The Grass Was Not Greener On The Other Side...

So, Where was my daddy?

While I lived with my mother for 13 years, my father also had regular visitation of me. While my dad and I now have a great relationship, it was not always the case. My father also had a drug addiction and sold methamphetamine.

I will state that there was a difference between my mother’s drug problem and my father’s drug problem. My mother was addicted to drugs due to her trying to cope (or not cope) with what had happened to her in her childhood. She used drugs and alcohol to numb the pain and dull the memories. My mother’s side occupation of selling drugs was basically to sustain her own addiction. She sold because she used. My father on the other hand used because he sold. My dad did not have any deep underlying family issues or extremely traumatic situations to struggle through. My dad was simply raised as an Army brat who moved frequently and therefore had trouble making and maintaining friendships with others. When he realized that selling drugs made you popular and created easy friendships- he went with it. Now, if you sell drugs, you have to use them also. Otherwise people would think you were a nark, right? So my dad’s usage came from his frequency in the drug world and slowly took hold of his life before he knew it. It was a very slow and gradual decent into his rock bottom.

“My dad was good at selling…we had classic cars, motorcycles and tons of guns!”

My dad, unlike my mother, was good at the business aspect of selling narcotics. He kept himself fairly low key. I never remember crazy parties or random people coming in and out of my dad’s home. He held the same job for 16 years, rarely ever moved homes, never ran with a gang, did not have tattoos and, for the most part, stayed out of jail. If someone ever needed to be “taken care of” (for owing money or such), my dad had guys who did that for him. My dad spent his “side-job” money on extravagant things. He always had classic cars, tons of custom bikes and lots of guns. We kids always had the newest bicycles, latest toys and he even bought me a dog from Europe one time.

Even though my dad was a functioning drug addict, it was not always the lesser evil of the two options. My dad’s home was full of chaos also- because of his bad choice in women.

After my mom and dad divorced my dad started dating my mom’s best friends, little sister. She was younger than my dad and HOT- according to everyone. Her dad was also the corrupt Chief of Police in the city my dad lived in. Which I think kept the law off my dad’s back. She had a son from a previous marriage and within three years they had two girls together. Finally they decided to get married when I was around five. I don’t think I cared much for her because I’m not smiling in any of the wedding pictures.

After they got married, my dad’s wife drug addiction got really heavy. With a constant available supply it was not long before the using consumed her. My dad tried to cut her down… but if you have ever took meth away from a meth head, you know that it is never good. A meth addict who doesn’t have their meth becomes really angry. Therefore, violence started occurring in the house on a regular basis. My dad’s wife would scream, throw things & attack my dad right in front of us kids. I was the oldest and would often grab the other three and take them outside when the fights would start. One time she came after my dad with a butcher knife and when the police showed up they took my dad to jail. While he was locked up, she proceeded to sell all of his items so she could get her drug money. (I think my dad hid his money from her).

The chaos in my dad’s home gradually got worse and worse. I had many traumatic experiences there even though I did not live there on a regular basis. I had a very big imagination as a kid…which is not necessarily a bad thing- as long as your big imagination is not fueled by insecurity, fear, anxiety & contributions from your crazy parents!

                   Fear of Freddy…

 While my dad and his wife did drugs my babysitter was often the TV… which may not have been so bad if Sponge Bob-Square Pants was on. But my dad’s wife had an obsession with the movie Nightmare on

Elm Street,

and therefore I was forced to sit and watch the horror movie by myself while the adults entertained themselves. This caused me to have an Extreme fear of the movie and of the dark. Until about a year ago I could not even say the name of the movie and if I even heard someone speak of it I would have nightmares for several nights. I am still not the best in the dark. If I am alone I have to have a light on to sleep.

                        Paranoia…

As my dad’s addiction got worse there was a lot of paranoia. The two of them would always talk about people following us and tapping into our phone lines. I don’t think they knew this affected me but it did. I became very paranoid myself. Even when I was not with them, I would constantly feel like someone was following me. At school lunch time I would sit and look out the big glass windows at the quiet country street outside. As I ate lunch I would watch the cars and sometimes I would think I saw the same car pass by over and over. I would think “They are trying to find me…” I would watch the cars travel behind the bus to make sure none were following me home and as I walked a mile from my bus stop to my house I constantly looked behind me. I would often switch up my routes home. I had three different routes: The street, which had lots of houses, trees and building to hide behind; The lake, which had a very open sandy area where I could see everything around me; and the levee, which had the river on one side and was higher than the street on the other… so I could look down and make sure no one was around me. Sometimes I would not even get off at my bus stop; I would go with my friend, who was the next stop, get off with her, walk to her house, then make her brother row me across the river in their little boat and then I would walk the levee home from there.

                        An unseen world…

At one point in my dad’s wife’s addiction she began to see and hear things. She heard voices in her head telling her to do things. She began to see terrible things also. Any time she climbed onto a chair or stool she would start screaming, saying she saw HELL beneath her. She would also have nightmares and when she awoke she would see a demon sitting on her stomach looking at her. She would scream and cry and get angry very often. With all of this going on, my own paranoia went from thinking there was someone following me to thinking there was something following me. My fear of the dark got worse. I often thought there were things under my bed or watching me from outside my window. Even during the day I would think things were watching me and following me. At this point I was not that young either- I was about 10 or 11. I ended up meeting a girl in school who felt similar to me. Being very frightened and wanting to get rid of the feelings- her and I started exploring ways we could protect ourselves. We tried an Ouija board, which I do not EVER recommend doing! Eventually we ended up messing around with some magic and studying witchcraft. I also did a lot of studying on demons and angels and on the war of the unseen world. I thought in my research and experimentation maybe I could gain some power over what ever I thought was around me. I can say that none of this helped me to feel more safe or secure. In fact, it made things worse and made me more aware of the spiritual world than I ever needed to be.

            “I was an internal mess!”

With all of the insecurity, fear, madness, sickness and violence at my mothers home, coupled with the anxiety, paranoia & fear at my dad’s home- I was an internal mess as a child. I say internal because most of my suffering could not be seen from the outside. On the outside I seemed to cope with the chaos around me very well. I held good grades, I was a nice kid, I listened well to authorities in my life, I was creative and artistic, I held my emotions well, seemed very mature for my age and had a generally liked and attractive personality. The only way my inner struggles manifested themselves on the surface was that I struggled with severe headaches since I was around six. The stress of maintaining an outside wellness, while hiding my inner sickness, would often create hours of pain in the form of a headache.

All of this would contribute to the struggle I would face in my adult life to control my mind and emotions. The battle in my mind would become the wall that would separate me from my God given purpose for so long. But God was still with me… and would eventually teach me how to have peace and eliminate madness.