Dear Julia,
Last time, I told you about my mom and dad, and my childhood. Well, that all came to an end when I was 16. I left home and started living on my own. I worked almost full time, so I was able to take care of myself and finish high school. Life was good for a bit. I married my long-term boyfriend when I was 19. I had my first child when I was 20. My husband was a good guy, but he drank – a lot. The emotional and mental abuse eventually became too much for me, so I left him when I was 21.
I was also drinking and having fun (mostly on the weekend), sometimes smoking marijuana, especially now that I was single. I dated a little. I was always attracted to alcoholics. I married my second husband a few years later and had my second child.
During this time, my dad and I reconciled. He quit drinking after I left home. I told him I would have nothing to do with him unless he did so and that he was one step away from losing my mom and sister if he didn’t. It was a struggle for him, but when a doctor diagnosed him with social anxiety and helped him get on medication, he succeeded.
I had some good years with my dad after this. I began to trust him again. My family started to heal. We had good holidays and Sunday night dinners, together, as a family. For the first time in a long time, my dad was there for me. He saw me through some hard times and showed me how to pick up the pieces when I failed and continue on. He encouraged me to go to college and watched my kids so I could do homework. He showed me that it was possible to stand on my own two feet. My father was present at the birth of my first two born children and showed up for every sickness and hospitalization and school production they had. I was able to forgive my father, and I finally got to see the man he was meant to be.
Then he died.
My dad had been struggling to stay sober the last few years of his life. He had become addicted to prescription pain medication and had been to rehab a few times. He died of a heart aneurysm, but I often wonder if the pills made it explode. I tried to revive him that day for 15 minutes until the paramedics arrived, but they determined he had gone instantly.
Around this time, I had also started used pain pills, mostly because they were there. I told myself it was just for recreational use, but pain pills don’t work that way. When dad died, I used them as a means of escaping reality and the pain. Just like him. My family did not have good coping skills and I really had no idea how to deal with this. So, I did the only thing I knew.
I had had problems with depression since I was a teenager, but now the depression deepened, and the anti-depressants didn’t seem to help. I never took them correctly, though. I would take them for a couple weeks and then forget. The pain pills, on the other hand, worked instantly. Right away, I would feel no emotional pain and could easily forget about my circumstances. Although I had forgiven my father while he was still alive, I still had internal damage from the domestic violence, and growing up with an alcoholic, that had not been addressed. I was about to find out that avoiding dealing with my problems would not work forever.
Sincerely,
Crystal
Crystal A. is currently incarcerated at Oregon’s women’s prison, Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.
