Living the Non-Binary Life

9.) Flashbacks

CONTENT WARNING:

Drug use mention

Very severe emotional/mental distress

Alcoholic parent

Self harm mention

YOU HAVE BEEN FOREWARNED. Continue at your own discretion.

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My older brother and sister are/were both drug addicts. My sister is clean, my brother is not.

My older brother had a drug overdose in front of me a few years ago. I can't remember the exact year, but I remember the exact day because it was my uncle Troy's birthday. My mother's sister, whom I've never met, also had her baby boy that same day. 

I remember seeing my older brother on the floor. 

I won't get too far into details because I'm probably already edging toward violating a rule and getting kicked from wattys2018.

But we went home that night and Albert, my mother's boyfriend at the time, (he's amazing, I wish I could visit him some time, but he lives too far away) was pumped to have a fire in memory of uncle Troy, who passed earlier that year. I remember my mother called my father on the phone and spoke to him about what I saw. I remember him asking me if I was okay. 

I thought of Amy's arms around me (my older siblings are half siblings, Amy was their dad's...girlfriend? anyway, she's the mother of their dad's younger two children). I remember rocking back and forth and sobbing in front of the neighbor girl from church that really hated me (I saw her only once after that. She didn't seem to despise me anymore). I told him I was fine. I told myself I was going to have PTSD later on in life because I'd already pushed it down so far.

I found out last year that my brother was already so high when we got to the house, he had no idea I was there. He had no knowledge that I'd seen him writhing on the floor, whiter than anything else I'd ever seen in my life, his eyes lulled back and his lips a dark blue color. He had no knowledge of the nightmares. He didn't realize how many stashed needles and...other contraband...I'd found in my bedroom. He never knew the trauma that is still imprinted into my brain to this day, that I know will forever be there.

My grandmother loves watching detective shows. Don't get me wrong, I like them too. But there was an episode one time. The detective was friends with a recovering addict, and it seemed as if she'd murdered the person from the case he was working. One big loop later, he realized she lied and had actually done the deed. 

He realized something was wrong with how easily she confessed to everything. He looked behind him and saw an empty pill bottle on top of a dusty dresser. By the time he looked back over, she was collapsing back onto the bed. As she was writhing there, I felt this bubble of this isn't right something is wrong right now rise in my chest. It popped to reveal my brothers face in front of me, my mother and sister and his girlfriend at the time screaming about taking turns performing cpr as one of them called the ambulance. 

I got up from the couch and ran into the bathroom with a whimper as I left the living room. Not a second later, I could hear my grandmother fumbling for the remote. "I'm so sorry [birth name] I'm so so sorry, oh my gosh I'm so sorry." I remember willing the bile to return to my stomach, blinking at the ceiling to get the tears back into my eyes. I came back in to see a tamer channel tuned onto the tv.

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The other flashback has more background information. Not nearly enough. There could never be enough, for how can someone document their entire lifetime? ALL of it?