I guess you could say my entire 20's was a miserable uphill battle.  From my first drink I was a blackout drinker. Drinking 8 bottles of malt liquor  for my first blackout. I loved the effects, it made me feel numb. At this point in my life my chronic pain hadn't fully blossomed into what it is today but I was in discomfort since I turned 18.  I would drink 12 packs at bonfires, have a few melt downs due to drama in the house I was staying at. 

When I finally turned 21 I really took off for the deep end.  My favorite drink was the Long Island iced tea and I began to drink the highest percentage drinks available. 

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​One day, I forget why, I was having a horrible day. I had drank 2 14% tall boys and after deciding that wasn't enough drove to the local bowling alley and the bar. I had a long island iced tea and a beer. What transpired I have no idea. The next thing I know I was having a full meltdown. Two nurses were talking me down as they overheard the commotion. I black out again until 10PM and bar close when the bartender woke me up and tried to get me a ride home but as he had his back turned I reached over the counter, grabbed my keys, and before he knew what had happened I was in my car peeling out of the parking lot. Thankfully I made it home safely, needless to say I was banned from that bar. 

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My drinking was regular, it started every weekend and then every other day. As things began to fall apart at home me and my boyfriend at the time and our roommates got evicted. We were months behind, losing a battle to bedbugs from the junkyard like conditions. Our roommates went home with their parents and me and Jeff went to my moms. This is where I would go from every other day to every day drinking. I became isolated, angry, and hostile. I was miserable. I hated myself, I hated my mom, I felt so angry and I didn't know why.

 

One night things escalated. Me and jeff had gotten into the biggest fight we ever had. I don't have any recollection of that fight, if I'm going to be honest my memory of this time period is alarmingly blank. It's surreal to look back and see how depression altered my memory, or now lack there of but I remember me and Jeff broke up. We had said it before but this was the first time he got in his car with his dog and drove to a hotel half an hour away. I couldn't stand the pain I was feeling inside. I went to the kitchen drawer and got out a knife. I made 4 slashes at my wrist, very weak slashes, it hardly broke my skin. I just couldn't do it. I spent the rest of the night talking to Jeff. I didn't want it to be over. It couldn't be. Jeff agreed to come back. I had punched his windshield so hard it cracked before I stormed down the road to walk it off. He wasn't mad at me, he was scared. He didn't know what was happening and he couldn't help. It was as if I had been possessed by something

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I kept drinking after that night but I did make an effort for a while to control myself. The majority of the time we hid out in my bedroom watching TV, and if we weren't watching TV we were working. I've always had jobs I hated. I went from a dishwasher, to fast food employee, to dish washer again. The dishes killed my back. I developed bad kyphosis in my upper back. At its worst my back at a 18 degrees. I would sneak in alcohol in a gas station refill cup so nobody would know I was drinking. A trick I learned from my boss at a pizza shop I delivered for.​ No matter what I did though I couldn't escape that angry possessed feeling.​

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I had begun socially transitioning. I was always an awkward person, never felt comfortable in my own skin. I never had many friends, always kept to myself but I began to come out of my shell. I made quite a few friends at the Bars we frequented who helped me through the battles with my mom who fought tooth and nail I was her precious little boy. Why did I want to go out looking like this? She had no idea how beautiful I felt when I got dressed up. I felt beautiful for the first time. I never felt handsome. 

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It was fine that I went out to gay bars, and lived my nightlife but any attempt to be feminine during normal hours was criticized. I was to keep it a secret from my family. My mom didn't want me to be around my niece and nephew until she talked to her first. I shot that down and came out to my sister who was okay with it, she wasn't surprised. I kept wanting to come out to my grandparents, Country folk with a history of not caring about other people if they were different but my mom fought so hard. Every time we went over I had to take my nail polish off, lower my voice, pretend I was the happy boy they fantasized me being. 

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I grew miserable. My arguments with my grandparents escalated as I ended up needing more and more support from my mom. I was sick. I was drinking to excess every time I went out and sneaking gas station bags of alcohol into my bedroom to sip throughout the night. Burying the cans in the trash in the wee hours of the morning. I began to hurt. Daily. I stopped talking to my grandparents, I hardly spoke to my mom, and almost every conversation held almost always ended in me getting so angry I'd feel possessed. I'd snap. Go to my room, drink alcohol, play my games, and disassociate. 

