I was 25 and living with Dad. I wasn't in the clubs, I was in my room. And the worse my skin got, the more I used.
I got a pedicure each time I promised myself I’d stop doing heroin — which is to say, I got pedicures all summer. Pedicures gave me the false notion that I was about to get it together. I wasn’t functioning well — my brain cells were spent and my serotonin was depleted. Sitting in a chair, despondent, was all I felt like doing.
My acne had taken over any joy in my life at that point and I was having opiate withdrawal, so I’d go to the nail salon in the middle of the day when it was quiet and I could avoid seeing humans. I liked eating the candy from the candy bowl. I took handfuls of Dum Dum pops, peppermints, butterscotch and those strawberry candies with the gooey middle that grandmothers always have. I sat in the massage chair, crunched down on my candies and watched Lifetime movies with subtitles. I pushed buttons on the remote to control the strength of the massage, and I drifted off. I hated myself. I actually hated myself. I never got manicures. They would be too much work, sitting upright and making small talk. Plus, I bite my fingernails down too low for them to be manicured. A disgusting addiction, but in comparison to my other addictions, I let it slide. I have too many battles to fight with myself, so I choose them carefully.
Last June, after one of my pedicures, I left the nail salon and got into the car. I don’t say my car, because I shared it with my dad. I was living with my dad at the time, and we shared everything — the bathroom, food; we even worked together at his music store. The car was an eggplant-colored PT Cruiser. I checked my phone. My mom had left me a voicemail, asking me to go on a hike with her before she left for Costa Rica. I would have rather done anything than go on a hike, but I drove to meet her instead of starting a fight. I was wearing flip-flops because it was a spur of the moment hike and I didn’t want to ruin my pedicure. As we hiked, I couldn’t speak. My jaw was locked. Oh mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Help me, I thought in my head. Help me, mom. Please help me.
My mom knew I was depressed, but she didn’t know why. We sat on a log when we reached the top of the hill. Sometimes all my mother has to do is touch me the right way or say the right sensitive thing, and I’ll tell her anything. She was doing those things, saying, “What is it, Chloe?” but I knew I couldn’t put that burden on her. Tears streamed down my face. She put her arm around me and we sat on a log for a long time. “Wow, did you just get your feet done? They look beautiful,” she said. When we parted ways I told myself that was it. No more heroin. I drove away from the woods in my flip-flops listening to mainstream rap on the radio. The color of the toenail polish I’d chosen was called Cha-Ching Cherry.
To say that my year of heroin and acne was dark would be an understatement. The cycle went like this: The worse my skin got, the more stressed I felt and the more heroin I would buy. The more heroin I snorted, the worse my skin would get and the more stressed I would become. I couldn’t find the source of my sadness, my stress or my acne. Each thing was feeding the other things.
Through adolescence and my teens, my skin was clear. I didn’t have a blemish. I was like Snow White: pale, with soft skin and a round face. My best friend K had the same complexion as me. “Ghost!” the boys would call as we walked by. Because of this, we went tanning after school every day. My skin was fake baked and glowing into my late teens. K and I had the same white skin, but hers may have been whiter than mine — she recently told me it was so white it was blue. We covered up our insecurities with red lipstick and Sun-In. We didn’t know how lucky we were that acne products weren’t part of our regime. I didn’t have Noxema or Pro-active or Retin-A because I did not need them. Until I did.
I moved to New York City at 20 — acne-free, but loving drugs. K went away to college. Around 22 or 23, I started having benign breakouts. I thought it was a fluke. I thought that I was having a weird week. Then I thought I was having a weird couple months. I went into denial. I wasn’t going to have a problem with acne because I wasn’t a person who got acne. We tell these stories about ourselves. Looking back, if I’d just accepted it, I could have possibly prevented the acne from getting as bad as it did.
I’ve used drugs to numb myself since I was 16. They’ve helped me be there but not really there. When my parents separated, I smoked pot four times a day. When the man I loved didn’t love me back enough, I drank myself silly and snorted cocaine. After my car accident, I fell into the painkiller pothole. And most recently, heroin (and other opiates) helped me cope with my acne problem. Got a bunch of zits? Buy a bag of heroin. Depressed about how you look? Text your drug dealer. What else was there to do?
I read a comment on xoJane once: “Fuck acne! It’s evil. It has literally made me forget who I am as a person.” I get it.
After years of roaming and railing, at 25, I began living with my dad in upstate New York. My dad stood in line at CVS with me after my first dermatologist appointment. I cried. My prescription for Differin was something like 175 dollars. My dad looked scared of my sadness. We went out to breakfast carrying the prescription bags of expensive acne products that wouldn’t work. The place was French, called Le Gamin. There were mirrors on the walls. I sat in the booth, facing away from the mirror. I’d rather swallow nails than look in a mirror. My dad pointed out the mirrors. “I know,” I said. “Why do you think I’m sitting on this side?”
I would not have chosen to have my heroin phase take place while I was living under my father’s roof, but we don’t always decide when certain drugs come into our life. The thing about my heroin experience is that I did heroin when I did the most mundane things. I snorted heroin and went to the Dollar General. I went to Stop & Shop and bought yogurt. I treated my acne. I changed my profile picture. I cleaned my room. I went to bed. I wasn’t out partying. I was home in bed on the computer reading acne forums. When you stay in your bedroom and have heroin, you’re a king. You can be checking your email and be a king while eating an apple.
K graduated college by a thread and moved to the city I was in. We’ve known each other since age 7 — since we swam in the river behind her house and got snake bites. She’s always been the closest thing to a sister I’ll ever have. The kind of friend who calls and you both immediately launch into whom you slept with, how you felt, how depressed you are, what mental illness you think you have. “If I have it — you have it!” we like to yell at each other. “Oh, I don’t have it,” the other will say with a smile. Later, after some drinks or heroin, your friend will come around and say, “You were right before. I have always thought I had histrionic Borderline Personality Disorder.”
