This is going to be a hard post to write. The last 2 years of my high school experience is really where everything went downhill. The good news, is that sometime within those last 2 years I made peace with my mom's lifestyle. I blamed her for so long for all my problems, and I finally realized that her choices did not, in fact, have to affect me the way that I had let them. Two years away from my mom was what I really needed to appreciate her. I moved back to Texas, grateful to be with her again, and not angry with her or Nancy anymore. I love my mother more than words can tell, and even if I don't agree with her choices all the time, she is still my mom and nothing she could do or say can change the way I love her.
Mom, if you are reading this, I love you deeply. Those first couple of years were rough, yes, but I would take a bullet for you and given the circumstances, you did a dang good job. All your children turned out to be good people who serve God, and you ought to be proud of yourself. I'm crying as I'm writing this, because the last thing I want to do is bring up feelings of shame and regret, but I think that unfortunately that is part of this process. Once again, I'm sorry if I hurt anyone's feeling.
Back to the story. I go back to Texas with my mom, and my cousin who I hadn't seen in ages comes to visit. So one day, shortly after I moved back, Sharli (my cousin), my long time friend Melissa and I get dropped off at the mall by my mom, and shoplift about $400 worth of clothes. We got caught and got sent to Juvenile Hall. Once again, one of those things that you laugh about later, but seems horrible at the time. I'll never forget the look on my mom's face when she came to get us out. She didn't yell at me or anything, she just looked at me like I was the scum of the earth and I was shamed. I was grounded for a week and had to go to these stupid classes as part of my punishment, but it was just a slap on the wrist and I was like "Whatever!".
In my mom's defense, by that time, she probably couldn't have really controlled me even if she tried really hard. I was hell bent on doing whatever I wanted since I had been under such strict control for 2 years, and if she would have told me I couldn't do something, I would have done it anyway.
That summer I met Don*. I was hanging out with Melissa in front of my house, and Don comes driving by. I had never met this guy before, even though he lived down the street from me my whole life. I was 16 now, and he was 19. He saw me, I saw him and we hung out that day. The next day we slept together, and after that I was his. I was head over heals (or so I thought) for this guy. It was a horribly destructive relationship. A month into it, he cheated on me. I was devastated, but I had a soul tie to this man and I would end up giving him chance after chance. I almost got beat up by the girl he cheated on me with too! But I didn't care. I loved him and was convinced my love could change him. This continued for a year, off and on. He cheated on me time after time, and because I was hurt and wanted to get back at him, I cheated on him. I was very promiscuous during this time, and I hated the way I was acting and I starting doing heavy drugs. I was already smoking weed heavily with Don, and his friends, including my good friend Connie, who I still talk to. I started hanging out with Connie a lot more, and she hung out with people who did harder drugs, like Cocaine and Meth. I won't speak for her, but I did my fair share of these drugs and she was my road dog. We skipped school to go get high and we got drunk all the time and engaged in all sorts of reckless behavior, driving drunk and going to parties. Don and I were off and on all the time, but I would not let him go! I clung to the hope that he would be with me, and only me, but that was just not going to happen.
My junior year in high school is when I met Diamond. We had a class together and she was beautiful. She had beautiful long hair, she could draw really well and she was just cool. We were paired together for a practice test, and I let her cheat off me. Even though I did stupid things, I was actually pretty smart. Despite all the drugs and skipping school all the time, I kept making mostly A's and B's. We hit it off really well and instantly became best friends. We hung out all the time, and I can't remember ever having so much fun with anyone in my life.
Like I said, Don and I were off and on, and the summer before my senior year, we were on. I was hanging out with Don and Diamond more than anyone else and we were like the 3 Musketeers. We did everything together and I don't know why I didn't see it, but they were getting awfully close. Too close. Around this time, I started having some.... shall we say, issues.
This is always kind of embarrassing... but in a nutshell, I went to the OB/GYN for some worrisome symptoms I had, and guess what? Promiscuity has consequences. I was diagnosed with 3 STDs, one of which was HPV. For those of you who don't know what that is, I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail about it; if you really want to know, you can google it. There is no cure, but honestly, if you are going to have something you can't get rid of, THIS is the one you want lol. I can laugh about it now, and blow it off, because honestly, it's not that big of a deal. As a matter of fact, if you have had sex with someone who is not a virgin, or you yourself are not a virgin, you probably have it. It is a fact that 80% of sexually active people have HPV.
But when you're 17, that is the ABSOLUTE worse news you could ever hear. Not only did I have to digest this information, I had to call my boyfriend and tell him that he needed to get checked out, which was probably the most embarrassing thing I had ever done. He was angry of course, but honestly, he was probably responsible for transmitting at least one of those to me. He broke up with me a couple of days later, which only fed my feelings of rejection and reinforced the lie that no one would ever want me.
This all happened right before I started my senior year in high school. Don was still coming around, and we were still sleeping together every now and then, but then he just suddenly disappeared from my life. The first day of my senior year I found out that he was dating Diamond, and I was crushed.
Not only had I lost my boyfriend, my bestfriend, and contracted an incurable disease, someone decided to tell EVERYONE about it, and before I knew it, there were rumors flying all around school that I had HIV. Its funny how tweaking the truth can hurt someone. Boys wouldn't come near me, and a lot of my friends dropped me like a hot potato.So I started hanging out with Connie and the Crips over in the North Side of Fort Worth. After all that I had been through, I just felt as if I had no worth. No one was ever going to want me for me, so I slept with anyone that would have me, although I was much more careful. I never slept with anyone else without a condom. I did more drugs, mostly cocaine, Xanax and weed.
One night, we were at a party over in the North Side, and I took 2 Xanax bars. One is enough to completely erase your memory, but two will dang near put you in a coma, especially when you mix it with weed and alcohol, which of course I did. Anything to numb the pain of being me. At this particular party, I ended up on a trampoline with a bunch of guys. Like I said, Xanax makes you have blackouts, but I remember to this day looking up at some random guy on top of me, and then looking up again and it was a different guy. These guys had sex with me without my consent, and I never really registered it as a rape, because my self worth was so low. I figured I deserved it since I was so messed up and I put myself in a vulnerable situation. But rape it was, and it makes me sick to think that 2 guys had sex with a mostly unconscious girl while a whole gang of people watched. After that, I stopped hanging out in the North Side. Everywhere I went, people thought I was a whore. And I believed I was.
Some people look fondly back on their senior year as one of the best times of their lives. Me? Not so much. I dropped all my electives and got on an accelerated graduation plan, and was out of there with all my credits and hours made up by February 2005.
*From, this point forward, I will be changing some people's names so I do not get sued. :)
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