Lies and Filth

For 48 long hours, my boyfriend's phone was off. His phone was off, his parents hadn't heard from him, and I couldn't reach the few friends of his who's numbers I had. Considering his risky lifestyle and consistent encounters with the police, my mind went straight to the worst case scenario. I freaked out. Full of anxiety, fear, despair, and nearing a full meltdown, I called every local jail, every hospital and ER, and waited. The feeling of calling a hospital and asking if your boyfriend or any unidentified males were brought into the ER is unimaginable. The pause between spelling their last name for the tenth time to the hospital records clerk, and their response feels like an eternity. Will they tell you the worst news of your life? Will life as you know it change? But he wasn't there, wasn't anywhere. As the 48 hour mark approached, his mom called the police to report him missing. And just in time, I finally got through to a friend of his who told me he was fine, his phone was just broken. Relief turns into rage so fast. How fucking dare he not contact me and shrug it off. When I finally spoke to him he insisted I overreacted, no apology, just a stupid careless attitude. 48 hours may not seem that long, but when your significant other is an active heroin addict with many other risk factors in their life, it's an eternity not to hear from them. Fuck him for doing this to me.

Loving a drug addict is so damaging to your own wellbeing. Watching someone waste away in front of your eyes and stop caring about themselves is such slow torture. It's so fucking painful when you get to the point where you know they don't even love you any more. They have one priority, and you know it. They won't admit it, they'll say they love you, and you'll hang on until the day comes when you can't be an observer to their slow suicide anymore. The day you decide to look out for yourself for once. I've spent a long time feeling guilty for not being able to "help" him. The scars of this relationship are so deep and I don't think I'll ever recover. He introduced me to this fucking drug and it became part of my life too. The most painful part is wondering if he ever loved me at all, or if I was just someone that filled his need to be loved and taken care of, interchangeable with anyone else. It hurts so fucking bad. The colossal amount of effort I spent on him, the unforgivable things I forgave, the neglect and emotional abuse I accepted. I want my best friend back, I want the boy who's eyes lit up when he talked to me. I want the love that heroin stole from us.