 

Then we moved to Evans City PA, into a 3rd floor attic apartment. It was the first chance we had at starting our own life together. The party commenced immediately. There was a beer distributor down the road run by an old coworker of mine, a bar literally a block away. I was spending a hundred dollars in a night at the bar, going home and drinking some more.

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I almost completely shut off communication with everyone. I'd talk to my mom maybe once every couple weeks and that was just to tell her I was still alive. At that point, that's really all I was and I was on a downward slope that nobody could stop. I began drinking nightly, heavily, minimum 6 beers a night. My teeth were rotted out, my face constantly hurt, my back had a 18 degree kyphotic curve in it. I was 30 pounds underweight. I was 23 maybe at the time and I had the physical health of a 65 year old.

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I was a pizza delivery driver. I hated the job, it was in a no tipping area, the manager I worked for started out cool but after getting injured threw more and more responsibility on me, sometimes leaving me to run the store by myself while he rested in the car.

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One day I woke up hungover, so I drank the last two remaining beers. It took that nasty feeling right away. It felt so good I went to the beer distributor down the road, talked up my old coworker and drank 2 more beers. I polished off the last drop, looked at the cooler contemplating a 3rd but decided I best not. I worked at 2 that day. It was 10:00. I went home clearly under the influence. 

 

Jeff was hungry when I got there. We argued between pizza and Chinese. They were right beside each other I could go pick it up when it was done. I wasn't that hungry and I don't like Chinese food so told him to just get that and I'll get a slice at the gas station. 

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I went to the gas station first, struck up a conversation and all the sudden I went in to a black out. Sincerely to this day I just know I bought a whole pizza after having a whole conversation with the staff, got in my car, and drove home. Completely forgetting Jeffs Chinese food completely utterly blacking out the fact that he had even ordered it in the first place. I got home feeling proud that I had gone and got food, I was not expecting the reaction I got which was Jeff, now being banned from the Chinese restaurant, "Where the hell were you, where's my food?" He said hotly, with a hint of concern. My memory goes foggy  here but we ended up eating, and I had to leave for work just coming out of a black out. Jeff texted me I was scaring him while I was on my way. I lied saying I was fine. I just had a panic attack.

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One particularly bad day I did have a panic attack, probably the worst one I've had in my life. They were getting slammed, I came back from a delivery and I was shaking from adrenaline, rushing 3 empty bags to the delivery station and catching the oven that was literally overflowing. Cheesy bread was on the floor, pizzas as well and there were 7 pizzas coming out of the oven about to fall off. I moved as fast as humanly possible, the manager was slamming trays of dough around cursing so loud not caring who heard. I didn't feel right. I finished catching up the oven. Clocked out and went to the beer store. I got the strongest ale I could find and poured it in an xl gas station refil cup.

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For the next 2 hours I drove around crying sipping my ale while my phone blew up interrupting my depression soundtrack to my life playlist  intermitantly. I didn't care. I didn't care about anything anymore. I felt like my world was falling apart around me. I got home and continued having what seemed like this never ending panic attack. Jeff went to a party across the street, our now ex best friend was hosting. I opted to drink alone. I was already having this existential crisis and I don't like crowded rooms full of people I don't know. The panic attack lasted 16 hours. I thought I was going to die thankfully it only ended in me in an alcoholic black out. 

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I spent the next few months unemployed, I was drinking every single night, whole fifths at night, and a 6 pack in the morning just to get rid of the crappy feeling of waking up so dehydrated and achy. My pain grew ever worse at this point. I got a job as an Assistant manager at a gas station. I was a highly functioning alcoholic. Most of the time I'd stay sober at work but on those bad days I'd always have something boozy delivered. Some how I never got caught but I knew deep down what I was doing was wrong.

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Then came the day where I woke up at 6am, I worked at 8 that morning. I was very shaky, My whole body felt off my mind felt cloudy. I ran to the fridge and finished the 3 beers left in the fridge. I let it sink in. I wanted more. It was now 7, the beer distributor would be open soon. I'd just get one more and I'd be fine. Famous last words. All of the sudden as I was getting dressed for work it felt as if all the alcohol I consumed that morning hit me all at once. I was too drunk to work. I realized I went too far. Something snapped in me that morning. I woke up and realized I didn't want to live that way anymore. I needed help and with support of Jeff I was in a room that same day in what would be my first 40 day stay in rehab. 

