TEENAGE ANGST

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTAL HEALTH; SUBSTANCE ABUSE;DEATH

I remember my teenage years felt like a perpetual foggy day in the Pacific Northwest. Everything coated with a grey tint. The underlying tone of a horror movie that is symbolic and depicting of grief. I don’t think there is anything much scarier than losing someone you love. Come to think of it, I think losing someone I love is my biggest fear.

I used to think death itself is what I was most afraid of, but truly it is the seperateness that appears after the end of something. Death is just the end of something, right? Or the beginning of something new.

My first, or closest memory I have of a panic attack was when I was seventeen. I was pregnant with my son, and I had watched a video online that brought up thoughts of death. That was the first time I think I felt I truly had something to lose.

I don’t think I cared if I lived or died for a long time. I began taking pills when I was fourteen, and it was the first time I felt comfort in a long time, if I had ever felt it at all. It was all I cared about. I knew as long as I had these pills I would be fine. I would be able to go through life without this debilitating emotional pain that sat at the very core of who I was. I don’t remember a time where I was not sad.

Every one I knew was doing some sort of drug; Pain pills, anti anxiety, alcohol, weed. Everyone had a vice and now I was one of them. It was fun, until it wasn’t.

I specifically remember being in teenage me’s room, I had taken so many pills that I could barely keep my head up and my eyes open. I had very obviously overdosed. I am lucky to be alive, and I think that’s true about a lot of circumstances that I have been in.

BUT; Here I was seventeen and pregnant and the first time in my life I found fear in death where I used to find comfort.

It’s funny to think back to that now, because I don’t even have a relationship with my son anymore. Part of it is because of addiction, some parts shame. some parts I don’t even know if I ever truly bonded with him. The moment he came into this world I detached in some form more than I ever had before.

Looking at the events now with a clearer and sober head, I think I had developed post partum psychosis. It was scary and I felt so alone. I don’t think the people around me also didn’t know what was going on. I feel like a lot of people looked at me and just saw a dead beat mom addict, they didn’t see a teenager mentally dissolving. Dealing with grown up things far too young. I suppose you could say that about all of my life though.

I have another prevalent memory, or a reconstruction of a time in my life because memories aren’t that reliable, are they? I watched through the blinds as my mom laid herself on the hood of my dad’s car. He had been drinking and from what I assume had gotten into a fight and she was trying to get him not to leave. He drank a lot, they fought a lot, and someone was always leaving.

There are so many memories I have of my dad drinking too much, and his painful filled yells made the house shake and my mom cry. I wonder if he was afraid to die. Now that he is dead, I wonder if he has anything to be afraid of any more.

I almost died once, a near death experience. I had went to the woods to smoke with a guy I knew who rode my bus. His mom took us to the woods at the beginning of our neighborhood, she knew we would be smoking.

I had smoked weed before, and I enjoyed it. I vaguely remember the guy saying that this stuff was strong, but I was prideful and told him I smoked a lot before and it had never been an issue. I grabbed the pipe, and it did look weird but I didn’t think much of it and took a hit.

I looked at him and was like see, it’s nothing. Then everything around me began to spin and move in ways that didn’t make sense. He asked if I was okay, but it just sounded like I was being sung to and I finally hit the ground.

Yellow and orange beings surrounded and ran around me like they were frolicking, my body was in so much pain. Up until this point, I had thought that “seeing the light” was just some bullshit cliche, but I saw it. I know I did.

I suddenly felt peace, peace of the likes I had never known before. I was engulfed in this bright yellow orange light that soon became all around me and then it was me. I began to think of my mother, I could not even conjure up an image of her in my mind. Then I began to think to myself, what is a mother? And the concept of parents seemed to slip out of my grasp. I wasn’t scared, though. It was just something that was happening and it was okay. I didn’t fight it, it just was.

I was, what felt like, slammed back into my body. All of the pain came back ten fold, my breath shot me up and before I knew it I was walking back to my house because I think that’s all I could do. The guy ran behind me the whole time, asking me questions, seeing if I was okay. I couldn’t event talk to him. I even remember the new Hello Kitty converse I had had tore the back of my ankles/heels up so they were bleeding. The walk back to my house was a bit long and I didn’t stop and I didn’t speak the whole time. When I got back inside I ate a pack of pop tarts.

Not too long after that, I was laying on the couch watching ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’ and I suddenly felt detached and unreal from my body. It freaked me out so bad and I ran into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. When I looked into the mirror though, I found myself viewing me from a different perspective. I was in the corner of the bathroom looking down at myself freak out.

Ever since then, I had had moments of being detatched here and there. Sometimes it lasted awhile, other times I snapped back. I don’t think there was a rhyme or reason, or at least there wasn’t one I was aware of.

I wish I could remember the happy things as much as I do the bad, but maybe that’ll have to be a conscious effort I make everyday until it’s more normal than the normal I know now.