Immediately after she left, my roommate got out of the shower and asked me what had happened. How could I tell him about this? My world was spinning out of control. No-one could know about this. I’m not always in fight or flight mode. Too often, I find myself in damage control mode. I needed to fix things before they really got out of control. So, of course, when he asked, “Dude, what was that I just heard? Is she ok? Are you ok?”
I am sure I looked like I had seen a ghost. I was never, ever going to hold another syringe again. I was over that. By the time I had been clean for about a year, I could walk by someone cleaning with vinegar, and getting just a whiff of it would make my stomach turn. See, good heroin smells a lot like vinegar. I hated what that syringe had done to me and my loved ones for so long. How did I find myself using it on the one I wanted to love the most? I was a hero; I wasn’t a villain.
I did the only thing I knew to do. I lied. I said, “Man, I don’t know. You know some things are kind of off with us. She’s just really sad and really mad at me. Things will be ok.” He knew I was lying. My roomie had lived the life just like I had.
I knew he knew that I was lying. This meant I should isolate myself from him. I shouldn’t remember that he genuinely cares for me. I shouldn’t remember my neighbor right across the way who cares for me too, with no judgment. I should go in my room and close the door. Thats what I did.
After being in my room alone for about 35 minutes I got a text from Austin. It was a picture of her in the bathtub with a shirt on and water rising up her body. Her eyes looked dead. Her face looked beautifully broken and sad. The words she sent me were this, “Don’t ever forget for the rest of your life what you’re capable of. Don’t do this to anyone else. Ever. I loved you. Don’t forget those things. Please.”
So many things went through my brain when I saw this. What was I to do? Austin had been a self-harmer for years. She would stop only to fall right back into it. She had some older scars when we first started dating; we had talked about it. I wanted her to know from the beginning I would not judge her for these things. I had cried over and kissed these scars. I remember, as she fell more into depression, her old scars became new cuts; I was heartbroken. Austin wanted to feel something other than what she was feeling. Even if that meant feeling pain. At least, pain was real. Pain from cutting had a reason for being there. The pain inside of her head had no rhyme or reason.
When I received this text, my first thought was she about to cut. Then I remembered, when she cut, she would go on the balcony of her apartment, so she could smoke her blacks and listen to sad music. She was in the bathtub. A lot of women complete suicide in the bathtub. I texted her several times; she did not respond. I wasn’t sure if she was for real about to do this, or if she was just trying to get me to show up. Many times in Austin’s life, people had not shown up, including her family, so she yearned for someone who would. I was not willing to risk her life on the idea of her wanting someone to just show up.
I didn’t talk to my roomate; I didn’t talk to my neighbor friend. I sped to Austin’s; her apartment was about 30 minutes from mine. She did not respond to me the whole time I was on my way. My car was going 75 mph down Lakeland Drive, while my mind went much faster. I finally reached her apartment and sprinted inside.
As I rounded the corner, there was Austin just liked she looked in the picture, she sent. Except, this time her eyes were closed, and the water that was rising up her body was right below her chin. The biggest difference from the picture to now wasn’t her face or where the water was on her body. It was the color of the water. It wasn’t clear; it wasn’t even pink. The water was now a deep red color. She had cut herself deep this time. My mind tried to process this scene for about 5 seconds. Based on my later actions, my brain was not able to do so. The real trauma of the situation started here. Days later this was the scene that came to mind every time I closed my eyes.
I snapped out of the processing and realized I had to do something. I grabbed Austin out of her blood-water and pulled her out of the tub. Even at 109 lbs, dead weight is heavy. Luckily my adrenaline and will to fix the situation carried me. I was covered with water and her blood by this time. I would later throw the shirt I was wearing away. It was ruined, and so I was I.
I put pressure on Austin’s worst cuts and checked her pulse. It was faint but was there. I slapped her face until she finally opened her eyes. I did not want to call 911; they would put a 72 hour hold on her. Austin had tried to hide her current mental and drinking condition from her parents. She had a grade school aged little boy and did not want to lose him. Based on some of the stories she had told me about her child and young-adulthood, I still thought she should have custody of him. I did not want to be the one to rat her out. What if she blamed me? Even though I felt like a villain, what if it came out to the world I was one? We both had too much to lose for that.
She finally opened her eyes and told me that besides the cuts, she also had taken 600 mg of trazodone. This is why she was so sleepy. She had lost plenty of blood, but 500 mg or more of this drug is considered an overdose amount. I learned this, because after she told me, I called a nurse co-worker of mine. He told me that if I had her responding to me, that was good. I should just watch her for the next little while, until she was up and about. This is what I did, and I left a few hours later.
When I arrived home, I was not ok. My whole world was wrecked. What was I going to do? I should have talked to someone about it. I was holding these feelings inside. Where had I gone wrong? I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be the good guy? How did my best intentions turn out like this again? I was the same dude I had I always been. I had been lying to myself this whole time. Hero? Yeah right, I’m the arch villain. Not only do I destroy my life. I destroy other people’s lives as well.
These thoughts were not true, but who was going to tell me this? Me? Nope. I was so lost in my own negative thinking and trauma. A moment of clarity was certainly too much to ask for. Isolated, there was no one to tell me any different. I was drowning inside the ocean that is my brain. The next day, I decided I should go check on Austin.
Within three days of all of this, I no longer needed Kratom. It couldn’t do anything for me. I needed real heroin and real cocaine. This went on for about 8 weeks. I hated life, because I knew this wasn’t life. I had been really living before this all happened. I was but a shade of the man before, and I knew it. After 8 weeks, I knew something had to change. I needed to talk to my advocates: my family and my God. I did. I told them everything; we cried. We knew it was about to be tough. Austin went to rehab, and from what I understand is doing well. We have not spoken since she left. I wasn’t the hero of her story, but I know who is. He’s the hero of mine too.
I was so run down and depressed, I spent almost two weeks in bed. One day I woke up and knew this wasn’t going to get me anywhere in life. I may not have been purposefully killing myself anymore, but I wasn’t living. It was time to do that again. The days were not always fun, but each day I found a little bit of myself I had lost. I didn’t need to be a hero. I just need to be who God made me to be. A man, a man who chases Jesus and life. I’m no villain, but I do need to be rescued, from time to time. My heart of stone has been changed to a heart of flesh. A heart of flesh that can be molded to serve my rescuer and my Lord. Something like this needs to be guarded and protected. Evil is real. It is a real force that has been dispatched to destroy lives and mutilate families.
As a man, I see why evil chases me. I am a great soldier. When I take my eyes off my goal, I can destroy so much. The Enemy knows the opportunity cost of losing me. If I can destroy, then surely that means I am a great builder. He doesn’t want me to build. Before this happened, I was starting to build. He was able to stop that for a short time, and immediately I started destroying. He didn’t want to lose me. The same can be said of every person I know. None of us know our true potential until we stop trying to be the heroes of our stories and start just being who we were made to be. We aren’t heroes or villains. We are humans built in the image of a glorious Creator. This does not mean that sometimes we wont forget who we are, but we have advocates to remind us.
In the Bible, Paul tells us about “The flaming arrows of the enemy”. He didn’t come at me with an ax (a girlfriend who couldn’t get out of bed during daylight hours) and a sword ( a shot of heroin) in the beginning. I would have run from things like that. He found a couple arrows, that would find its way past my shield of faith, a pretty girl, who made me laugh and feel less alone, and a small bottle of kratom to hold me when she wasn’t around. Thankfully, even in defeat, I find victory. I was just continuing to fight a battle that wasn’t mine to fight. I was fighting a battle that my Hero had already won.
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