Speak Up

my story began when i found a pipe in my dads bathroom bag, i was 13 years old and automatically knew it was used for drugs, from that point i was snooping for things, which i should not have but i did anyways, i found bags and bags of empty and half filled bags of white powder in my dads car. i did not know what kind of drug it was, i stuck my finger in there to taste it and it was bitter, i told my mom about it when i got home and she told me she knew about it and it was meth. soon after they were seperated and he was never around or cared to be around us. my dad was my best friend and for a about a year, i only saw him a few times, he was thin, always moving and shaking, went to another woman and her kids. he would speak so fast and get so amped up for things, yet not remember things i ask or forget to pick me up from school, he once asked what drugs i did, and said if you ever need anything ill get it for you. i look back and see that that was not right. i became sick just like my dad, i was skinny, depressed, and angry at my dad but took it out on bad things. i felt like my mother, my sister and i were not good enough. seeing my mom heart broken over her high school sweetheart who turned into drug addict and turned to another woman who wasnt my mom, hurt me. watching my sister ignore reality and believing everything would be better and things were fine, and me, on the other hand, turning to drugs. for awhile throughout high school, doing drugs for fun or whenever they were handed to me for free didnt seem that big of a deal. but realizing now, im glad i got out of that, we were all hurt, handling it in different ways. the drug does not just affect the user but the whole family as well. i was put in a hole just like my dad, and finding support and realizing you may have a problem with your life is just the first step. my dad is a little over a year sober, it takes a lot for all of us to trust and get back to normal with him. i cant hate him for what he has done, but what the drug made him be. it is a daily struggle for him, and for all of us, to set boundaries, to not be codependent. you learn about who you are in your darkest days, and once your set free, you realize that you would never trade anything to go back. but it did make me who i am today, five years later, stronger.