How Teens Deal With...

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In 17 years I had never done anything. I had never skipped school I always made decent grades, I was involved in at least 2 sports a years, and I certainly never tried drugs before. So, I started dating this guy my junior year. He seemed so nice and I kind of knew that he smoked, but I didn't think it was that serious. At first he never asked me to smoke or anything but after a couple of weeks he would want me to just "try it". So I tried it, and I liked it. So I would smoke every time I knew I didn't have to go home, like if I was spending the night at a friends house, I didn't want to go home because I was scared my parents would know. So for a while I was only smoking on the weekends.

Then one day I had to go home after I smoked and I was so scared. My mom didn't even notice, I thought "WOW I can do this whenever I want to now."So I started smoking every time I was with my boyfriend. Then one day I was at his house picking him up and he asked me to try this pill, I was to scared so I said no, I wish I could have done the same thing every time. Smoking started to get boring to me, I hated just sitting around doing nothing. So one night we went to a friends house and I tried Zanex. I had never taken pills before so I didn't know how they would affect me but they affected me alright, the next thing I remembered was waking up in someone's house and I had no clue of how I got there or where I was.

You would think that one time would scare me enough to stop, but it didn't. I took Zanex a couple more times and the same thing always happened, but I never got hurt so I thought everything was ok. But I got tired of not being able to remember what I did the night before so I tried other pills but I never took them as much as I did the Zanex. But on New Years Eve I went way to far and agreed on trying X or Ecstasy. I thought it was amazing, my mind didn't feel impaired like it does when you smoke or drink, my mind felt perfectly normal, but I didn't feel normal. I didn't sleep at all that night, it wasn't that I didn't want to it was because I couldn't. So after that night it was all I wanted to do but I didn't continue to do it because it was way to expensive. So I just continued smoking and taking other pills, until sometime early in February.

I was with my best friend at the time and she had never tried any drugs but I told her she had to try X. So eventually I talked her into it because I told her I would stay with her all night and take care of her. We planned on going home that night but after we took the pills the last thing on our minds was going home. We actually tried to go back to my friends house but our minds were so messed up we couldn't even unlock the door. So we left.

That's when it all started. My step dad called and my friend was freaking out so I decided not to answer but he just kept calling back over and over so eventually I answered and told him I didn't hear the phone ringing because I was asleep. He didn't believe me and made me take my friend home, which of course this time she opened the door without a struggle, coincidence, I think not, and then he made me go home. My parents found out about all the drugs on some text messages on my phone. They drug tested me two days later and the test came back after about a week and it was positive for some kind of pill. But they didn't think that was enough. They sent it back in and this time when it came back the Ecstasy showed up in my system. My parents were so mad.

That night I had to work and I decided I was going to kill myself. So at work that night I was asking some girls "jokingly" about how they would kill themselves. They came up with some weird stuff so I just decided I was going to overdose on pills and go home and die in my sleep. Well, after I got home and was trying to go to sleep I started feeling dizzy and sick so I called my best friend and told he what I did and after that I felt better about dieing, but she called my mom and told her, and I'm thankful that I did. I had to go to the emergency room that night and they ran all kinds of test on me. The doctor finally came in and told me that I would have to got o a Psychiatric Ward. So that night a cop took me to Vanderbilt Psychiatric Ward and they told me that I couldn't see my parents I could talk to anyone on the phone, I couldn't do anything.

I had a set schedule everyday, the same thing every day. I was there for only a week but it felt like years. After that my parents tried to talk to me more and they still do, but they just want to make sure I will never do anything like that again. I remember when I first got out of the hospital I cried every time someone wanted me to talk about why I did the things I did, but now I don't mind, as you can tell. I don't know exactly how long, but I was in the hospital during Valentines Day so I have be clean for about 6 1/2 months, and there hasn't been a day since that I've thought about killing myself. My family tries to help me out if I'm having problems, I have the most wonderful boyfriend in the world and he doesn't do drugs so I know I won't be tempted to do them. I'm very grateful that I am still here today, and I hope I have the luxury to be here for many many more days.