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I went through the process, I detoxed, which was the worst 5 days I can remember, yet I cant. It's all a fog of clustered emotions and a whirlwind of sensations experienced all at once. I completed the course thinking that was that. I felt substantially better than when I checked in, I learned quite a  bit about myself and what alcohol does. I didn't go to any meetings. I did stay sober, I went back to work at my old job. Sadly life didn't improve. The conditions of the apartment I was living in was still a literal disaster zone. The attic always remained a dark depressing cave and when I got sober, all the friends that I drank with broke ties. I realized they really only liked me for the party I brought and not being around me in a healthy sober environment.

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I hit my first 90 days. We decided to celebrate and go to the steak house down the road. It was here we sat at the bar because Jeffs friend was working it. Before I knew it I had an alcoholic drink ordered saying, "I think I'm fine. I haven't had any cravings, I don't think I really had as big of a problem as we thought." Jeff didn't fight me, and I proceeded to drink a second one, and pick up two tall boys on the way home. It was far less then I ever used to drink but it knocked me on my butt.

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What happened next I can only describe to you is the fastest downward spiral imaginable. In two weeks I had gone from not drinking at all to drinking every night again. Tension was high between me Jeff and our now ex best friend. Then one night everything collided into one giant implosion. Our ex best friend was on one, she had threatened to have our dogs taken away, we were perverts, we were sick for living like we were. Unfortunately that night things did escalate to the police getting called. Twice. As a final farewell she disclosed the drunken affair I had had. Jeff ended the fight with the now neighbor. She wasn't worth the drama. Then things turned to me. ​

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I black out most of what happened next but . I was drinking, Jeff came in slammed the door, grabbed the beer from my hand and poured it down the sink. I snapped. I ended up walking to the house of the person I had the affair with and called my mom begging her to come pick me up. It was 11:30 at night, she hated night driving but she heard the urgency so she came with a mason jar of coffee to take me home.

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I spent the next couple weeks drinking and gaming, I was completely disassociated from reality. I hated life, I hated myself. I hardly talked to mom as I stayed there. I resented everything. I picked some things up from the apartment. It really felt like me and Jeff were done, for real this time. 

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A friend came over to check in on me on 8/3/2022. I was in a rite state. I was hammered. I was ranting, crying, and stumbling. I was not okay. For the 3rd time in my life I felt as if I was at a crossroad . I didn't know what I was going to do next. I broke down again. I admitted I wanted to die. I asked to go to the hospital, I had to get help.  This time at the hospital I was honest. About how much I drank, about why I drank. They gave me medicine to calm me down and my world faded to black. I woke up the next morning 8/4/2022 sober, I had been discharged early that morning, I had a room booked in the same rehab and I was getting dropped off at 2:00.

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I walked through the doors of the same rehab only 100 days after I had been released. I felt humiliated. I didn't know what I had done wrong. I initially didn't need any detox meds, I didn't think the withdrawal was going to be as bad, I had only been binge drinking for a week maybe two this time instead of 6 years. I was very wrong. I didn't go to dinner that night. As everybody returned and we gathered for R&R in the common room everything began to unravel. I was shaking violently, I felt as if I was submerged in an ice bath. I felt sick to my stomach, mentally confused, Someone grabbed me a blanket. I looked at the one person I knew who was with me through my first stay and admitted I wasn't doing good. He helped me to the nurses station.​

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They administered my detox meds and the next few days remained hell. It was far worse than my first stay, my head was in a way worse place, the physical symptoms were debilitating. I remember at one point I just got in the shower turned it on and just cried. The warm water hitting my back as I knelt on the floor and the water ran down my back. It provided me so much relief. The shower was the only thing that helped. I would go in there for 45 minutes to an hour at a time but I didn't care. My whole body felt like I got hit by a car. Every muscle was sore, I don't recall ever feeling this devastated physically, emotionally, and spiritually in my life. I kept asking myself what god would put people on this planet just to suffer. I never got any response but I didn't expect to. I was alone in this. I was always alone.

