I hope you are okay.
By: Anonymous
I remember sitting in bed with my friend the day they decided their wisdom teeth still hurt after a week of recovering.
“Hi, can I please get another prescription for my Percocet?” I heard them ask the doctor on the phone.
At this point, they didn’t know they were addicted. It was still just for the pain.
I helped my friend. I made them ramen noodles, put together make-shift ice packets, and watched hours of Friday Night Lights even though I had already seen every season twice.
The next week we were driving to a pizza place nearby. My friend reached in the center console, and to my surprise casually pulled out the Percocet.
“You already almost finished the bottle? It’s been three days?” I asked.
“Yeah, they only gave me 4.”
While my friend walked in to pick up our pizza, I took a look at the bottle. Thirty days worth of Percocet.
A week later. Now two weeks had passed since the teeth were removed. No more face puffiness, no more ice, no more soup.
“How does your mouth feel?”
“I’m in so much pain,” they said as they scarfed down a hamburger from McDonald’s.
I didn’t know where they kept getting the drugs from, because I knew the doctor had refused to prescribe more.
Weed. Percocet. Weed. Percocet. Alcohol. Anger.
This common merry-go-round. My now unrecognizable friend.
Our friendship became draining. I was the only person left in their life. I felt like I was carrying hundreds of pounds of glass on my back, and if I were to let my strength fail me— the glass would shatter to the ground and never recover.
This was toxicity. Our relationship simultaneously in rhythm with their relationship with the drugs.
Time passed.
“You are killing yourself,” I told them this one day.
“Get the fuck out of this house,” they responded.
That was it. That was the end.
Years have passed and I still wonder how you are. I wonder if you ever found happiness outside of the temporary relief a pill brought to you.
Why didn’t I let go of this burden? Because they couldn’t let go of the addiction.
I was terrified. I had made a commitment to helping you. I had mentally signed a contract, but I paid the price for cutting it off before the contract was up.
Irrational behavior, empty bottles, crashed cars, utter denial.
My friend and I cut off ties. It was too much weight on my back. The glass finally shattered. It was not my responsibility to bend over backwards in order to keep them alive.
I believe you are okay now? If you are reading this. My old friend. I couldn’t do it anymore. You must realize the pain that came with holding your life on my shoulders. This was real pain. It wasn’t prescribed. I never faked the tears, I never faked the panic attacks when you would fall asleep and I had trouble waking you up, and I never faked the anger.
I am able to look back on this now, holding no anger or pain towards this individual. It is my hope that they got the help they so desperately needed. It is my hope that their denial didn’t convince them otherwise.
I had another friend. This time it wasn’t drugs or alcohol.
This time it was sex, cheating, lying, and emotional abuse. Every day.
Essays upon essays of “You are fat. You have gained weight. I can’t wait to fuck your friend. I’m going to kill myself if you break up with me.”
I was in a dark hole. Like the one Jim Quillen spent weeks in at Alcatraz. Like the one Buffalo Bill trapped his victims in, who broke their finger nails attempting to get out— only to keep slipping back into the deep hell and fear.
Clarice Starling didn’t come to my rescue. I did it all on my own.
After months of hearing “why are you still with this guy?” “You’re losing yourself.” “This is not forever.”
I climbed out of the hole.
Toxicity comes in many forms. I look at individuals in complete denial about the toxicity they cause to others and to themselves. You can not seriously tell yourself that you are okay. You do have a problem. It is okay to get help. Your life isn’t over yet. It isn’t too late. I hope you become okay. Right now you aren’t.
