Formication and hallucinations - when shit gets real

It's been a while since I posted and for that I apologize.  Have had a lot of changes in my life recently and I also went to spend some time with my family in Colorado.  I will be writing an update soon.  For now here's some harm reduction information on a topic that is very personal for me.  It might not apply to you but it does for a lot of people.  Copy pasted from a comment form on some wiki site...

Speed bugs, picking, and formication

"awesome.  I just wrote like three paragraphs and the stupid site randomly refreshed and deleted it.  AAAARGH.  let me try this again writing in notepad so i don't lose my comment again.  

 I could write a book about this stuff.

I used to have a really bad problem picking my skin when I used drugs.  I was an active heroin addict for 8 years, started doing coke 2 years after the H, then used meth for the first time 5 years in, and had a triple habit shooting heroin and meth every day and also smoking crack for 3 years on and off.  I picked the hell out of my skin the very first time i used meth, I also pulled out so much of my hair that i had a huge bald spot in the back of my head and had to shave all my hair off.  At first it was the meth that made me pick but eventually i would pick whenever I got high on any kind of drug even downers like heroin and benzos.  It's a really terrible cycle.  In addition to picking I was diagnosed with something called 'trichotylomania' which means to pull out your hair.  Picking is sometimes serious enough to be diagnosed as 'dermatilomania' aka pulling / picking at skin compulsively. Dermis = skin, mania = insanity / compulsion. I could spend an entire 24 hours sitting on my floor or standing in front of my mirror picking at my skin or pulling out my hair. It was very common for the sun to come up on me while I sat in the same spot picking, having started doing it the night or even day before. I would pick with my fingernails, tweezers (always had a pair on me and i owned like 20 different pairs), syringes, razor blades, exacto knives, a metal 'skin care tool' that has a hole on one end that you drag across pimples to pop them out, sewing needles, pocket knives, and all sorts of sharp metal things.  Sometimes I would pick so bad it would look like i had road rash on my face from a car accident.  i would also pluck out my eyebrows (every single hair) my arm  and leg hairs and even my pubes.  When I would pull / pluck out hairs it was because they would sometimes have these clear or white 'gel' looking tubes either attached to the hair root or stuck in the pore / follicle itself, these would pop out after i plucked a hair out.  When I picked it was because I saw little white worm looking things and black specks coming out of my pores.  I would collect these 'bugs' / 'parasites' and stick them to pieces of notebook paper as proof of my 'infestation'.  When I got sober I threw out like three whole notebooks full of this crap.  It's a really disgusting and scary habit.  Once I started nothing could stop me, i would only stop when my fingers hurt too much to keep going or my hands would cramp up.  I was terribly ashamed of doing it but I couldn't control myself.  I would do it in front of my friends and even in public, if someone asked me to stop I would get mad and do it more frantically.  Most of the time I honestly believed that there were bugs in my skin and I didn't connect it to the drugs.  I thought I had morgellons, or scabies, or bird mites, or some kind of nanotechnology virus engineered by the government to drive me insane.  My mind would play weird tricks on me while I picked.  i would think i was playing a game that someone had invented to test me and the object was to collect as many 'bugs' as possible in my notebook, or that if i collected enough 'specimens' i would make money off of them somehow, or take them to a doctor and help discover a new disease.  I would often see them moving under my skin or outside of it, sometimes I could feel them biting me or hear them make hissing noises.  Weird crazy SCARY shit that made no sense. 

I once got MRSA so bad from picking that I was told at the ER that i was days away from dying of sepsis.  I had to be held for three days and given tons of oral and IV antibiotics and had to take special showers several times a day.  Staph is common with pickers because it lives under your fingernails.  You could also get cellulitis, blood poisoning, necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating virus) and all kinds of terrible infections. to this day i am covered in scars.  They are the worst on my arms and legs, they have gotten a lot better since I stopped picking obviously but in the right kind of light, when it's cold, or when I get a sun burn you can see that every inch of my arms are covered in overlapping scars.  There are scars from when i cut myself as a teenager, years worth of track marks, abcess scars, and layer upon layer of picking scars.  my nose is always red from times when i picked all of the skin off it trying to get rid of 'blackheads' and 'clogged pores', kids in my hometown sometimes make fun of me by calling me 'Rudolph' which is extremely embarassing.  The scars will never go away, but they do get less and less noticeable as time goes on, thank god.

The stuff that you see happening to your skin is going on for a reason.  One reason is that you are hallucinating.  Meth and other stimulants make you hyper focus on things and make you want to do something repetetive or detail oriented.  They also cause sometimes subtle and sometimes very vivid visual and auditory hallucinations.  I have been locked in my second story apartment and heard dozens of people in the street whispering about me.  i once heard someone climbing the wall outside my window and thought i heard them trying to open my window, I have heard people pounding on my door trying to break it down, I have walked down the street in San Francisco and literally every single person on the street was talking about me.  I have been chased by cars, people on bikes, and worst of all 'shadow people' *shiver* I once pulled a two inch long black worm out of my armpit.  The scary part about that one is that I put the 'worm' in a drawer and it was still there the next day and I showed it to some sober friends and they were freaked out by it and couldn't tell what it was.  Looking back on it i think it was probably a long strip of skin and dried blood, but it came out of my armpit when i was picking, kind of popped out of a hair follicle, when it popped out I was so shocked by how long it was that I screamed and started to cry.  Meth causes psychosis, it is very seriously damaging to your mental functions, it is no joke. So anyways, if you are hyper flocused on your skin, seeing things that are not real on or in your skin, and compelled to do something repetetive; that is the neurotic and insane combination that leads to picking.  There is also formication and delusional parasitosis that occurs when you use stimulants.  

Here are some methods i have found useful to heal and repair skin as much as possible after really bad picking episodes.  First of all it is essential that you wash the skin as much as you can.  It will hurt but you have to do it.  I suggest using 'Hibiclens', this is an anti bacterial soap that really works wonders to prevent and treat skin infections and it is very gentle on the skin, just try not to get it in your eyes!  Pour a decent ammount of hibiclens on a washcloth and gently wash your skin.  Use it instead of body wash in the shower.  When I had MRSA and sepsis Hibiclens is what the doctors had me wash my skin with at the Denver hospital i was staying in.  You can buy hibiclens at Walgreens, duane reed, safeway, etc.  Another product that works really well is called 'Prid', it is a homeopathic 'drawing salve' for abcesses and infections that have pus or bacteria in them.  You put a huge glob of it on the wound and cover it with a non stick gauze pad and tape it up.  I have put Prid on abcesses before, left it under gauze overnight, and in the morning the abcess had drained and was almost completely healed.  I have given a container of Prid to several of my actively using friends and many of them have healed their own abcesses using it.  Prid is really an amazing product and it is one of the essential things I always kept around when i used to pick. Prid and Hibiclens are your first line of defense against serious skin infections, both of these products can be bought at Cvs, walgreens, rite aid, etc.  some holistic products that work really well are cold pressed Neem oil for topical use (it smells bad but works wonders) and Colloidal Silver for topical and oral use.  Many people who suffer from Morgellons swear by Colloidal Silver.  You can get Colloidal Silver at whole foods and gNC but i buy mine online because there are alot of fake and low quality CSilver products out there.  Nutrasilver is a good online version.  Colloidal oatmeal and lavender bath soaks for eczema are great. Tea Tree oil is anti-parasitic and anti bacterial but should not be used in deep open wounds.  You can buy diatomaceous earth 'clay' which is good for topical use on abcesses that have not opened yet or started draining.  the diatomaceous clay works like a drawing salve and will bring the abcess to a head.  For healing I use neutrogeena naturals moisturizer and Aveeno excema therapy lotion.  Bathing or soaking your skin with lavender epsom salts can help reduce itching and irritation but is not good if you have a lot of deep open wounds.  Lavender oils and lotions provide a lot of relief for pain and itching as does Dr. Bronners lavender soap.  Grape seed oil and grape seed capsules are amazing to heal and soothe wounds from picking and to fight infection.  Milk Thistle capsules are good for your skins healing when taken orally once a day.  Grape juice is good to flush the toxins out of your system as is cranberry juice.  Try mixing sea salt and lemon juice and soaking your skin.  Swallowing a clove of garlic like a pill once a day or just eating a lot of garlic in your food will flush toxins out of your system and fight bacterial infections.  Swallowing a pinch of cayenne pepper in water is also good to detoxify your body.  Drink alot of water.  Soak in a warm bath.  Wash your face with a warm wet washcloth and lots of soap, Hibiclens or something for sensitive skin like cetaphil or a kind of soap without harsh dyes and scents in it, then lay on a thick coat of moisturizer and sleep with it on so it can sink into and condition your skin.  Steam and heat will reduce swelling and pain.  Cucumbers laid on the skin will reduce swelling, soothe, and provide relief.  Cut a potato in half and place it over a pimple, bump, ingrown hair, or abcess and it will draw the poison out of your skin.  These are just some methods that I have used and found to be very effective.  Do a search for morgellons and eczema home remedies and you will find a lot of other things that will work for healing wounds caused by picking.