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As always detox always comes to an end. The worst of the withdrawal was over but nothing felt right. I couldn't seem to make sense of anything, I tried to close my eyes and think and I could almost feel my neurons misfiring. I cant explain it. One of those nights I had a royal bender. I drank more than I've ever drank, I don't know the quantity I just remember waking up feeling weird and robotic. And that robot had some shotty wiring, my brain was very befogged, my whole body was vibrating seemingly with electricity. This feeling to this day has never left. I'm uncoordinated, shaky, and there is a huge disconnect between my brain and my mouth.  As time has gone on I have regained some of that clear thinking however speaking is another issue and seems to have stayed the same or if anything deteriorated even further. I guess it just became the new normal.

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I continued on with meetings, and activities, I got meshed with a therapist who was really a good fit for me, she began to help me make sense of everything. They got me medicated for depression and anxiety and I started to turn a corner after the first week out of detox. I started to realize that I couldn't deny it any longer, I have depression and anxiety, and it was a huge factor in my drinking. Then they gave me extra strength acetaminophen for my pain. My back and body hurt but what hurt worst at that time was the raging infection that had moved into my mouth. My teeth were rotten, at least the remaining bottom ones. The top ones went bad by the time I was 20. Partly genetics but mostly self neglect. One thing that became very apparent as I continue my road to recovery is that I struggle severely to do anything self care.

 

I was feeling better than ever. I had my first visit, And out of the blue Jeff came. He said he didn't care if I wanted him there or not, he had to just see me to know I was okay. We hugged. we cried, I updated him and my mom my progress, how bad detox was, that I never wanted to do this again. I meant it. We sat outside and smoked as we talked, we discussed what was going to change when I got back out. We were not going back to Evans City. We were going to clear out the apartment and move in with mom until we could get on our feet. I agreed. I never wanted to see another bedbug, smell pee, poop, skunked beer soaked carpet. I needed a fresh start. I'm blessed to have had as many chances as I've been given. I've lied to them, cheated on him, stole from her. Spent all the cash she gave us thinking she was helping us pay bills because we were always broke but we were taking it right to the state store, well I was. Jeff also told me that he hadn't had a drink since I went to rehab. If I wasn't able to drink he wouldn't drink in solidarity.

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In the end we all parted ways. Me and Jeff were made up, and we were both feeling a glimmer of hope for a future. I continued going to meetings and my therapist talked me in to trying yoga. I was super scared to go, I've never been comfortable in a room of people especially in exercise clothes. I hated my body. I went through with it anyways and I am so glad I did. It really helped my upper back pain from the first session. There were things I couldn't do but the instructor game me easier alternatives that stretched the same muscle groups. 

 

I tried art, music, going to the gym. There was so much I hadn't done my first time there and it opened up so many new doorways to new hobbies and passions that I could do sober.  Then I found yoga nidra. Night yoga. The most peaceful way to end a hard day of recovery. ​

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I'll break up the seriousness of this story as it's been pretty dark so far, but I'll give you a couple funny memories I have because it wasn't all work and no play. One day we were out back playing basketball for a an hour of outdoor recrcreation and I had started out running around the parking lot. We weren't fenced in but we were monitored by quite a few staff members. After getting the energy out of my system I decided I'd give basketball a try. I was having a blast. I had only been shooting hoops with a few other friends from my wing  and the staff member for about 5 minutes when the staff member through the ball and announced an early end to recreation. We all started grumbling and complaining until we realized what had happened. As the staff member jumped and threw the ball his jeans ripped from the crotch almost all the way down to his knee. It was hilarious. We all went back inside much more light hearted, and he ended up having to change into patient pants and boy did we give him hell for that the rest of the day. Later that day we were telling storys in the common area and I had the first ever laughing fit I had had in years. Uncontrollably belly laughing tears streaming down my face, it was great, I didn't think I could feel that level of humor ever again.

