After Senior Year.

Wednesday: September 6th, 2017

This is a letter to my family:

There is a lot of negative energy in the house right now, and I want you all to fully and completely know why. I am not going to say understand because to be honest I doubt you will, in fact I doubt any of you will actually care. I mean really truly care, not the fake "I'm going to tell you what you want to hear" type of care. You can't fool me, I know you all too well for that. You have to remember you all raised me with all the tricks and all the lies and short cuts.
I have a lot to say to try and tell you everything that has led us to where we are. I wrote it down because frankly you have all turned me into this person who always second guesses what I really want to say. I am selfish, yes, but in this family I was raised to always put the broken ones first and in this process I have found myself broken too.

My grandpa is gone, yes he was your father and I respected that as best as I could while he was here. But he's not here anymore and I'm not a child anymore.

This is just as much about drugs as it is about decency and respect. Am I respectful towards you, no, are you respectful towards me. No.

You see I grew up submissive, the drugs were adult business but I knew about them anyway. See being high makes you do stupid things. I have been mentally and physically abused by multiple people in this family, many who have lived and are living in this house. But let's be real, none of you probably remember. That's what being high does to you.
I'm going to call you out on it because I don't think you will quite comprehend the severity any other way.

My mom and my dad both physically abused while high. I refuse to go into details, but I remember all of it. The first time I ever saw a mans genitals was when my uncle was high and came into mine and my sister's room trying to play a game with us. I won't say which one. Paul, who I know is a sore subject , will never be part of my life again. I was terrified when he got out of prison but I gave him a chance. Why was I terrified? Because he used to lock himself in my room while I was at school and shoot up and watch porn. He was so high, he would use my dirty laundry to release himself into. When he would bring women over and I was in grade school he would ask to use my room practically beg. I grew up with this false concept that I was never allowed to say no.

As I have grown, I've started to learn that I can, so I do. All through high school I got picked up an hour late or more because scoring was more important. Yes I got money out of this, but while in high school was also the first time I wanted to take my life.

By the time I was in third grade I knew what drugs were. It was second nature to see a needle or a pipe in the bathroom and pretend that I didn't. I was in 7th grade when my mom first started taking me with her to score, she would measure it right in front of me. I was 14 when I saw my first overdose. Senior year I thought I had to agree to drive around to steal and score. Sometimes I even paid for it and never got my money back. Three times I almost lost my mom.

You get mad when I wouldn't take you to score in Glendale, I'm 21 in my own vehicle, I'm tired of risking my life and future.

I started to get anxiety in 7th grade, it got worse as I got older. The verbal abuse got worse as well because my anxiety was never real, I was just being a child.
The first time I tried to kill myself was when my mom almost died the second time. I asked her to stop pulling out her breathing tube so that she could get better in time for my graduation. She told me she did not care about me, she told me she did not care if she ever saw me again. On graduation night she was not there.

That summer I took a lot of pills and drank a lot of alcohol, I was ready, but instead I couldn't hold it in and I threw up. I played it off as an accident, I joked around with everybody and told them "I'm gonna tell you I love you, just in case I drink too much and die, just kidding I'll be fine".

I lived with how things were after that very depressed very unhappy doing what I thought I had to to keep everyone happy.

I put up with a lot to get my mom clean last year. Ultimately it was her choice, but I kept the bad influences away, I went every other day, when she asked me never to show my fucking face to her again, I took a break, I did not see her on Christmas. The day before she nearly called security on me. She slapped me and punched me, on my arms. She said "get the fuck away from me salena, I fucking hate you". This is what her withdrawal was like. She doesn't remember it clearly. I remember all of it, but I never told her because it didn't matter. She was clean. I would do it all over again, but only one last time. I would take the pain, one last time.

We would play suduko, and talk during car rides, watch movies together, she would remember them, she wouldn't fall asleep or ask me about something I had just told her about. I'm not stupid.

Earlier this year, I was crying and having an anxiety attack. But tia and my mom kept yelling at me. They said "why the fuck are you crying?" "Are you fucking serious" "I can't fucking believe this shit". They can never understand that being around Paul makes me so uncomfortable that I would rather be dead. That night I almost killed myself. I sat sobbing, I asked God to take me. I grabbed a knife, I sat in the bathroom and cried for an hour working up the courage to do it. I almost did and then I heard Korra cry outside the door. She kept me alive that night. I put the knife back, but I didn't trust myself so I went and asked tia if I could sleep with her. She said yes. I started crying. It took me 37 minutes to work up the courage to ask her. I laid down she asked me if I was okay, I said no. She didn't ask why.

After that day I went to bed nearly every night asking god to take me. I'm still here. Everyday since then has been torture.

I am suicidal. I am aware you all are too. I see it. But you guys don't. I have been an adult for 4 years, I have only begun to be able to make choices of my own unmanipulated by any of you and yet I still cry every time I have to say no. I say no for myself, so I can maybe be strong enough for one more day. Because growing up I was raised to believe this twisted concept that you can't say no to family.

All my life all drugs and family values have been to me are chaos disunity and depression.

So I will say sorry for one thing and one thing only, I'm sorry that I cannot be manipulated anymore and pushed around to please my family. I refuse to be around drugs as well as those who continually aide and abed addicts in the process of slowly killing themselves.

At any rate I will be lucky if I make it to my next birthday.

This is how I feel, this is what is going on in my mind every time before I blow up. I'm not telling any of you for you, I'm telling you for me. For the last 2 months I have needed to say all of this, but as soon as I'd bring any of it up, no matter to who, I'm met with "don't start". I'm tired and saying this is simply part of my recovery. This is why I feel like I so desperately need to move out, and no just getting away won't fix it, but at least maybe I can prolong my life just a bit longer when away from my monsters.