Lastly i just want to say that if you are tired of being at the mercy of your addiction maybe it is time for you to seek help to get sober.  I was about as bad as it gets with my addictions and i am currently in therapy and AA and things are getting better slowly but surely.  It is important to have a support system if you want to get clean and sober, nobody can do it all by themselves.  NA, AA, SMART recovery, and Life ring are all support groups that will help you work towards a drug free life.  Reach out to somebody else who has been through it to hear their experience, strength, and hope.  You can recover, people do it every day, you just have to want it and do whatever it takes to change your life.  I sincerely wish you all the best of luck and happiness no matter what you decide to do moving forward.  Take care of yourselves and try not to hurt yourselves.  Your health is very important and you are worth taking care of, don't let society and stigma about drug use make you feel worthless.  Do some research on harm reduction to learn how to use drugs in a safer and less destructive way.

http://zenithchasing.blogspot.com >>> This is my blog about my recovery if you want to learn more about what i am doing to change my life and try to live without drugs and alcohol and also to heal from the painful events in my past both drug related and not.  If you need someone to talk to please know that i am always here to listen and offer whatever advice that I can.  Good luck, take care, stay strong, and stay blessed. <3"

- Zenith Chasing

Some thoughts on how to heal from rape and sexual assault

So I wasn't sure if I wanted to write about this or not but I'm going to go ahead and do it, because why the hell not?  This is a very important topic that I know many of the people who read this can relate to, and if telling my story can help even one person then it is totally fucking worth it.

I am a sexual assault survivor.  I have been raped multiple times in my life.  Not all of these incidents occurred in relation to my drug seeking or my drug use / drinking, but the some of them had something to do with it.  For this reason and a few others it is very difficult for me to not blame myself for what has happened to me.  You know what assholes say; the first time you are a victim, after that you are a participant... or some other rape culture enforced victim shaming bullshit.  Sometimes when I talk about my experience I feel an intense cognitive dissonance, as if I am talking about something that happened to someone else, I have a hard time connecting emotionally to these experiences.  I sometimes worry that because I am able to relate these events to others and, for the most part, not cry or break down while doing so; that people will not believe me or they will think I am over exaggerating or embellishing the truth.  I also worry that someone will point out the fact that I put myself in many of these situations.  Let me make something abundantly fucking clear.  It does not matter where you are, what you are wearing, whether or not you flirt or are friendly, or what you do leading up to a sexual assault.  If somebody rapes you, it is never your fault.  You should take steps to protect yourself, but ultimately if someone wants to hurt you they will, and if you are attacked that is on your attacker, not you.  Nobody chooses or deserves to be raped.  PERIOD.  Understanding that you put yourself into a precarious situation and taking steps to avoid similar situations in the future is not the same as taking responsibility for the fact that you were attacked.  With that said, I am going to tell you about some of the things that have happened to me.

TRIGGER WARNING: 
Below this text are several personal stories which somewhat graphically depict rape and sexual assault.  You may be triggered by reading these stories.   

When I was about ten or eleven, I had a close friend who was a popular boy in school, I looked up to him and had a big crush on him.  We had been friends for years because our moms were both single parents and they were friends.  He did not talk to me at school because I was very unpopular, but we hung out a lot outside of school.  Eventually our relationship became sexual and we would experiment with each other and play truth or dare and stuff like that.  Being that these were my first sexual experiences, I fell head over heels for this boy and wrongly assumed that he cared about me in the same way.  After all why would he want to kiss me and do other things with me if he didn't like me?  Things progressed and we started to try more and more things with each other.  Once we got past second base, my "friend" (lets call him C) would masturbate in front of me and started asking me for handjobs and blowjobs.  This is when I started to get really uncomfortable and did not want to try any of these things.  C told me one day that he wanted me to be his girlfriend, but only outside of school, and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone.  He started pressuring me to give him HJs and BJs whenever we were alone together.  This is where things took a fucked up turn.  I wasn't allowed to say no.  He would ask me over and over again until I caved.  He would offer to be nice to me and talk to me in front of people at school if I would do sexual favors for him, if I refused he would threaten to 'make my life harder' in school.  It was already pretty fucking hard, so I would acquiesce to his demands out of fear.  I had a public livejournal (I've always been very open about my personal life) and I had posted that I thought I might be bisexual.  He read the post and threatened to out me at school if I didn't play along.  It wasn't long after that that he brought other friends of his into the mix.  Now I had to watch, and help, C and his friend DB masturbate.  He told his other friends that I was a slut and would give them sexual favors if they asked.  His friend DC, who was my next door neighbor, would let himself into my house after school and refuse to leave until I let him feel me up or gave him blowjobs, then he would tell all of his friends that I did it because I was easy.  Boys left used condoms in my mailbox which my mom found and promptly grounded me.  DC invited another ''couple'' over to my house, made me take off my shirt and bra in front of them, and made fun of the stretch marks on my chest from my newly developed breasts.  This shit continued until I moved away from that town in the 8th grade.  Rumors even followed me into high school in Portland because kids talked about me on AIM.
I was terribly conflicted about this shit and very disillusioned.  I had thought that C and the other boys actually liked me, or at least that's what I told myself, and when I finally realized the truth it was a crushing blow to my self esteem.  This framed a lot of my sexual experiences and relationships from then on.  I felt unworthy of attention, and I felt like I did not have the right to say no to a sexual proposition.  I still have a hard time saying no because in a way I feel undeserving of sexual attention and like I should be thankful for any that I receive and do not have the right to refuse.  I also am afraid that I will get hurt or be forced to do it anyways if I object.  I have gotten over the self loathing and feeling of worthlessness that I felt as a little kid to an extent, it was definitely a huge deal when I was younger and I like myself a lot better these days, but attitudes and thoughts like that are very pervasive expecially when you are female and live in a rape culture society.