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Things kept going good, I was processing through a bunch of my trauma, and I even opened up my mind to a higher power until the one day came when my world came to a screeching halt. I had forgotten to sign my visitation permission form and I was not going to be allowed to see Jeff and my Mom this week which I was looking forward to so much. I begged and pleaded but it was final. I began to break down. I thought about walking out and walking home. I thought about how bad I let them down. I began to spiral. I stormed out of my therapist office and straight to the nurses station. I felt like my world was collapsing around me. It turns out they were out of my anxiety medication. I ran back to my room. I knew the demon I was about to face was not going to have to be battled without the aid of my medicine. It was time to face the beast.

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I slammed my door shut. My heart throbbed in my chest. I looked over at my bed and saw the pictures of Jeff, Mom, and our puppies on the headboard of my bed and I lost it. It felt as if a nuclear implosion happened inside my head. I grabbed my floofs picture and kissed it. I cried "I'm so sorry buddy! I'm such a fuck up. How could I do this to them. I was the monster I had seen in the mirror when I hit my first rock bottom. This was a new rock bottom, an all time low. I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die. I jumped backwards onto my bed and I cried. I cried and cried and cried. It was like a dam had burst and there was no stopping the endless flow of emotions and thoughts of failure. 

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What happened next is nothing short of a miracle. I prayed. As a self proclaimed agnostic  I prayed to the universe anything that would listen. PLEASE! PLEASE! Save me! I don't want to live like this anymore. I don't want to feel like this. I cant! Please take this pain away."  I begged for forgiveness and suddenly all became still. Out of nowhere a wave of peace washed over me. Something told me it was going to be okay. It was going to be different now. A few final tears dripped down  my face. There was a knock on my door. It was my favorite staff member. She noticed me crying and asked to come in. I let her. We talked for another half hour, she offered a different perspective about what just happened. I was going to be okay. It was also time for dinner. 

 

I didn't feel like dinner. She understood, before she left she convinced me to go to the med station one more time. Maybe they could give something to substitute my anxiety meds or something to take the edge off. I hadn't thought of that in my panic. I went back to the med station, they gave me drowsy benadryl and a medicine to bring my blood pressure down as I was hypertensive.  They sent me back to my room. I was drained from the melt down already my eyes burned. I laid back down in my bed and I slept from 7pm to 8Am the next morning. 

 

When I woke up I felt like a new person, I walked in a new light. I had slept through dinner and night meds, breakfast. My stomach growled. I hadn't eaten since noon the day before. There was a wrapped plate of breakfast food on my table. A gift from the staff member who went above and beyond to make sure we were as comfortable as possible. I devoured it. I went and took my morning meds and began the recovery agenda for the day.

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I began chairing meetings, I was hitting my stride. The next visitation I made sure I got my slip signed and I got to see mom and Jeff again. They noticed the change. I looked like something physical changed as well. I was losing weight, I was 150 pounds at my worst. My normal weight rests at 120 pounds. I was swollen when I went in, and I was also no longer consuming copious amounts of blind calories from alcohol. 150 is not heavy, but for me it was very unhealthy. 

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Then came the insurance nightmare fiasco towards thehalf way point of my stay. Apparantly in my drunken haze I had neglected to fill out my insurance paperwork for my job when I got my promotion and now all of the sudden my stay was about to have to be billed in full to me and my mom. This lead to major panic as phone call after phone call was made and an agreement was made saying that at the time of my promotion I was not in a state of mind to file the paper work. I was granted an extension and they back dated my insurance to my promotion date. I cannot thank my team at the rehab. I was packing my things expecting to leave the next day. We couldn't afford the stay I've already had. I was sure it was over. Thankfully it didn't come to that.

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I finished my stay and got to drive away free once more. This time was different. The first time I didn't change anything. This time, I changed EVERYTHING. I cleared my phone of all the contacts I used to drink with. I submitted my formal resignation at my job, and the day after I got home and settled in, I went to my first ever meeting outside of rehab. I felt so awkard but I related to almost everything the speaker had been through in his lead. I stayed after and thanked him and met a few new people. I left that day with an invitation to a begginers group not that far away friday evening. The kid that invited me was very outgoing, had a bright smile, and I wanted that. 

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Everything was going well. I was still sober a month later, I had begun working on steps, I was advocating for myself and taking better care of my health then ever. I felt I was ready to return to work, if anything to get me out of the house because my mom was driving me insane with politcial rhetoric and disputing my gender identity constantly. I thought things were good, I thought everything was going to be okay. But I wasn't happy.

