I've been trying to write a blog for a couple of days now

But I always stop and start over or get distracted. I've been off of opiates for around 2 weeks now. I told my therapist everything about my history of drug use and abuse. He wasn't exactly shocked, but I could tell he was worried about the state of my mind and how suicidal I am. This is weird because I like the sense of being worried about, but I know it's artificial and I don't want people to worry about me. What the fuck, right?

It's kind of like with heroin. Heroin tells me everything in my life is fine and I'm a rockstar and I'm doing what needs to be done, but really I'm mostly sleeping during the day and nodded out in front of this computer at night. If I do decide to go out, I have to be high as shit or at least going to buy drugs, which, for me, is a high in itself. The chase of the drugs for me is almost as good as using the drugs.

I love that shit so much. Scoring. I know there's bullshit that comes with it, but it's like an adventure to me. I live for adventures and experiences of all sorts. I don't have too much shame about getting arrested, using heroin, tripping on LSD or any of those "drug user" stigmas as I am very open with it to almost everyone in my life except for my brother. He's the only one I try to hide my use from and I don't know why. I guess I don't want him to be ashamed of his sister and what she's become, especially since he has no mother or father. He's 23 years old physically, but emotionally and intellectually he's around 14 or 15, possibly less. I've become almost a mother figure to him and I don't want to ruin that for him and have him lose another mother figure. I personally never had a true mother or father figure emotionally nor authoritatively because, when I turned around 15, no one could tell me what to do. I just did whatever the fuck I wanted without much resistance from my parents. I was never "grounded" or punished in any way. My parents were in huge denial about my drug use and up till I was about 15, my grades in school reflected a good student with lots of potential. But I felt stupid and isolated and scared and antisocial and wasn't truly accepted by my peers save for a few close friends not at my school.

It was this emotional isolation and extreme shyness and low self-esteem that make me seek other states of mind and being. There were also a few traumas I suffered during this period that could have attributed to my stereotypically teenage rebellious response to adults and authority, but that's besides the point. I didn't care to try and make friends or socialize outside of the few friends I'd had. I still don't really make too many friends outside of drug buddies and contacts. It's not a terribly bad thing, because sometimes these people become good friends, but we can't help but use when we're around these people, so if either of us wish to get clean, it would be the end of the friendship/contact.

I'm looking for work but I don't seem to be finding anything. I'm probably not looking hard enough or letting my pride get in the way with certain things. I sabotaged myself because I'd found a job in around December (although who knows if I would have been kept past the Christmas season) and just stopped going once again. And once again I self-sabotaged my school work and would get an A in one class and an F or WU in another class for two semesters in a row. So now there are no options for me but to find work instead of relying on my brother and girlfriend. Shit sucks. I suck as a person. I am not present. I might as well not be here. Anything little scam I can pull off or drug-related thing I can do I get really excited about and I am waiting and waiting to relapse as soon as I can.

It's so stupid to throw all of this away but I feel like I will. Currently, I'm pretty fucking stoned. Shit, so that's about it...

I don't know what the fuck to think or say or do.

 

Nobody knows what to think or say or do. We're all just making this up as we go along. It's not just you.

The job market in the US, from what I've heard, is absolutely horrible right now. At this point, a job's a job. Sucks, but the structure that a job would bring to your life would be beneficial to staying sober, even if it's just a part-time service/hospitality gig. A full-time job would, of course, be better; but those are far harder to come by.

A small word of advice: always keep looking for work. Even if you love your job, know what else is out there. School will still be there when you're ready to go back.

 

Thank you, Dave. That is very pragmatic, useful advice.

I'm in a better place mentally now than I have been in a while. Some clarity and serenity have sept their way into my brain as the drugs have sept out... who knew.

I don't feel above doing hospitality type work but I never seem to make an impression on anyone when I do go to interviews. I guess hiring managers can see the flakiness in my character a mile away. I've been talking to some friends and we're trying to start a very tiny business, all legal of course... Maybe it will even go somewhere.

I'm obsessed with getting my degree because I'd be the first to actually get it in my family but I'll have to get over myself for a while.

I just didn't expect to be where I am now at this age... I guess you finally become an adult when you realize that adults don't know what the fuck they're doing, either. No one really has it together, right? Even though it's always seemed that way to me.

 

Yup. Some people are better at pretending than others.

I'd say that you become an adult when you realize that your actions-- every single one of them-- has consequences, and take responsibility for them. By that definition, there are a great many people out there who are physically and legally adults, but are in this regard still children.

 

I am a shitty faker! I hate doing it. I feel like a whore or something. I know it sounds hyperbolic, but it's true. Showing up and just being honest, saying you'd like a job and this seems like a good one and you're a hard worker is the way that I feel like I should approach interviews. Not about how my passion is opening boxes and putting plastic shit on shelves in the middle of the night and how that's all I ever dreamed of doing as a child. Jesus. They want you to make burger flipper your life's work as if it's a trade. There's nothing wrong with doing it for money, but you know there's no one behind a fast food grill or a cash register thinking it's their calling.

Gosh, with your definition of an adult, I suppose it's going to take me a few more years to reach adulthood than I once thought. There's a lot of this Peter Pan shit going on now of people never wanting to grow up. There's stuff in magazines about studies done naming your early-mid twenties as "Adultolescence"... I don't know if I accept that concept or not, because it's a pretty even split between people I know (23-45) who can even come close to fitting your definition of adulthood, myself included.

 

You can still have fun, just recognize that your actions have consequences, and own up to them when they blow up. As they will, on occasion, despite all that you do. It's okay.

Heh, I've met 65 year old shareholders who are well-respected businesspeople (ugh) that are children by my definition. Not in that they still like a carefree life, but rather they never EVER take responsibility for the mess they cause, unless it turns out well in the end. In which case it was all their idea from the start