Dear Julia,
A few months had passed, and Dickey started calling me again. I’d go running back to him with my bag of meth. We’d use together, then we’d get in a fight and he would kick me out, back on the streets again. I was homeless at that time, couch-hopping between friends’ houses who were also users. I went days without sleeping, too busy running from my problems to rest.
Once a week, I was allowed a supervised visit with my children. I showed up a couple of times, but further visits were canceled after I missed two. I showed up late once and fell asleep in my car the second time. Spun out on meth as I was, it was easy for me to lose track of time or even what day it was. After days awake, I would pass out cold for hours on end as soon as I sat down. Sometimes I fell asleep on the sidewalk or by the side of a road. Other times, I would be in a kind of meth-induced psychosis. I would hallucinate and talk so fast no one knew what I was saying. Some of the side effects were really weird, and I don’t know whether it was the sleep deprivation or the bath salts that my dealer cut the meth with to stretch it that caused them. My dealer also laced the meth with heroin to make it even more addictive. He was guaranteeing repeat sales by doing that. There’s no way to predict the effects of getting high on so many different chemicals. I looked like I had lost my mind.
As part of DHS requirements, I tried outpatient rehab, but I kept missing the appointments. It was obvious I needed more, so DHS signed me up for inpatient treatment as part of a plan to get my kids back. I never made it there. I only had a week before I left town for rehab, so with the time I had left I was going to use as much as I could. I was terrified. I didn’t know how to get through life sober. How would I cope with pain and disappointment? Would I ever feel happy again? Who would I be without the drugs? Those were the frightening thoughts I had. I wasn’t sure whether I could be fixed. I felt so hopeless.
By this time, I was living with an old family friend named Bill. He had been our landlord when I was a teenager, and my dad did some mechanic work for him. My mom had been in touch with him and asked him to rent me a room at his place because I was homeless. I took his offer. Before I signed up for rehab, I thought this might be my only shot at living in a sober environment and getting clean. I was doing it for my kids and, besides, I had no other options.
As soon as I moved in, Bill started coming onto me. I didn’t know how to take it at first. He made suggestive comments like I was “giving him something good to look at.” As time went on, his advances became more blatant. He wanted to have a sexual relationship with me. I told him no, many times. He claimed he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t have sex with him since I was a drug addict and addicts want to feel good all the time, and sex was the best feeling in the world. It was awful and it embarrassed me tremendously to have all this coming from a man who was a friend of my dad’s. I realized Bill never had good intentions in helping me out. He just wanted to use me.
Bill and I made a deal that if I worked on his property and cooked and cleaned for him, he would give me $100 a week. I’d show up during the day but would eventually leave because I felt so uncomfortable. This place was supposed to be a clean environment to help me get sober, but I continued to use and refused to stay the night.
That wasn’t all that happened between me and Bill, but I’ll tell you about that next time.
Sincerely,
Crystal A.
Crystal A. is currently incarcerated at Oregon’s women’s prison, Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.