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Jeff got me a job working the gas station he worked at. It started out like a dream, it was only part time, as much as I could do. The boss knew my story, and knew that I had some physical and mental struggles to still go through I picked up shifts when I could, I rather liked the job, aside from one major thing. We sold alochol there, and this fact would start the biggest and longest spiral of my life.

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I began to get a little confidence back, I had a glimmer of self esteem, I was trying. I even picked up shifts from time to time if I felt up to it. Okay, so to understand this situation you have to understand I lived in Pennsylvania. One of the strictest states in the nation for alcohol and liqour control and being a recovering alcoholic myself I wanted to be extra careful ensuring safety for the consumer. Adhering to not just the state regulations but my stores rediculously strict, over the top training in alcohol refusal. Well in the end, this was my downfall. And I just had to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

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I remember it vividly, like it happened yesterday, Somebody had called off, and I decided to go in, it was a weekday, it shouldn't be that bad. I was standing at the registers when a group of people came in, our store policy is that if they come in in a group then I needed to get all ID's  or not serve an ounce of Alcohol no matter how old the people were. We were to be ruthless and have no heart. They started berating me. "You don't need all our ID's were not together!" They thew a couple trans slurs at me. I got my manager. It Escalated quickly. Next thing you know it turned into a race war. More family got involved there was now 6 of them all screaming at the top of their lungs in my face, making threats, continuing hate speech. My 2 big managers barricaded them out the door. They kept trying to break back in to do I don't know what I didn't care at that point. They were out of the store. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I rushed to the back and disappeard out back where I collappsed into the back outside wall and I lost it. All over ID's and my stores rediculous policy that I couldn't stand just led to a fight. I was not okay. I shook violently as I heard the fighting carrying through the whole store. Cops had been called. 

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After what seemed like an eternity the voices disappeared. when they say the lights coming on the horizon they cleared out. Jeff came back to give me his vape and just ensured I didn't need medical assistance. I said I didn't in hindsight I wish I had. It may have saved me so much pain but who can say at this point. I didn't want to go home, I didn't want to be with my mom. Living with her was really getting to me. She refused to call me Ash. Despite arguing to tears that I couldn't stand that she couldn't just accept me for who I was.

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I hibernated in my childhood room most of the time. Gaming away playing minecraft, disociating from the world, working, or going to meetings. I kept busy and kept growing. Eventually everythings true color came into view. My original boss left and needless to say her replacement was not so understanding of my disabilities, and began the downfall that would lead to my rock bottom.

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The trucks got bigger, i began to not be able to finish stocking them overnight. People on the shift before mine did less and less, even going to the point deliberately screwing my shift over. We were getting yelled at in the mornings for them not walking into a perfect store when we were walking in to world war three every night. This began the biggest test in relationships I've ever faced. Jeff was the lead. He has a very aggressive work personality which now under this immense pressure grew even more aggressive. 

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We began to argue as he wanted everything done in the first few hours of work so we could all just sit around and do nothing where me, dealing with chronic pain preffered to move slowly and calculated and finish just in time for the next shift. 

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As managers came and went, so to did the whole team of leadership, and coworkers. I had only been there 2 years and I had had more managers then I have had jobs since I got out of highschool. It was miserable, everybody did things different ways, more and more tasks that were once to be done on the day shift was now our responsibilities. I began growing irritated, found myself resennting that place even more. My pain rose to an 8. 

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At one point I was taking a thousand mg acetaminophen and 400 mg ibuprofen every shift. It became increasingly difficult to finish my work by the end of each shift, I began drinking ghost energy, the buzz it gave my body was indescribeable. Within a month some shift's I'd go through 2 cans. I wasn't allowed breaks, I got standing breaks which no matter how hard you tried to time it you never got to fully relax or worse eat hot food. As soon as I orderded food we'd get a rush and I swear I had more cold meals there than I've had in my life.

