My Life

My Mothers

Alright: first household, my mom's.

Welfare. Food stamps. Housing. All those words pertained to this home. My mother was on disability for back problems and whatever else, so that meant we barley scraped by. Living was month-to-month. Addiction. That's another word I was used to. Only a few weeks ago I had learned that by the time we were about 11 years old, my mom was on enough morphene to kill a horse. She blames it on the doctors. My mother stayed in her room, drinking Dr. Pepper and smoking cigarettes right where she sat. My mother loved us for sure, we were the only bright spots in her life. Or she would say. I also have an older sister, Jordan. She's 7 years older than us and memories of living with her inside my moms house were not very good ones. She hated us, but then again ever since we were born she had to take care of us. A 7 year old little girl washing, feeding, burping two little babies because mother was too tired. I understand why she kept her distance as we grew older. (Don't get me wrong, as of right now we have the best relationship there could be.)

I remember late night wake-ups from Jordan. Saying we're gonna go somewhere fun to go stay. We'd get up and get into some car with her and whoever else came to pick us up. Usually her friend Tammy. But I was always sad that I didn't get to say bye to my mom, her door was always shut and during those late night trips Jordan wouldn't let us open that door.

Didn't know it then, but now I do. It was because my mother was overdosing in that room. After we would leave in the car I'm sure the paramedics would show up. Once Jordan moved out, we weren't sheltered from that anymore. I'm 16 now and I've seen my mom overdose on prescription pills probably around 5+ times in the past two years. (My mom was never addicted to street drugs, as far as I know. Just pills.)

I don't think Jordan actually knows how much we've seen. How many times we've had to take care of her like that. But she really doesn't need to know. She'd just beat herself up about not being there to shield us from it.

The house was always a mess. It was run by two little monsters: myself and my twin sister. My mother never left her room. When she'd come out she'd yell and get mad at us for not cleaning, but then she'd get her food and go back to her room. No punishments. So it was kinda easy to get away with stuff.

The past two years got really bad. Like really bad. The last year we were with her we were receiving food boxes almost every month. Seeing less and less of her. Watching her sleep for days, then wake up and be so angry. All the time. It sucked. All I had was my sister, but even then we were driving each other crazy. "Bitch" was a common term used to call each other.

Once we turned 15 we found out what pot was. Yup, two little stoners. We started hanging out with not okay people. Then by 16 we found real drugs, and cigarettes. Micky dropped out of school for reasons I'll explain later in the last few months of freshman year.

Before I get too much into my life let me explain my fathers side of the spectrum.

Next chapter please!