Here is a poem that I wrote after that hit me:
Untitled
I was so scared to tell you
I wanted to be your boo.
The more I heard you speak,
I granted you the ability to make me weak.
I should have known
but my love had grown
rejection isn't what I wanted
so now I am haunted
not only around me
but even in my dreams.
So, I started to critique myself to the point where I was wearing things that I didn't feel comfortable in and smoking weed when I was with him so I could forget my worries about myself looking like I made an effort in my appearance. I felt like I was being beaten with harsh silent opinions. The way I thought I knew how to carry this burden was to smoke weed and drink every chance I got with my friends. Whenever he would call me for a ride, or to hang out, ended up being for picking up or dropping something off. I found out that he was selling other drugs besides marijuana.
I took him home to his apartment that he moved into and we were hanging out with his friends and they were talking about cocaine. I wanted to try it. I was already in my own self-hate box, I might as well try whatever came my way. They called a guy and he had it. We got some cocaine and we all snorted a few lines. When I snorted two lines (one for each nostril), it smelled and tasted like Windex. It was a horrible taste that went down my throat. but I started to feel the left side of my face get numb, then the right side. That was an experience. I was high on coke for about a half hour and I did more lines so I could get the high back. I smoked the pack of cigarettes that I had just bought within a couple of hours.
I fell in love with the way coke would make me feel. So, I kept one of the guy's numbers and kept in touch with them. I felt awesome that I had a "connect" and he was always ready to give me some whenever I called.
Ethan and I did a lot of drugs together. We did Vicodin, mushrooms, cocaine, experienced Ecstasy on a trip in Hombolt County. I loved the way that made me feel. Any kind of drug that I could get my hands on for free, or for cheap, I was going for it. I did it. There was one drug I promised myself that I would never try in my life and that was Heroin.
We got intimate soon after we got together. Our intimate times were a constant battle that I had to fight because a specific time we had just finished and I could tell that we were not clicking anymore than we did in the beginning. He ended up telling me in the backseat of my car that I do not have an attractive body to him. I always thought it was going through 'their' minds at the time, but to be told from my own boyfriend was excruciating... but I believed him. I still stayed with him. I still wanted him and no one was going to tell me what to do. My family and all my friends were telling me I needed to leave him and not let him hurt me the way he did.
I was very hard headed at this point. I was not going to listen to somebody that didn't understand the importance of drugs. I was going to get a fix of any kind to get this "self-hate" feeling at a calm point. The only way to reach that calm point was to get really messed up on a drug and end up crying for hours. I went wild for a little bit; I was getting tattoos, and got my tongue pierced. I felt very alone and I couldn't talk to anyone. The friends that I thought were there, weren't. Some were the friends that I had before I was hanging out with Ethan. For so long I was blaming them for not being there for me and I would pull out the sympathy line, "I thought we were friends?!" All they said back to me was, "So did I." So, I had no one to rely on to make me feel like I really mattered.
Here are some songs that I would listen to when I would go on midnight drives, smoke weed, and take Vicodin by myself:
Stephen Marley- "Hey Baby"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM71RFHRqAs
Lauryn Hill- "Ex-Factor" (Lyrics are below the video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZeUGBDYR5Q
Kings Of Leon- "Use Somebody"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRgFeZa_I48
Keri Hilson- "Energy"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu9jvAUWWto
I was in a dark state of mind. I would get drugs from my "friends" and I would have my own stash of weed in my car. I would go driving all over San Diego at night and would cry, secretly hoping he would call me and tell me to come over. But it rarely happened. I was so deep in the approval seeking journey that I only wanted him, and only him. I worried about how he saw me. He would call me in the morning and tell me to come and keep him company. That was my only natural high I ever got to have; him calling me to come and hang out with him. But to my surprise every time, it was for a ride to hang out and smoke weed with his friends, to go drop something off, or pick something up. He never wanted to do the things I wanted to do with him. We rarely had time to ourselves.