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​I knew I couldn't keep going on like this for long. I was dying, and I was dying fast. I grew very shaky, I relapsed on nicotine, I was burning the wick at both ends and the times I needed them most I was not given a break. I felt pressure to push through everything. I began having chest pains. This is when I hit my lowest. I hated my job, my supervisor, who is also my now Fiance, snapped under the pressure of the toxic environment and became controlling to me, but noone else. I was held to the highest standard. Lets just say 75% of the coworkers I had there were AWEFUL! Lazy, entitled, some wouldn't give you the time of day, others would say one thing to you're face and  throw you under the bus the next instant. It was at a point for a while it was just me on register and Jeff in kitchen for weeks straight, no help while the day shift continued to intentionally leave things for us, and us being the only ones that ever got told off when work was left undone.

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The fights at the register still haunted my brain. Everytime some family came up the register with alcohol I would get a rock in my stomach, I'd shake, I'd stutter. I couldn't stand to work the register anymore. I was too mentally scarred, too broken to keep working the register. I almost worried more about what I was capeable of doing. I asked to be trained in kitchen and explained the situation and for the last few months of my internment there I worked mostly kitchen but due to scheduling, call offs, or lack of staff I was never able to get off the register.

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I hated the kitchen. I've always hated the kitchen, it's claustrophobic, fast paced, and if I hated food, okay, I don't hate food but in general I don't like eating, I eat when I'm hungry but I never enjoy it and most of the times I wish I could go the rest of my life without eating. I simply woulodn't care. I also have mobility issues, i've had them for decades but it makes fine motor skills awefully difficult in situations like puitting peperoni on a pizza, or any topping for that matter. My hands would stop working at random intervals, just give up and I'd have a mess to clean up and have to fix the customers food.

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I HATE IT HERE

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It became a nightly routine saying I hate it here. Me and Jeff were at our witts end. I was going home crying, the one day I even thought about walking out onto the highway out back and let a semi truck finish me off. I prayed for 6 AM, I fought through tears, tooth and nail to just survive that job. I was still sober at this point 2 years later but I can say I hit my all time rock bottom. 28 years old, living in my childhood bedroom, in a house with a mom who couldn't even begin to understand who I was, how much damage had been dealt. I finally snapped. 

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On (date of first central outreach) I posted to facebook. I couldn't stand it anymore. My heart hurt, and not the over caffeinated hurt from the other month. That had scared me enough and I had enough understanding about myself and addiction in me that I was able to put caffeine down completely. This pain was heart break, I felt like no matter how hard I fought I'd never get to be myself. I was going to be stuck at this dead end miserable job that made me wish I was dead the rest of my life. I am 29 years old and I have come to complete peace with my mortality. Its scary how dark the night is before the day. 

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I went to the walk in clinic at Central Outreach. In the only words I could get out for the first time I advocated for myself. The words flowed out of me. As soon as I walked in the doors a calm washed over me, I wasn't even scared. I reached out. I asked for help. I admitted that even though I was not suicidal I have been at times and even up to this point wished I had never been born. I didn't know it but this was going to be the first movement toward living my best life of many that would be made in relatively quick succession. 

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That act of reaching out and standing up planted a seed of self esteem, something I can't say I've ever had. I stopped taking the verbal abuse at work, I even snapped back and fought back when I felt backed into a corner. I had a voice. Admitably that voice came out considerably more hostile than it was intended but after so many years of bottling everything up, being a door mat, thats the only way I could get it out but it felt validating. I was still miserable in agony but the new inner strength helped me find yet more fibers to move forward. I just had to make it a few weeks until I had a Dr appointment for my chronic pain and by the grace of god I put one foot in front of the other, I cried, I fought, I shut down in all respects other than just making it to the next shift. The appointment arrived.

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I have been in chronic pain since I was about 18 years old,  I have been to over 10 different Drs, all who passed up on me within the first five minutes of meeting me, suggesting drug seeking behavior. It was all in my head. The most the one dr did was give me scoliosis test which came out negative, completely ignoring the 18 degree kyphosis, It was also noted that my reflexes were hyperactive but I was sent on my way as nothing indicated anything that would warrant medicating a young adult.

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I did a ton of writing at this time and will include the two most pertinent ones below. The first was the story I wrote pain had changed me. The second, the letter to my Dr. It gets real in the next bit so just a warning. In order to give my story its best chance of helping someone else in my situation is by not holding back. I know people will read this and see themselves. It may be uncomfortable to read but for those going through it just know that I was there, I've lived it, you are not alone, and it does get so, so much better than you could ever dream.

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