Flash forward to college.  I was not yet a heroin addict but I was an alcoholic.  I met these ''townie'' punk kids and started hanging out at their house and sleeping over in this kid Bens' room sometimes.  Then one night he started fucking me while I was asleep after I had said no to sex before we went to bed.  Here's what I wrote in my journal at the time:
"i'm all fucked in the head. i just feel stupid. i always walk into the same fucking traps. like i'm not one for victim blaming but really, with myself, i have a hard time not believing i bring this shit on myself. and thats so wrong.
... okay. whatever. so last night i was sleeping in Bens room. we were making out and such and he asked me if i wanted to wait to have sex with him and said he wouldnt be mad. i wanted to but i didn't want to... body versus mind type thing. i told him i wanted to wait and he was like okay and we made out for a while and then went to sleep. the next thing i remember is being half awake and him touching me, then he started fingering me and i was into it but i didnt remember how i woke up. i don't know how long it happened for, but all of the sudden he had his dick in me and i was still like half asleep i think so it took me a second to realize it. i tried to pull away and made an 'errrr' noise like 'no' 'stop' then i pushed him away, but i couldnt say anything. i could not open my mouth and say no or anything. i wasnt sure if i was angry. i've always been like that, its impossible for me to say no, and this shit always fucking happens to me and it's like, i can't defend myself, because as far as their concerned my silence equals consent or moreso the fact that i act like i'm into what theyre doing at first and then it's somehow fair game to escalate shit. i was all 'oh yeah' until he started.. with the having sex with me or whatever... so he probaby thought that it was okay. after i pushed him away i knew i was gonna start bawling so i just started kissing him and didn't stop for a while, all desperate like, trying to make it seem okay for both of us but... mostly for him. like i was still telling him it was okay. trying to convince myself at the same time. i mean, i just woke up to him with his hand on my vag and then he started fingering me and then he just starts fucking me...... ????? i was kind of in shock i guess. then we went back to sleep i think. in the morning they gave me a ride back to campus and i was quiet but i tried to act like nothing had happened.
i walked to my dorm and just went to sleep. i thought about it a little before i fell asleep. i decided not to tell anyone because it would make me look stupid. like, ericas so fucking dumb, what does she expect? she thinks she meets a nice guy who actually likes and respects her then she wakes up and he's got his fucking fingers in her. of course i can't find someone who actually cares about me. i just wanted to prove to all my friends so badly that someone, someone who doesnt even go here, actually liked me. makes me not seem so bad i guess. just didnt want to hear i told you so.
i went and took a final. went back to my dorm and tried to sleep. the fucked up thing is i kept waiting for him to call. i went downtown with L, she went off with JTass and TS and they didnt even bother to invite me and all i wanted was to be around my friends get drunk and pretend nothing happened. but alone in my room or with my room mate just sitting there, and i cant talk to her, i kept thinking about it. was that okay? i mean, what is that, is that sexual assault? what would i think if that happened to one of my friends? i would fucking kill the guy. but i kept thinking i must have brought it on myself. i want to fucking vomit though. i feel like such a stupid slut. what the fuck is wrong with me. am i over reacting to this? probably. i probably am. i just don't know what to think.
someone tell me what to think. / i feel so stupid. how many times has shit like this happened to me? i think this is the worst time, definately, but i always get myself touched and i never say no and i always am so adament about consent but never when it's important and never when it's my consent. / he said he doesnt like to use condoms. he didnt wear one when he did that. i hope i have a fucking disease. i hope he calls me later and tells me he has something so i can be like 'well its not my fault you stuck your fucking dick in me without asking me and without a fucking condom. asshole.' / but whats so confusing is he doesnt seem like an asshole. at first i thought maybe he wasnt totally awake but that doesnt really make sense. / no that doesnt make sense.
anyways i sat in my room, tried to clean but couldnt, took a shower, washed my hair, called kate from elan. i got to talk to her for a little bit before the phone disconnected. they always get disconnected there. i basically just got to tell her what happened. i didnt get to hear her response. i asked her if that was okay and she said 'i dont think so' / just broke down there for a second.
when i cry i sound like my mom used to. when she would lock her door and i would sit in the hall listening to her. feeling vaguely annoyed but also like a fucking monster for drawing those inhuman noises out of her. such deep womanly sobs. like all mothers. i'd imagine. / it hurts so much to cry / my body basically forgot what it feels like / god / i fucking hate this / anyways so i just wanted to hear what kate had to say.. and i couldnt. at least i heard her voice. i love her so much. she ran all my special womens groups for me, since like the second week i got to elan. us girls, we had such a strong connection, we had the most fucked up womens issues, the most fucking pain. and those other girls came in and we didnt know them and then we started talking about other shit to the point where none of us felt like we could bring up our sexual abuse shit, and we just talked about our parents and drugs and going home and i had nowhere to talk about the other shit. so this is what happens. three years of therapy and i fucking go out and get myself fucking molested again. yeaaaah. go me./ i didnt know who else to call. / i already told my mom about this nice guy i met. / and i even told all of you about him / and now i feel so FUCKING STUPID./ of course it's never going to be what i fucking expect. / i am so lonely right now.
i went to Ls room. she was passed out. i walked up to new res but i couldnt move past the parking lot so i sat down on the sidewalk. wanted to look at the stars but i was really high and didnt want campo to stop to talk to me. plus there are street lamps that block out the stars. i changed the laces on my shoes earlier today. sitting on the sidewalk i absentmindedly went to poke the end of the lace through the little metal hole but realized these new laces dont have plastic tips. i almost cried.
reminds me of this time in daycare, i was five or so, cradles and crayons. besides making me sleep on my stomach when i hate it and making me stand in a closet as punishment this is one of my only memories from that place / we had some sort of little festival out back in the playground and i got my face painted. i got a puppy on my cheek. at one point i went into the bathroom and washed it off. the light was off and i just stared at my reflection, realizing i was somehow lesser without my decorations, and i fucking cried. it was something so pure and innocent and i destroyed it. cried for hours. no one could figure out what was wrong with me. i always used to cry over little shit like that. i still do.
i cant wait to get the fuck out of here. / i dont think i'm going to come back. maybe if i get lost in california and just stay there everything will be perfect and epic and shit. / maybe i'll go back to portland. maybe i'll kill myself. boohoo. / god i hope ben doesnt call me when im traveling. / why did i ever go back with him that first night / stupid / fucking slut / i feel like i might dissapear right now. just fade. out. /jesus / this really hurts.
i'm sorry."

How unbelievably fucked up is that?  That is literally how I felt about myself at age 18.  This was maybe six months before I used heroin for the first time in Baltimore.  Things have gotten a lot better just because I am older now and I have learned about feminism and rape culture and have been in therapy and worked through some shit.  I have a better outlook on life and a better opinion of myself.  It made me so sad to read that and to remember what it felt like to be that person.  I was so messed up, no wonder I became a heroin addict, jesus christ.

Another incident that I randomly remembered the other day happened when I was a tweaker and a crackhead while I was homeless in SF a few years ago.  I met a guy randomly who offered to buy me food and dope, no strings attached, and said we could watch a movie in his apartment.  Upstairs I settled in while he went out and bought me a box of KFC and a bag of heroin.  He didn't hit on me or try to make any moves and I figured he was an okay guy who just wanted to help me out.  Many people had helped me in similar ways and expected nothing in return in the past.  He came back and gave me the KFC and dope and also a pill that he said was a generic Xanax.  I took the pill, ate some chicken, and went into the bathroom to shoot my dope.
Things start to get very blurry from that point on.  I remember trying to shoot up and my vision being all fucked up.  I was trying to stand and I fell backwards into the shower and banged my head.  I felt really woozy and tried to open the door to leave the bathroom but I was too weak so I just laid down on the floor.  That is the last thing I remember.
I woke up naked in this guys bed.  I could tell he had raped me while I was passed out. You can feel that kind of thing.  He was sitting on his couch watching TV a few feet from me.  I sat up and started freaking out screaming about my clothes and what day it was and who the fuck was he and what the fuck was that pill and where was the shot of dope I had left in the bathroom.  I grabbed his phone and that's when I found out that at least 24 hours had passed.  He told me my clothes were in the laundry.  I grabbed a shirt and some boxers of his off the floor and ran out of the room in a panic.  I went downstairs and asked the management to call the police because I had been drugged and raped.
When the police came they took me and the guy into separate rooms and asked us what had happened.  I told the female officer who was questioning me what I remembered.  They got me my clothes and I put them on while we talked.  The female cop then looked me dead in the face and said "Are you absolutely sure you didn't have sex with him so he would buy you food?" I was justifiably enraged by the question and told her so.  She looked at me with amazing cruelty in her eyes and said "Because you are obviously a drug addict, and you shouldn't lie about being raped, those are very serious charges."  I was in complete shock.  I decided not to press charges and when the police told me I was free to go I left.