One day, I decided to drift away from calling Ethan and he shows up at my house and wakes me up. He was crying. He told me that he had seen his ex girlfriend the night before. He was having a rough time handling it and he asked me if I would try Heroin with him and I immediately said no to the offer. I knew the reason for him to ask me to try it was because I had a car and I could help him get it. I decided to try it once.
We went to pick it up and we went to his apartment. He set it all up with the foil and everything. I apparently was not smoking it right because he would yell at me for not getting all the smoke into the apparatus that we were using. It tasted horrible. It was the most putrid thing I have ever tasted. After I smoked it, it literally tasted like you licked the bottom of an old used barbecue. I was disgusted. I took about 4 more hits. I didn't feel it til I started walking to his porch to smoke a cigarette and I felt like I was cemented into the chair that I sat in. It was not fun. I felt very nauseous, but didn't want to go throw up or get up for that matter.
A few weeks later I was out with my friend, Denise and we texted Ethan to see what he was doing. He said that he was going to have a "brother's night" with his brother. I felt like he was lying. So, my friend and I wanted to be little bandits for the night and we sat in front of the parking lot of his apartment and waited to see him arrive. We were sitting there for about an hour or so and Denise called Ethan's brother to see what they were doing. He said that they were on their way to Ethan's apartment. She told him to call her when they got there. So, about 20 minutes go by and we see Ethan, his brother, and two chicks get out of a car.
We waited for them to go all the way up to his apartment and she called his brother. He told us that he just got there and she said, "I am here with Adessa and we were coming up." We ran to the stairs and two girls flew out of the apartment like two bats out of Hell. His sister arrives and yells out his exe's name and one of the bats turn around and walks underneath the nearest lamp post. The light confirmed that it was his ex girlfriend. With all the rage that I had built up within about 30 seconds, I stomped up the stairs and saw him drunk on a beanbag chair looking like a deer in headlights and I told him I didn't want to be with him anymore. He begged and pleaded and told me that he didn't want me to break up with him. He knew what face to put on, and he knew what to say to get me to come back....
I stayed with him...for three more days.
He made the one mistake that saved me. He forgot his phone in my car when I dropped him off to go fishing with his friend and he told me that he was going to get a ride home. In his text messages was a clear conversation between him and his ex the other night when I caught them, that it was in every way intentional to hang out with each other and not have a "brother's night." I felt very foolish and I was hurt. When he got home He called my cellphone from his friend's phone and tells me, "I left my phone in your car." I told him I knew and i asked him, "Do you want to be with me?" He replies with no hesitation, "I don't really care if we stay together or not." I said, "Well, now that I know you clearly do not care about me, so I will be over in a little bit with all your stuff that you left at my house." I brought his stuff back to his place. It was over between us.
Even though I was not with him, the feeling towards myself didn't change at all. I was smoking weed all day every day, taking Vicodin while smoking weed and driving. I was still believing what Ethan said to me. I was still hurting over how we broke up.
Here are songs that I would get messed up on drugs and listen to:
Keith Urban- "You'll Think Of Me"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O375yls2Kcs
Safetysuit- "Something I Said"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afLpAf_OhQk
Rihanna- "Take A Bow"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdjGtcTi0sA
Me'Shell Ndegeocello- "Fool Of Me"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaF5_ywDDcg
I hated myself for about a year and a half after him and I broke up. I still did drugs and I ended up sleeping with potential boyfriends for a while, but I never once felt complete. I always went home feeling alone and empty. I felt so alone, that I remembered my childhood friends, church friends, and my family especially. I cried out to God that I finally needed Him back. I literally felt like He said, "I never left you Adessa." I told Him that I was done with what I was putting myself through. I wanted to recognize the girl in the mirror again.
The song that gave me peace from all the chaos within myself came on the radio right after I asked Him for His mercy, it was:
Mercy Me- "Beautiful"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C2o0jHNRuU&feature=related
This one came on right after and I immediately felt like He told me to finally fall onto Him:
David Crowder Band- "How He Loves Us"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80z2txT_f84&feature=related
So, why continue to give up my life and how I live it for someone who hardly gave up his time for me.... and not to the one who gave up his own life for me?
