Progress

To those old enough to remember me before 2016, I was a rather promising member with a lot of good to provide to the community. I was helping with the 3DS and DS scene, sometimes venturing into other parts of the Temp. There wasn’t much to say about me other than just being a knowledgeable and helpful member. I had my ups and downs but there wasn’t much bad to say about me. Then mid-2016 hit and there was a rather slow but concerning shift in my personality and online presence. I started becoming increasingly unstable, argumentative, and even downright mean to others. As time went on, I slowly became more and more irrational until I was finding myself arguing and insulting friends, and members of the staff, and even getting myself warned and suspended. This behavior only started getting worse and worse until one night the staff kicked me from the Filetrip staff, revoked many of my privileges, and eventually suspended me for what was going to be permanent suspension. What the fuck happened? For a long time, I sat with a lot of shame over these events because they were just a small part of a wider series of problems that I was dealing with in my life. Those who read my blog knew I was going through a series of messy life problems. I left a 10-year-long abusive relationship, started another relationship, and lost that relationship in about a year and a half period of time. These events were detailed pretty well but there was a lot left out of those blogs. Some of the blogs detailed my alcoholism and sex work, but they didn’t talk about my painkiller addiction or how much of what was happening was just an excuse to justify one day killing myself.

Painkillers are far too easy a drug to get addicted to and far too easy to get a hold of once you have the right connections. During the tail end of my abusive relationship, I ended up getting my hands on a nice supply of oxycodone. This was something I had been prescribed multiple times in the past and never finished any of the bottles when I was prescribed, so I just happened to have a large amount of them that we had collected over the years. I was also able to get them because of my chronic pain and illness, so it wasn’t hard to get prescribed. This started as just the prescribed amount but increasingly became harder and harder to keep to that prescribed amount. As weeks turned into months, I started becoming more addicted and irrational. It got to a point where I struggled to keep myself present and in the moment. My emotions started becoming increasingly unstable to the point where I was lashing out at everyone around me. I couldn’t keep myself based in reality anymore, everyone was my enemy and everyone was out to hurt me. I couldn’t function without painkillers, I couldn’t think, and I couldn't stay stable. I began going on rampages as my mind slowly degraded to the drugs. My memory slowly faded to the point where most of my time was blurry. I remember some of the good but my hidden struggles were obvious to everyone. They might not have known what was happening but it was obvious I was abusing something. I was slowly killing myself.

When I wasn’t high on painkillers or weed, I was drinking rather heavily. Most people knew I was developing a drinking problem but they didn’t know how bad it truly was. If I wasn’t working, I would be far from sober. Every single day would end with me drinking to the point of completely blacking out in my living room. Sometimes I would find myself able to stumble to my bed, but that normally required a puddle of vomit in my kitchen sink before managing to make my way into my room. Life didn’t feel fine when I was sober because being sober meant sitting in the same apartment that slowly became my isolated chamber. Haunted by flashbacks of my abuse, haunted by the reality I found myself in. Sitting in the same place where I had been abused, sexually assaulted, and now sleeping around to get even a few hours of comfort from another person. I hated the idea of dealing with this sober and alcohol helped curve some of the addictive painkiller cravings. I hated myself and I hated what I had become. I spent so many lonesome nights in a drunken state trying so hard to just fucking die. I was cutting, I was trying to hang myself, I tried overdosing, I was doing everything but failed to commit. I would see a little too much blood and panic would overcome my desire. I would try to kick the chair but the anxiety of knowing I would be hanging there alone kept me from doing so. I would overdose but always end up waking up a few hours later. I don’t know if I couldn’t let myself die or if there was some shred of hope still buried deep in my system. I just didn’t want to die alone though.

I remember one night after taking a mix of painkillers and alcohol, one final attempt to just fucking die. As I was passing out on my couch in a haze, slowly sobbing to myself in the darkness. There was no one else there. Not a single person to hold me, no one to talk to me, there was nothing but the darkness and the sounds of my sobs. I didn’t want to die alone in this apartment, but I was about to. I don’t know how I survived that night but I did and I realized I couldn’t keep doing this anymore. I was either going to need to commit to living or actually kill myself because I couldn’t deal with this pain anymore. I gave myself 1 year to fix this life and that felt like a fair deal. Go completely all in for one year and see how things turn out. Shortly after we moved out of that apart and with our friend and his girlfriend. During that time, I tried my best to stay sober and cut off from substances. Going a few days without drinking or taking any pills was one of the most painful experiences I ever had to go through. I remember feeling like my head was going to explode and feeling so extremely sick. I didn’t tell my friend, I simply locked myself in his basement and tried to tough it out. Occasionally I would take a shot of gin and that kept me from getting too sick. I started smoking weed to help with some of the pain as well. It slowly started getting better, just in time to start a relationship with my friend (who later became my girlfriend and wife) @FatalAryia. I still remember the day I woke up and my stomach and head weren’t hurting as badly. My skin, although still pale as fuck, had a healthier glow to it and didn’t feel like a corpse anymore. I was starting to look and feel alive for the first time in literally years. There was a clarity to my mind that I don’t ever think we’ve felt before or at least don’t remember ever feeling before that time. It was a difficult process but I felt myself slowly losing the craving to drink or touch painkillers again, progressively becoming easier to stay sober. That one-year promise got pushed back another year.

Another year went by and I realized that I didn’t want to die anymore. I realized the damage had already been done and that there was so much to clean, something I came to accept. I realized that my health was questionable, and my immune system was pretty bad, but I became willing to deal with these issues. I didn’t want to die anymore, I just wanted to be happy. I am a lot happier now and a lot closer to understanding what’s wrong with my health. Giving myself that one extra year and committing to that changed everything. I faced some of the scariest and most painful experiences, almost completely alone. But I also started bringing more people into my life, which helped ease much of the fear and pain. I am sorry for what I had done in the past, so much of it was shitty and unacceptable of me. At the same time, I am happy I was able to live and learn from those experiences.