I have never felt so helpless, degraded, insulted, and violated in my entire life.  Not really by what that man did to me as much as by how that female pig responded to me when I told her what had happened.  Goes to show why so many rapes go unreported in the United States.  It is amazing to me that a woman could treat another woman in such a way.  I still do not know what that pill he gave me was but I do know it was not a fucking generic Xanax.  It's weird that I did not remember this incident until the other day.  I guess I blocked it out of my head because the memory was so painful and enraging it was easier not to think about it.  I'm still feeling that sense of cognitive dissonance, like that couldn't have possibly been me, like it was a dream or a scene in a movie or something I overheard. 

A few months later I experienced my worst sexual assault.  It's sad that I have a hierarchy of rapes and can say that I have been 'badly' raped and 'not so badly' raped.  This incident was really horrible and I am not going to go into full detail because I can't do so without having a flashback or dissasociating.  I also cannot write about what happened again so I am going to paste another livejournal entry here that I wrote about the incident.
"when i was in san francisco last year i got raped. ive been raped before, so i dont know why this incident was so significant and has had such an effect on me, but ive been having flash backs, and in general have been really hurt by it. what happened was when i was living on the streets in sf i met a man in an alleyway. it was a black man probably in his fifties. he was smoking crack. i was dopesick. he offered me a hit and i told him no thanks because i was sick, he said if i came to his house he would get me well and then smoke crack with me. i said yes. when we got to his house he told me i could take a shower.  i did.  halfway through my shower he came into the bathroom and opened the shower door.  i covered myself up, he said "oops" and left.  i was creeped out but very very dopesick and figured i could put up with a little creeping in order to get well.  i went back to his room, he pretended to call his dealer, said it would take an hour for him to bring the dope, then told me to get naked.  i tried to demure my way out of it but he kept asking and then demanded for me to take my clothes off, i said no and got up and tried to leave. he grabbed me and yanked me away from the door, spraining my wrist.  then he choke slammed me against the wall and told me not to try and leave again or he would hurt me. he told me not to make a sound, then he punched me in the face really fucking hard and pulled my  head back by my dreadlocks. i started to cry and beg him to let me go. he took my clothes off and made me lay on the bed. he told me to 'open them legs up ashley' and started rubbing himself against me. he told me he just wanted to do that and wasnt going to put it in. he kept telling me to open my legs up and i kept trying to close them. he choked me up against the wall again and said 'i will fucking hurt you, now open your legs up' kept calling me ashley. he pushed my legs so far apart that i felt like they would pop out of their sockets. then he started raping me. i tried to zone out but he kept talking to me and asking me questions. how much do you weigh. how much does that pussy weigh. open them legs up ashley, all the way. do you like this? i said yes because i thought thats what he wanted to hear. he laughed and said no you dont. he was sadistic about it. going really deep. i was crying from the pain and tried not to but i couldnt stop crying. i stared into his eyes searching for some recognizable sign of humanity there wasnt one. he kept making me kiss him sticking his disgusting tongue in my mouth, when it was finally over he made me sleep next to him naked and held me like i was his girlfriend. he kept me there for three days, never left me alone and held me so tight at night that i couldnt get away, i was dopesick this whole time and he raped me five times. he kept me there with threats telling me even if i got away he would find me and that he and his boys would gang rape me and then chain me up in a warehouse and pimp me out for the rest of my life. i tried my best not to piss him off and also to show him that i was a good person and that he could trust me.  i told him if he let me leave i wouldnt tell anyone what had happened. finally he said i could go to sf with him to buy dope. he took me on a train and held my hand and talked loudly to me as if i was his girlfriend.  people were staring.  it was humiliating.  i was so fucking scared. but when i got off the train i ran and screamed so everyone near me could hear that he had kidnapped me. everyone thought i was crazy and ignored me but i was able to get away. i left sf the next day. since then i have been having flashbacks frequently. i freeze and literally its like im back there and i can see his room and smell him and see his face and sometimes i can feel him raping me. afterwards i break down and cry for hours and hours.  im not making this up its all true. its so disgusting and i feel like he ruined me, like im stained forever, like i can never be loved and no one would ever find me attractive, i feel like everyone can see, like they know. the main reason i want to die is because i feel like ill never get his face out of my head, ill always go back to him being inside of me and the smell of it and i dont want to feel that anymore, it makes me sick, and im crazy because of it. when it all happens again, when im back there suddenly and i can see and hear and smell that place and it starts over again, somehow its not me, like its a movie scene, like its some dumb slut. its not me. maybe thats ashley.maybe that's who she is. its not me, it doesnt feel like me, it cant be me."

I left San Francisco and went to stay with my Dad in Arkansas.  I kicked on his couch and tried to stay clean but I couldn't.  I ended up hitch hiking from his house all the way to New Orleans.  One day I was walking down Franklin street taking pictures of graffiti.  A black guy from the ward came up to me and we started talking about graff spots and such.  He offered to show me a place where the local artists did their pieces.  I agreed to go with him.  He seemed really nice and harmless and I didn't want to be predjudiced by assuming he was dangerous because he was a poor black guy from the 8th ward.  We got to a deserted abandonned warehouse.  We went inside and he showed me some graffiti and stuff.  I went to leave the building but he grabbed me by my arm and started pulling me back inside.  I struggled and screamed.  He reached down and pulled my knife from my waistband and with one arm around my neck pointed the knife at my stomach and pulled me back into the warehouse.  He told me to stop screaming because nobody could hear me and nobody cared either way.  He said "Bitch give me the pussy" and held the knife to my throat.  He said "all you gutter punks keep your knives in the same place." He took loosened his grip and positioned himself in front of me and told me to get on my knees, I started backing away from him, he chased me down and told me to stop playing or he would kill me.  He held the knife pointed at my face and made me give him head then told me to bend over against the wall.  I started talking rapidly telling him he didn't have to do hurt me and that I wouldnt fight back or scream or tell anyone.  I told him I had AIDS and herpes and he didnt want to rape me.  I said I was just telling him because I didn't want to infect him.  He seemed to have a change of heart.  He didn't rape me vaginally.  He made me promise not to tell anyone or call the police.  I swore up and down that I wouldn't.  He told me I could leave but walked behind me holding the knife towards the back of my neck.  As I walked in front of him I knew that at any second he was going to kill me, I knew I was about to die.  I was screaming inside my head, I felt like I was going to go insane and reality was going to shatter and then I was going to be in pain and bleed and die.  We made it out to the street.  He told me to walk ahead of him and he would throw me my knife.  I told him that the least he could do was hand it to me and that I wasn't stupid enough to try and attack him.  I looked him in the eyes and told him I had no hard feelings.  He handed me my knife.  I said thank you.  He said "You know you cool for a white girl."  I smiled and turned and walked away and tried to act normal.  At that point everything felt surreal and I couldn't make heads or tails out of what had happened.  I walked back to Franklin street to the median and saw some friends of mine flying a sign.  I sat down with them and acted like nothing had happened.  We pooled our money together and got a half gallon and drank it.  I bought a bag of dope and shot it.  I didn't tell anyone what happened.  It started to feel unreal.

