Through The Eyes Of

Fiending

Duff

Nightmares plague my unconsciousness. I don't even like going to sleep anymore because I knew a bad dream would just come and wake me. In my dreams I'm always bound to something while someone savagely rapes me from behind calling me Blondie. I never see a face but I can feel every rip and every tear in my skin as it happens. I can vividly feel every emotion that toiled around in my broken brain. I wake up in a full on panic attack most nights. It's been a long time since I had these stupid panic attacks. I had thought that maybe I had finally out grown them. But no, stress had brought them out with a vengance. Sometimes booze circumvented the shit but it wasn't working as well as it used to, given the current circumstances.

Eventually I have to tell Slash about my anxiety issues. It's hard to fake being ok in the middle of a panic attack. It starts with this sensation of not being able to breathe. Well...you think you can't breathe. Then your brain takes over and pretty much convinces your body that it's telling you the truth. It's strange how powerful the mind can be at times. What starts out as a mental fucking hiccup ends up in real physical manifestations. All the sudden your chest feels like it's going to explode because you've spent the last half hour gulping the biggest breaths of your life and expanded your fucking lungs too far. You take shallow fast breaths and your heart doesn't know if you're exercising or about to tap out.

There's a dozen more things that go on with you but it's the thinking you can't fucking breathe that gets you. Have you ever seen a fish out of water before? It flops and gulps in deep hard breaths? Imagine how that fish must feel and you might get some vague concept of what I'm talking about here. It's like drowning when there is no water; drowning in air your fucking body can't seem to breathe. You just know your death is coming. Heart attack. However the worst thing that can actually happen is that you hyperventilate and pass the fuck out. Then your brain can't fuck with your body and shit returns to normal. When I come to I feel pretty goddamn stupid.

The first time Slash saw me having one he almost took me to a hospital. It took a while to explain. He doesn't really get it. But then no one does until they go through it. But he's supportive. He rubs my back and breathes deeply with me like some about to be father with his woman in labor. He tries to hold me but I can't deal with the confinement in a state like that. I need space. More space than is usually allowed.

As they subside I find myself curled up in a ball nuzzling into to Slash. He works an arm under my head and sleep eventually returns. Sometimes this shit happens more than once a night. But the more they happen the calmer Slash seems to be about it. I know the reason for this is heroin. I started noticing he was hanging out with Izzy more. He always had this tired expression on his face. And he was sleeping a lot more. Then I started to notice track marks popping up.

I guess at first I turned a blind eye to shit. I had so much of my own personal shit going on that I just didn't have the time to address the issue. The week at Nikki's place in San Diego gave me the much needed down time to finally bring it up. Slash and I agreed to work on it, him with the smack and me with the booze, but LA made us eat those fucking words.

I had to drink. It was the only fucking way to try to control the panic attacks. They consumed so much of my time that I couldn't see just how bad my Curly Sue was getting on the shit. Luckily not everyone is like Izzy. If Slash were I may not even know about his using. But how can I say, "Baby you need to lay off", as I gulp down an entire bottle of Vodka by myself? From being around Axl and Izzy I already know nagging is going to do no good. I know threats and shit isn't what he needs. But I can't watch someone else I love die in my fucking arms behind that shit. Especially not my sweet Curly Sue; I fucking need him to live. If he's not here I don't want to live either. I really needed to pull my own head out of my ass and step up to the plate for him. He needed me just as much as I did him.