Choosing to be a Unique Individual Isn’t Easy

I started reading "Go Ask Alice" by Anonymous. It's by an anonymous because it's the diary of a 15-year-old girl who became a drug addict and overdosed when she was 16. Oh, my, her beginning, her teen angst... could've been written by me in my younger years! She was able to put into words what I couldn't have dared at that age. 

It was interesting to read how she first started taking drugs and how wonderful it made her feel. She was hooked right from the very first time. Reading her description of what it was like... doesn't sound enjoyable or fun to me! And it seems those who get that high spend the rest of their lives craving and chasing after that feeling again.

I suppose I could've easily fallen into drugs... I was so miserable when I was young, so unhappy, no real friends, hated myself... all the signs that get young people sucked in. I felt no one liked me, I was a weirdo, never felt I did anything right in others’ eyes, etc.

What made it harder for me was intelligence put me in classes with all the popular kids. All the girls who had it together, had parents who bought them fancy, in-style clothes. Girls who had cute boys ask them to school dances. Girls who sat together in the cafeteria while I ate alone. Girls who followed me between classes talking about me loud enough for me to hear their ridicule.

I more fit in with Janis Ian’s song, “At 17.” She could’ve written that whole song about me especially the line “… girls with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces…” because I never felt I was even close to being pretty or good looking.

I remember one time trying to fit in. I think it was eighth grade. In the locker room after gym, I remember the girls throwing bars of soap and laughing at the one girl who was more ridiculed than I. I joined in trying to fit in and be like them so they would like me.

Immediately, I felt such shame! I couldn’t believe I participated. I felt horrible… and never talked about it. I wanted to apologize but was afraid to be seen talking to her. Yet, even today, I remember that girl. I remember her name and what she looked like. (I don’t remember the names of the other girls.) I knew where she lived – in a dumpy trailer. I wondered if she even had running water because she always smelled. I felt bad for her and was ashamed to have acted like those other girls.

I suppose I should have been “ripe” to fall into the drug scene, but I didn’t and couldn’t. Was it because of when and where I went to school drugs weren’t readily available? I don’t really know. Was it because no one personally introduced me to drugs?

Well, I was offered speed once, right after Bill left me, but that was after I was an adult. Something inside told me/wouldn't let me, though. Gosh, I would've been more tempted to commit suicide than take drugs! 

It’s just something I never wanted to give myself over to. From the first of hearing about drugs, there was something within me that felt it was selling your soul to the devil. I knew it was giving your life totally over to someone (dealer) or something (the drugs) which would consume your whole life. And I had no desire to fall into that trap.

Plus, besides my mum, who I would never do that to, I've always felt I've had an inner protector. Maybe it's God or a Divine Presence, but drugs and even tobacco were never things I wanted to do. There's something inside me that screams, "No way!"

OK, I have and do partake of alcohol, but I've never been able to drink a lot. My body rebels. I either get a horrible headache, fall asleep (or, when I was younger, puke all over the place after I'd been out with friends). Even today one or two drinks is enough.

I think about how and why I was different. Maybe part of it had to do with being real. I wasn’t aware of that term back then, nor did I even know who the "real" me was, just that it wasn't what everyone else was. Self-medicating through substances (and again, here's terminology now which I didn't know then), just felt wrong to me. Even with legal tobacco, just the thought of sucking that stuff into my lungs felt wrong, even though almost everyone smoked back then. I won't say I never put my lips to a cigarette, but only to be "cool" and I didn't inhale.

OK, I did inhale when I tried pot a few times when I was an adult -- and didn't like it AT ALL! I didn't like the feeling of not having control of my body and mind. I don't like feeling buzzy -- like what's the difference between buzzy good and light-headed buzzy just before you get sick? It felt the same to me. I just knew I couldn't/shouldn't do it even though everyone else I was with was doing it. (This was when I was living with Harold.)

I've always had that thing in me where I didn't want to be doing exactly what everyone else was doing. 'Course, at the time, I felt there was something wrong with me because I didn't want to be like them. Hey, aren't we supposed to try to be like others? No, we're not all the same and we don’t have to be!

What would it be like (or have been like) to be celebrated for wanting to be different, for being an individual, instead of feeling shamed or ridiculed for not following everyone else? Choosing a less-trodden path makes for a more solitary life, that’s for sure, especially living in an area where I didn’t know anyone who liked the things I did.

I think, too, about the parental side. I think most kids go through thinking their parents don’t understand them or will even listen to them. Especially back when I was younger. Parents told kids what to do, what was expected from them. There wasn’t any talking back, no questioning.

But I suppose I can see a downside for parents. Don't parents want their kids to fit in? It makes parenting easier, in a way. Fit everyone into a box designed by the parents and teachers. Isn’t that what being good is supposed to be? And a kid who's an individual could require more attention... something which adults might not have time for. So many gray areas.

It’s funny how growing older allows us to view life differently. How often people say, “If I knew back then what I know now…” Life might have been easier if we understood more in our younger days. If we really knew what was important in life. But, too, maybe life is about the journey between there and here, and the decisions made to get us to this point bring us a greater understanding about all life.