That situation to me is proof that there is a Higher Power that's got my fucking back.  There is no earthly reason I should have survived that and walked out of that building.  I literally talked my way out of being brutally raped and killed.  I was able to connect with my attacker on some sort of basic human level and show him empathy and compassion and change his mind about raping and murdering me.  God is seriously looking out for me.  I don't know what else to say about that.  It was truly fucking bizzare and weird and terrifying and also amazing and a miracle at the same fucking time.  Another time in New Orleans I was sleeping in my squat and some crackheads came in and this guy tried to get me to suck his dick.  I told him I didn't want to and he said "I don't care what you want that's what I want to do right now."  I jumped out the window and ran away.  I was so fucking lucky.  Just like when I got hit by that semi truck in Elizabeth New Jersey and didn't die.  To me that is proof of a Higher Power.  I have survived all of this shit for a reason.  Hopefully it is to help other people so they do not have to experience the same kind of shit or can at least know that they are not alone by hearing my story.

Some people would say that because in all of these situations I did not fight, scream, and struggle throughout the entire event that It was not rape.  I feel that the fact that I did not do this is what saved my life.  By making the decision to stop fighting and to shut down emotionally instead of struggling I was able to prevent myself further pain and trauma.  If I had reported my attackers to the police and these cases had gone to trial I would likely have been blamed for what happened and my rapists would have received light sentences or been aquitted.  This is a result of victim blaming and the rape culture.  Read more about  victim blaming and rape culture.  The issue should not be 'how not to be raped' but rather 'how not to rape someone.'  It does not matter what happens before a sexual assault, during, or afterwards.  No one chooses to be raped.  It is always the rapists fault, never the victims, because the rapist chose to commit the act of rape whereas the victim simply did whatever was necessary to survive the assault.  Sex without consent equals rape.  Silence is not consent.  Ten "no"s followed by a "maybe" or an "okay sure" or a "whatever" or a period of silence is not consent.  Sex by coercion is also rape.  Rape does not have to be violent.  If you have been the victim of rape whatever the circumstances were please please hear me when I say that it was not your fault.

Having all of this shit in my past is very confusing and hard to reconcile.  Sometimes I have flashbacks or nightmares.  Sometimes these thoughts come up randomly and I shut off emotionally or break down and cry.  It is impossible for me to have sex while sober and even when I used to get high I needed to take on this alternate persona that has little resemblance to myself to make it through the experience without freaking the fuck out.  I am able to talk about these experiences without feeling anything most of the time.  I cannot connect with them emotionally without disassociating. I have a therapist who is a trauma specialist and we talk about these things sometimes.  He says it is normal to not be able to emotionally connect when relating traumatic events, it is a way that our minds protect ourselves from painful memories, he tells me I am strong and I am a survivor and that I possess incredible inner strength.  I don't think so.  Deep down I blame myself for every single one of these experiences.  Rationally I know that I am not to blame, but the urge to blame myself is so deeply ingrained that I am often unable to see the reality of the situation.

I recently made an attempt to hook up with someone while sober and failed miserably.  I did this because the person I was hanging out with expressed interest in me and asked if I wanted to hook up.  I wasn't 100% but did it anyways.  I had an attack of PTSD and had to stop half way.  I shut down and even though I tried to force myself to continue I could not.  I felt deeply ashamed and embarrassed and hated myself for not being able to 'just be normal.'  I also felt afraid that if I tried to leave the situation the person I was hooking up with would hurt or rape me.  This was an irrational fear, the person is a nice guy who would not hurt me in reality, but I could not think straight at the time.  The whole experience was very triggering for me and it took me a few days to recover.  I shared vaguely about the experience in a meeting and also talked to my sponsor about it.  I realized that I am not ready to be sexual, the only time I engage in sexual activity is when I feel somehow obligated to do so, I rarely think about sex or have the urge to have it on my own.  I need to not rush myself and I need to learn how to assert my boundaries without feeling fear or shame.  I have a very long road ahead of me in relation to healing from past sexual abuse.

Here are some articles and websites that have helped me deal with some of these issues that I highly recommend to any victim of sexual violence and assault:

• 12 Things no one told me about sex after rape - Thought Catalog   - An amazing article about how to reclaim your sexuality after being raped and some of the common thoughts and emotions that come up while recovering from an assault.
• How to - Have sex again after being raped - XOJane - The discussion after this article has a lot of personal stories and some great advice for survivors.
• Healing after rape   - A wonderful website with personal stories and advice.
• Examples of victim blaming and shaming - SlutWalk Seattle - Essential reading on rape culture and victim blaming, also information on Slut Walk Seattle, which is an incredibly empowering feminist organization.
• No rape victim, male or female, deserves to be blamed - The Atlantic - Another article on victim blaming and rape culture.
• End rape culture - An excellent blog about rape culture.
• The Puzzle Box - Faerye.net  - An incredible blog post about sexual harassment, consent, and sexual boundaries.

I hope that I have been able to help by sharing my experience and thoughts.  If you didn't get anything from this post and you feel like saying something mean or disparaging I urge you to keep your fucking mouth shut.  On the other hand, If you need someone to talk to as always do not hesitate to contact me either by commenting or using the contact form on the sidebar.  Sometimes the first step towards healing is telling your story or sharing your thoughts.  No matter how fucked up your thoughts are they are normal and I can probably relate.  Please know that I am always here for you.  Stay strong everyone.
<3 Erica

tiny cuts and puncture wounds.

Last night was really hard, but I'm lucky to have a sponsor who really cares about me and is there to help me through times like that.  Hitting two back to back meetings tonight with M and her friend, I really need some hope and inspiration, and I think Ms friend can relate to what I'm going through with my shame and guilt about my past.

Coming back from the clinic today was an interesting bus ride to say the least.  We were a couple blocks from ward 93 when the bus driver refused to let this guy on the bus because he tried to come in the back door without paying.  As the bus started to drive away he was pounding on the doors and started chasing the bus.  Several passengers spoke up, one girl went to the back doors and demanded to be let off, when the driver opened the doors she let the guy on the bus and sat back down.  It became immediately apparent why the driver did not want this particular rider on his bus.  He was obviously on drugs and probably had severe mental issues.  He was talking to himself and fidgeting all over the place, eyes rolling around in his head.  Several riders were obviously uncomfortable, but two people in the back of the bus started yelling to him asking him questions and egging him on.  They asked "what did it to you man?  Was it the coke?  The pills?  That Molly?"  asking what had led him to be in his current state, mocking him.  The guy went to sit by them in the back of the bus and they continued to make fun of him and ask him personal questions, laughing at his nonsensical responses.  At one point I heard the sound of a picture being taken on a phone and heard one of the riders exclaim "That shit's goin' on Instagram!"  Eventually the guy made his way off the bus, followed by the sound of laughter and mocking comments from several riders.  I looked out the window at him as he left, feeling saddened and reminded of how fucked up I used to be.  The whole experience was very jarring.  I wondered how many times I had been mocked by people who witnessed my erratic and insane behavior while high or out of my mind.  Despite my empathy for the man, I couldn't bring myself to say anything in his defense, so I just sadly watched him walk down the street gesticulating wildly and talking to no one in particular.

As I was opening the front door to my building; someone standing behind me (I didn't recognize the voice or look to see who it was,) yelled "Getting off work so soon?  I didn't know sucking dick  was a part time job!"  I quickly shut the door behind me and hurried up the stairs to my apartment, not daring to acknowledge the insult or look to see who had hurled it. Once inside I locked my door and put the chain on, glancing furtively out the peephole to see if I had been followed, paranoia already beginning to set in.  My dog Kali jumped at my ankles and wagged her tail, excited to have me home, I could tell she wanted to go outside but I was afraid for her safety.  There are people in this city who do not have my best interest at heart, I have been attacked and threatened, and people have even threatened to hurt my dog on occasion.  I wouldn't know what to do with myself if something bad happened to Kali.  She is my best friend and I love her more than anything in the world, if she got hurt I am pretty much positive I would relapse, if not do something even more self-destructive.  I reached down to pat her and rub her belly, "In a little while I'll take you out baby, there are some mean people outside right now."  I tried to put the insult out of my mind, but it so directly correlated to what I had been beating myself up over last night, and I found it hard to distract myself from the truth in the statement.  I still have no idea who it was, I'm not sure if I even want to know.  All I know is that I am a different person now and am trying to put all of that shit behind me so I shouldn't let people who want to drag me back down affect me or my progress.  I just need to keep reminding myself that I am not that person anymore.  Maybe some day I will even believe it.

