The Chains Our Minds Create

Point of view changes(I did that on purpose)

I can feel that something is “off” with me lately.

Anger that I haven’t felt since I was a teenager has enhabited my mind, body, and soul for the last couple of weeks. I hate feeling angry and know it’s there for a reason but I don’t like when it consumes me like this. What am I angry about?

Fear has crept its way into my belly and spreads like a virus, my mind creating limitations with the intention to protect me. These limitations have put me in a dark place taking my identity and shoving it into a deep dark crevice inside.

My soul who is me is trapped and claustrophobic. I’ve been here before and the feeling is all too familiar as the walls close in…

I can beat this right? I mean, I’ve done it before.

I cried while thinking about the pains of life and how addiction is only self-medication. I tell myself that I can’t go get a bottle or find pills to take me to a false sense of reality, a blissful place for only a few hours. I know it’s not real and I don’t care.

All I need…is a few hours and then I’ll get right. Only then can I snap out of it and after I feel better I’ll stop. I will have no more. It will help me to face my bank account, my dishes, and my laundry. So much laundry it never stops.

I will need some pills for the next day though. Ok, I’ll only do it for one more day. Besides not only will the pills make me feel good mentally, but they will also help with the aches and pains I already have as I move and bend while cleaning.

Then I have that gathering with the family next week, I’ll be out of pills but if there’s alcohol I can do it. Social situations make me uncomfortable and awkward and I want to feel a little loose, calm my nerves. The negotiations and justifications continue, only…

They are all lies! They are the limitations, the four walls, the fear we choke on. I have had no idea how to tame the storm swirling, kicking up dirt and leaves, inside me. Sometimes the idea comes to me that the mind-altering substances would calm and soothe me. This couldn’t be any more true but, it’s temporary and fades.

When the high is no longer there the storm that never calmed stirs up again only it becomes bigger, fed by emotions that were never examined and let go, slapping on a fresh layer of pain and fear.

It’s a sad and lonely place to be. A journey that leads to emptiness. The fun with booze and pills while at a party or ditching school with a friend did not trap the others as it did you. They went off to college and got jobs and had children and for the most part, are financially stable.

For people like us, we become imprisoned and wrestle with that part of us every day or we choose to surrender and spend our lives doing whatever we can to get high.

After a while, it is no longer a choice but a need. The mind and body require it and it becomes an obsession. It mutates into a paramount necessity that even a sandwich offered is refused or ignored because you need money.

A fix. That’s all. That’s all I need is a fix. Not a sandwich. I need money or I’m going to die of withdrawal. The ache on my skin crawls from head to toe, and it will only get worse as the hours pass.

It feels as though I’ve been punched in the gut as the throbbing ache lay waste to my insides. I haven’t eaten in days, dry heaving as nausea kicks in because I haven’t eaten in days. I’m so tired of living like this!

The shivers begin.

I still suffer and wait for the money to come. The thought of getting a job crosses my mind but no one would hire a junkie like me and I’d have to get clean. There’s no way I’m going through withdrawals!

God, please! Send someone to give me a few bucks! I know you wouldn’t help me to endanger myself but I need mercy. I need freedom from this pain!

A man hands me a ten-dollar bill, “Go get some food and a warm cup of coffee.”

Yeah right. I rise and give my elated thanks and crossing my arms I head to my supplier solace settling within as I take a deep breath. I am mindful of the fact that I will feel better soon and the withdrawals subside slightly just from that one thought.

Meanwhile…

“Do you see her anywhere?” Her father asks as they drive to her usual spot. They haven’t heard from her in a while and need to know she is alive.

Tears rolling down her cheeks her mother shakes her head, “No.”