More later.  Thank you for reading.  As always, if you need some support or someone to talk to please do not hesitate to contact me using the contact form on this page or by leaving a comment on any one of my posts.  Take care and stay strong.

scars on my soul

 Update: After writing this I texted my sponsor assuming she was asleep.  She called me right away, I told her what I was going through and how I was starting to feel hopeless and she helped me put things in perspective.  I need to try and pace myself instead of trying to fix everything right away.  I'm only on my first step.  She assured me that as I continue to work the program I will work on all of this shit in depth and that once I define and turn my life over to my higher power I will feel a lot of relief.  She also told me that on my fourth step I can work on the resentments I have towards myself as well as other people and situations and that my on my fifth step she will help me prioritize my shit and figure out where to start with healing myself and my life. I am really starting to trust her and am very thankful that she approached me at my first SF meeting and offered her help, I don't think I could do this without her support. I am going to try and hit an early meeting after I go to the clinic and then I'm going to two meetings at night with my sponsor and my grand-sponsor.  This goes back to the issue of blind faith, something I have never had because I always over analyze shit and quit before I even start to try.  I know I'm really fucked up but I'm not the only one and I'm not the worst addict that ever lived.  If people like me and people who have been through and done worse shit then me can recover, then I can too, I just need to have some faith.  I thought about deleting this but then I reminded myself that I am not alone in my pain and that it might help someone else to see it and know that they are not the only one who has been fucked up.

Continuing to work on my first step, it's a lot harder then I expected to actually write this shit down.  If you are easily triggered by descriptions of traumatic events, abuse, and drug fueled depravity you might not want to read this.

Times that my life was unmanageable (Continued)

• I have had hepatitis C for seven years now because I knowingly shared needles and took rinses from people who had it.  I didn't care and thought it was no big deal.  My father is dying from liver cancer right now because that is how his hep C progressed.  It is a big fucking deal.
• For five years I continued to drink heavily after testing positive for hep C even after my doctor told me I was destroying my liver and my LFTs reflecting the damage were shown to me.  I only stopped drinking when I started coughing up blood, blacking out randomly after hours of drinking and not getting drunk, and feeling pain in my liver the day after drinking.
• A month after I moved to San Francisco I got beat up and robbed on sixth street because I was there at night smoking crack and shooting dope.
• Several of my good friends have overdosed because of heroin I sold to them, gave them, or shot them up with.  None of them died in these situations because I always carry Narcan kits, but they easily could have.
• I have had dozens of friends die from overdoses, commit suicide, die on the streets, or be killed.
• I have overdosed myself on heroin twice, over amped a couple of times on meth, and twice from shooting coke and crack.  Had I not been with friends I could have died each of these times.
• I have been raped three times as a result of getting high or going on missions to by drugs in dangerous places or with dangerous people.  I have been physically assaulted numerous times.  I would intentionally put myself into situations in which I could get killed or hurt because I wanted to die.
• I was raped, robbed, and almost killed by a man I met while prostituting myself to buy crack and heroin.
• I have prostituted myself for money to buy drugs more times than I am willing to admit to myself and I completely despise myself for it.
• I have literally had psychotic breaks from reality while using drugs, especially when I used to shoot meth / coke and smoke crack.  There have been months at a time where I ran around actively hallucinating people chasing me, would hear everyone around me talking shit about me, and would see faces of my rapists on random people, loudly talk to myself and scream at strangers in the street because I was so thwacked.
• I would constantly pick at my skin or pull out my body hair (especially my eyebrows and arm hair) with tweezers while high.  I could not control the obsession and would spend entire days and nights sitting in the same spot on my floor or standing in front of the mirror picking.  I did this to the point of seriously disfiguring myself and was completely unable to stop myself.
• I have neglected my dog because I was dopesick.  I would lay in bed for days at a time without taking her out just letting her piss and shit on the floor.

As you can see I am a total piece of shit.  I am starting to understand how important this initial step is to my recovery.  I didn't realize how fucked up I was when I was using.  I thought I was a decent, moral person despite my drug use.  I would look down on and judge other drug users.  My life was completely fucking out of control.  I was lying to myself.  I understand the whole concept of giving myself over to a higher power and relinquishing my control, because I have no control over my addiction.  I am lucky to be alive.   I am terrified though that I have scarred my soul with this shit, that there is no way to heal or make amends for a lot of the shit I have put myself and the people I love through.  I am not going to use this as an excuse to feel sorry for myself, an excuse to go back to the way I was, I just have no idea how I can ever be a somewhat normal person given my past.  I'm not sure if I can handle the truth of how much I have destroyed my life.  There's just so much horrible shit, it's a lot easier to put it out of my mind and feel nothing.  Maybe I am getting ahead of myself.  I feel very overwhelmed right now. One day at a time though right?  I'm just going to focus on not using right now, tomorrow is another day.

I am going to pray, go to sleep, and call my sponsor in the morning. Stay strong everyone.  Goodnight.

Methadone is Recovery!

Hey.  I plan on writing a proper update in a little bit, but for now I wanted to share (and hopefully further) a discussion on what I think is a very important topic. I am probably going to talk a lot about Methadone in this blog. Methadone is a central part of my life and my recovery at this time and is also a topic of much debate in the recovery community. I am very interested in facilitating and participating in civil discussions on the topic as well, so please do not hesitate to comment with your opinions and thoughts.  I wanted to post a comment I made on an article I found earlier today.

Tami writes, [...] "I found Methadone & have been sober since 3-21-11. The program saved my life, and I am grateful to be on it. Without it I might be dead! Thank you for reading this, and if you know anyone who struggles with a heroin or pill addiction, please remember this and recommend METHADONE. I have and I have saved a few lives. If you really want to be sober and find a program that works,find the Methadone clinic closest to you and just follow the program. Not only did I get sober, but I learned how to live sober..Getting clean is the easy part.. staying clean..changing your lifestyle..it takes time and the rewards are great."[...]
 
- An excerpt from Methadone Saved My Life by Tami Ash on Addicted To Sobriety , found on @SobrietyAddict

Here's what I wrote in response to Tamis' story.

"Methadone - It works if you work it - Approach with caution and be honest with yourself!
Methadone is not something that should be taken lightly. It's kind of like how in the rooms we say 'it works if you work it', methadone works, but only if it is used as prescribed and taken seriously.  Methadone is a very strong opiate and needs to be regarded as such. 
I have been on methadone twice in my life.  I was a heroin addict first and foremost but I also drank, smoked crack, did meth (and pretty much anything else I could use to destroy my body and my mind) for eight years prior to my current sobriety.  The first time I was on methadone I did not take the program seriously.  I took way too much, raising my dose whenever possible, and also used other drugs including heroin occasionally while on the program.  I drank constantly.  I was not at all serious about recovery and made no attempts to quit using.  I basically just dosed so I wouldn't have to worry about ever being dope sick.  Things have been very different this time around because I have finally realized that I have a serious problem and that I cannot continue to live my life that way.
There are strict rules regarding drug use and mixing drugs / alcohol with methadone at all methadone clinics.  Mixing alcohol with your dose, using opiates with it, or taking benzos (benzodiazapenes - aka anxiety meds like klonopin or zanax)  on top of your dose can be extremely dangerous and can lead to fatal overdoses.  A lot of people drink or take benzos to potentiate the 'downer' effects of methadone. Not only does this defeat the purpose of getting on methadone in the first place, but I really cannot overstate how dangerous it is.  When your clinic tells you not to drink / take benzos, listen to them!  It could save your life to abstain from mixing methadone and illegal drugs / alcohol.
Methadone is not supposed to get you high, if it does you are probably taking too much.  The first time I was on a clinic I got up to 180mgs a day.  Now I am on 48mgs. a day and slowly tapering off of the medication.  Though I have been offered the opportunity to raise my dose many times since I started this new clinic I have refused every time and kept my dose at a high of 50mgs. a day.  This amount of methadone has been enough to prevent physical withdrawals for me and that is why I am on the dose in the first place, taking any more than necessary, to me is the same as using.  It's all about your intent.  If you want to be on methadone to get fucked up or avoid being dope sick while still doing dope or other opiates, don't waste your time.  If you want to be on it to take the first step towards your recovery from opiate addiction, methadone can be a very powerful tool, just please do your research first.
I am currently working the 12 steps in AA.  I have a sponsor.  I told her about being on methadone but I do not openly share this information with other people in the rooms.  Many AA members, even more so with NA, are against drug replacement therapies like methadone and suboxone.  NA has published articles specifically referring to methadone and stating that taking methadone as prescribed by a doctor is synonymous with using in the eyes of the NA program.  AA, to my knowledge, has not published any such articles and they seem to have a more lenient view on the subject.  I personally consider it to be an 'outside issue', like taking meds for depression or bipolar, or taking prescribed pain meds for an injury; thus no ones business but my own and possibly my sponsors.  It's up to you whether or not you want to disclose this to other members of your AA or NA group, just do not be surprised if you encounter some negative viewpoints, stigmatization, or even discrimination.  Worst case scenario, you may be excluded from sharing in NA or even told to leave a particular group, if you share that you are on a methadone program.  I am very lucky to have an exceptionally understanding and kind woman as my AA sponsor, even so I was still very afraid of being rejected or judged by her when I told her I am on methadone.  It is an issue some people in the rooms feel very strongly about.
Personally I do believe that methadone saved my life.  I would not have been able to kick the heroin habit that was destroying every aspect of my life without methadone.  Now that I am also working the steps in Alcoholics Anonymous I feel that I have built a support system for myself that will allow me to safely taper off of methadone without relapsing on heroin. Some people choose to stay on methadone maintenance for years, some people even stay on it for the rest of their lives, still others make the switch to suboxone or get a private doctor to prescribe methadone pills or wafers.  I have my own reasons for wanting to limit my time on the clinic, and I will again urge you to do your research into the side effects of methadone before you start on a program.
Methadone tapers are a very slow process as methadone withdrawal can be dangerous and there is no such thing as a painless taper.  I am taking the process very slowly, dropping a mg. a week, to make the process go as smoothly as possible.  The last time I was on methadone I got kicked out of the program without a medical taper and had to jump off 50mgs. cold turkey.  Even at such a low dose as compared to my high of 180mgs. it was a hellish experience, extremely painful, and it lasted almost two months before I started to experience any relief.  Needless to say, after two weeks of continuous physical withdrawal, I ended up relapsing. My heart was never in it that first time, I have a lot more strength and a support system to rely on now, and I believe that I can effectively taper off of methadone and be 100% clean and drug free without it.  I need to keep in mind however that detoxing off methadone is extremely difficult no matter how long or slow the process. I am doing my best to pace myself this time to prevent relapsing or backsliding in my recovery progress. 
I feel that it is very important to pair methadone treatment with another form of support such as AA / NA meetings or working with a therapist.  I myself am doing all three and it is working out very well for me.  Right now I am experiencing the most success I have ever had in a recovery attempt, I feel genuinely committed to my sobriety and am giving myself the time and space needed to do the steps right.  Having a support system and coping mechanisms to deal with the difficulties of early sobriety is absolutely essential to any addicts recovery.
For eight years, almost constantly (a couple of breaks here and there but no really lasting clean time), I was a homeless junkie.  I was sleeping in alleyways or abandoned buildings, traveling from state to state to escape myself and my many failures, and shooting up in space toilets (sf speak for automated outdoor public bathrooms), crack dens, and public parks. I begged for change, stole from stores, and sold my body to support my ever-increasing, ever more expensive, and ever destructive addiction. I was dirty, rail thin, and covered in track marks and abcesses. I hated myself and was basically killing myself very slowly from day to day. My family and friends had all given up on me and I had all but given up on myself.  It took the understanding that I was going to die from my addiction without ever realizing any of my dreams or goals to get me to admit that I needed help.  I didn't know how to live any other way, I just knew that I could not continue the way I was going, so I had to surrender my life to my higher power (as I understand it) wholly and completely. I had to allow myself to hope for a better life even though I couldn't even imagine what that might look like. Methadone was the first step towards building that better life for myself, joining AA was the next step.
If I can get clean, I know for a fact that anyone can, it's just a matter of seeking out and using the tools that are available to you.  Like I said before, it really does work... if you work it! 
Good luck and God bless to those of you who are still suffering and to all of my friends out there working their recovery."

More later, thanks for reading and please continue the discussion either here or at the original article page if you have anything to add.
PS - I have a twitter account now so feel free to follow me if you are so inclined and I shall return the favor. @Zenith_Chasing

Muni sucks and so does methadone maintenance

Every morning, when I actually go to the methadone clinic that is, I have to take a muni bus.  It's fair to say that the San Francisco muni system is currently the bane of my fucking existence.  To make matters worse the bus I have to take, the 9 san bruno, is arguably the worst bus in the entire muni system.  My friend Crys referrs to this bus as the 'methadone charlie' because of the sheer number of ward 93 patients who ride it each morning.  In addition to meth junkies you will find several elderly can collectors carrying giant trash bags full of filthy cans and bottles, loud, intimidating, crack-dealing gangstas from 16th and mission, filthy crazy homeless folk, and a few normal people trying to survive the bus ride.  I dread getting on this bus every morning, which is why I frequently decide not to go to the clinic. I am still extremely anti-social without heroin as a buffer and it is very hard to hide from people on the bus. The drivers on the 9 do not make the situation any better, several times I have been standing at the bus stop to have these drivers simply refuse to stop, they look me in the eye and speed right past the bus shelter without pausing.  Yes, a lot of people get on the back door without paying, and yes I frequently do this myself because I cannot afford the bus having no source of income.  That is not an excuse for the drivers to refuse to stop altogether.  Here are a couple of things I have witnessed or been personally subjected to whilst riding the 9 san bruno.

Myself and another female methadone patient board the 9 on our way back from ward 93.  The bus is packed.  Towards the back there is one empty seat, but a middle aged black lady is blocking it with her purse.  I glance at the seat and decide not to attempt to sit in it because the lady looks intimidating and I want to avoid a confrontation with her.  The other girl from my clinic apparently has larger cojones than I do and she bravely approaches the seat hogging woman.
GIRL: Excuse me can I please sit there?
LADY: (ignores girl completely)
GIRL: Excuse me Ma'am can you please move your purse so I can sit down?
LADY: (continues to ignore the girl)
GIRL: (raises voice slightly) Excuse me Ma'am can I please have that seat?
LADY: (mumbling) Nah. I don't feel like being crowded.
GIRL: Pardon me!?
LADY: I don't feel like being crowded.
MAN: (sitting next to the seat hoggers' purse) Here hon you can have my seat.
GIRL: Thank you.

WHAT!? You don't feel like being crowded?!  Here's an idea, DON'T GET ON THE FUCKING 9 SAN BRUNO!  Did this woman seriously really think she was so important that she was somehow entitled to TWO seats on a notoriously crowded bus?  Apparently so. Myself and several other riders were noticeably shocked by this scene and this womans' audacious sense of entitlement, but in an effort to avoid a scene, her rudeness went unchallenged.  She rode the rest of her way taking up two whole seats whilst multiple riders struggled to maintain their balance standing all around her. Ridiculous, but displays like this are not uncommon on the 9.  Another example...

I am riding in the back of the 9, the bus is relatively full, an old man sits next to me.  He sits a little too close to me and keeps putting his arm in my lap, I have to push him away several times and move closer to the person on my left to avoid physical contact with this man.  A young mother and her little girl, probably around eight years old, board the back door of the bus and sit a couple of seats ahead of me.  The old man immediately gets up and sits beside them.  I am initially relieved.  
OLD MAN: Hey there little girl.
LITTLE GIRL: Hi.
The mother feigns a smile towards the old man and begins to read a book to her daughter in an effort to distract her.
OLD MAN: (says something nasty to the little girl)
Both mother and child look shocked, mother picks up her daughter and places her in her lap facing the front of the bus, old man continues to stare at the little girl in a creepy, leering way.  The woman directly in front of my leans in towards the old man.
WOMAN: Hey.  You don't talk to little girls that way.
A homeless man across the aisle sees this as an opportunity to get some attention and perhaps make himself look like a knight in shining armor to the other muni riders.
BUM: Yeah what the fuck is wrong with you, are you a child molester?
OLD MAN: NO!
BUM: Yeah you are. Child molester!  You got a dollar child molester?
OLD MAN: Not for you I don't.
BUM: What about five dollars?  Why don't you give me five bucks, child molester?
At this point everyone on the bus rolls their eyes in unison and looks away.  The man sitting closest to the bum starts to get noticeably angry.
MAN: Why don't you shut up?  You're just using what happened as an excuse to beg for change.  Mind your own business.  That little girl can hear everything you're saying.
BUM: I'm just trying to protect the little girl!
MAN: That woman over there and the girls mother did a perfectly good job of protecting her you're just trying to get some money, why don't you just shut up?
The argument continues and escalates, the bum is provoking the man, the man is threatening the bum.
MAN: This isn't even my stop but I'm gonna get off here so I don't crack your fucking skull!
The man exits the bus, once outside he reaches through the open window above the bums seat and attempts to grab the back of his head, the bus speeds off just in time.  
BUM: Jesus what a psycho.

What would we helpless females do without these white knights riding muni?  Clearly the best way to protect little girls is to get into physical altercations with homeless people inches away from them under the guise of protecting their innocence.  Never mind the individual who actually started the incident, everybody hates bums, let's yell at the stinky bums!  Of course the original issue that got completely obfuscated here was the fact that their are perverts constantly in attendance on muni vehicles, perverts who by all appearance have their own houses and showers, making them less easy to spot right away.  I guess it's easier to rail against a more visually apparent 'threat' than to confront those that are less glaring.  Screw you homeless guy!  Gettajob!

I am riding the 9 from my house to the clinic.  I take a seat in the back of the bus.  As I am shifting to make room for someone next to me, I accidentally step on the sneaker of a black guy sitting behind me. 
ME: I'm sorry, that was an accident.
GUY: Psssh.  Yeah sure.  Fuck you bitch.
ME: Are you serious?!  I said I was sorry!
GUY: Yeah keep lying bitch, that's all you know how to do anyways.  Why the fuck did you have to sit next to me anyways. Whore.
ME: (stuttering, unsure of what to say) Jesus Christ it was an accident.  Chill out.
GUY: (spits in my hair) Stupid bitch.
I get up and quickly try to move to the front of the bus before I am further assaulted.  On my way I trip over a giant bag of cans that a diminutive asian lady is blocking the entire aisle with.  I fall.  The guy laughs at me from the back of the bus.  The person I fell into gives me a dirty look and shoves me as I try to stand up again.  I quickly find a seat near the driver and try to make myself invisible for the rest of the bus ride.  I am terrified and embarassed.  I wipe the spit from my hair.

As you can see riding muni is not only uncomfortable, it is also dangerous.  The local news is full of stories describing robberies and assaults on muni.  The bus is just chock full of crazies and the city does nothing about it. This is how I begin my day every morning, when I am actually able to get on the bus.  Muni expects me to pay for this bullshit?!  No thanks.  I'm going to keep getting on the back door without paying.  I have more than a few issues with paying to be treated like, and subjected to, the worst of human garbage.  I also cannot currently afford it (LOL.)

In other news, I have been applying for General Assistance this week.  My last appointment, in which my eligibility will be finally decided, is on Tuesday.  I have a feeling I am going to be accepted, so please keep your fingers crossed for me.  This is a big step, I desperately need this financial assistance now that I am no longer (hypothetically) committing crimes to make money.  I have also been referred to a case worker who will help me apply for my SSI.  Though I know I am eligible and most likely need to be on disability, it is a source of conflicted emotions and personal disappointment for me.  It is hard to accept that my mental issues have wreaked such havoc on my life and my potential for success.  It feels like I am giving up on myself and my future.  I would like nothing more than to get and maintain a job and work hard, but my history has shown me that I am most likely incapable of doing so, I may never be able to hold down gainful employment.  That is a very hard pill to swallow.

I have been attending local AA meetings and I got myself a sponsor.  For purposes of this blog I will refer to her as M.  M approached me after a meeting in the Haight and we exchanged phone numbers.  The following day she took me to a meeting and offered to be my sponsor.  I have been to meetings in the past but this is the first time I have had a sponsor.  I have mixed feelings about this added accountability. If I blow her off I feel like a total asshole, this makes it more difficult for me to hide from reality by turning off my phone and pulling the covers over my head in my bed.  I guess this is a good thing.  M is a very nice person and I like the meetings she has taken me to so far.  I still feel very vulnerable and socially awkward.  M assures me that this will get better with time.  I have decided to have some blind faith in the program because I know for a fact that it works.  Theoretically there is no reason that it should not also work for me and I need to stop putting myself in a separate category from everybody else.  This will help me challenge my self-imposed isolation and also add some much needed structure to my sober existence.

I have also decided to detox myself off of methadone.  Going onto the maintenance program I knew that I wanted to be on it for as little time as possible.  The physical effects of methadone are terrifying to me, and I don't like the idea of wearing 'liquid handcuffs' that prevent me from leaving SF.  The last time I was on a clinic I got thrown off the program without a medical taper while I was on 50mgs.  That was the most hellish experience of my fucking life, physcially speaking.  For weeks I was wracked with horrible cramps and spasms.  The pain felt like it was coming from inside of my bones I am not exaggerating when I say that it was excruciating.  I would puke until nothing came up but neon yellow bile.  I would dry heave so much I couldn't breathe.  I got maybe two or three hours of sleep every night, only when I would pass out from the pain and sickness.  I had to move my mattress into the bathroom of my apartment to accommodate my incessant vomiting and diahrrea. (How the fuck do you spell diahrea?)  After three or more weeks of absolute torture, I relapsed.  I cleared out my $3,000 savings account in a matter of months just to feel normal.  I lost my job.  I have never experienced a worse pain in my entire life and hope never to again.  I pray to God that my detox will not be like that this time.  I am going very slowly, right now dropping a milligram a week, in an effort to avoid having to relive that nightmare.  There is no such thing as a painless methadone detox, it is significantly more difficult to kick than heroin.  I feel like I completely fucked myself over by getting back on a program but I know that I never would have stopped shooting dope without it.  NA and AA are very anti methadone.  According the the program, methadone patients are still active users, so I have accrued zero clean time in their eyes.  Because of this I have not yet told my sponsor that I am on a clinic.  I feel like it will soften the blow if I tell her I am currently detoxing.  I am terrified of being alienated from this new community and of being told that I am not clean.  I know that I need to focus on how I feel and define my own sobriety.  It should really be up to me whether or not I am considered clean.  Methadone doesn't get me high and I am on a very low dose. I absolutely do not consider taking methadone the same as shooting heroin, to me, I am no longer using.  I need to be very careful and focus on my needs first and foremost here.  Detoxing too quickly would have catastrophic physical results. Still I am petrified of rejection.

More later. Thanks for reading.