16 isn’t so Simple..
I’ve been reflecting lately on the past year of my life, and how drastically things have changed from one year to the next. Sixteen has been the wildest and most life changing year of my life thus far, when I think back on all of the things that I’ve done I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed but I’m definitely surprised I suppose. Since turning sixteen nearly a year ago I’ve gotten myself into more drugs than ever before, raves, excessive partying, lying, drinking and who knows what else. I guess I’ll have to tell you how it all started, it sprouted from my breakup from my boyfriend of two and a half years shortly after my birthday. After being restricted for so long I was ready to break out. I told him I wanted to go to a rave once and he screamed at me until I felt worthless and said it was for faggots. Right after we broke up, want to know the first thing I did? Went to a rave. It was Whiteout 3 with Skrillex on October 2, 2010 before I even knew who the hell Skrillex was. At Whiteout I ran into an old friend of mine, Nick Paul, we talked and I found out he was now living in Avondale with a bunch of friends from the automotive school UTI in an apartment complex.
I quickly became a regular at their complex, I was there every weekend for months lying to my parents about where I was while I was getting drunk or rolling my ass off with a bunch of 18-20 year old boys in Avondale (which is a good 30 minute drive from where I live). I’d honestly have to say those were some of the best times of my life though; we all loved the same things: cars, raves, drugs and EDM. I’ll always miss flossing down the freeway going way too fast in the STI and driving around for hours in James’s sooped up Jetta just talking about life. I’ve never felt so much love or acceptance from a group of people before. After a few months had passed around March the group started dispersing. Nick and Tito’s lease ran out and Jackson and James were graduating in two months, there were plenty more of us but after that we just began to fall apart. Brent and I didn’t get along anymore and James had gone into hiding after his run in with the law. I stopped going out there and began heavily going to raves to fill up my now empty weekends. I did a lot of drugs and I don’t regret it, it was life changing and if they still had the same effect on me as they had then I would still be doing them now if we’re going to be honest. I miss rolling.
It wasn’t long until I found another group of friends, this time closer to home. The Deer Valley boys, we all went to school together and raged all of spring break and every weekend after that until around May. It was definitely fun to always have something to do and have people to hang out with. While in the group I got myself a very short lived relationship and a best friend. I took all of them to their first rave and got them all rolling for their first time just for the fun of it. On the weekends when there were no parties to get trashed at, the consensus was always to pack the cars and drive out to what ever rave was going on that night. While at Electric Sensations my best friend at the time made a huge fool of himself because he didn’t want to go home and caught police attention, on our way out we were followed and some of us were searched and one of us was caught with a pill. I felt bad because I had just taken it out of the trunk of the car and given it to him, had we waited this wouldn’t have been an issue. He was told to stay behind and the cops told us to leave. My best friend was sulking in the backseat of Ariana’s Honda Civic and beating himself up over the fact that he had just gotten his friend caught. She and I did our best to console him. Turns out though, my friend who got caught got away with it and all they made him do was crush it on the ground and have his sister come pick him up, who coincidentally knew the cop and helped her brother get off the hook. After that incident raving slowly became a thing of the past for our group and after a like-triangle and several arguments I was becoming a thing of the past as well. Before I knew it I wasn’t welcome anymore and I really didn’t know why.
In June I lost my best friend and it bothered me for months, mostly because I had no idea what happened for him to hate me. Uncertainty is an unsettling feeling for me. But just like that, the only boy who ever treated me like I meant the whole world was gone. I was crushed.
In this one year I’ve had a few overdose scares and some bad run-ins with alcohol. In March at a rave “Big Top” I bought a batch of bunk pills and took one, once I found out that they were bunk I was furious and bought another mystery pill from a random guy. The pill didn’t look right and I never even caught the name of it but that pill or the mixture of those two pills sent me into a whirlwind of what I thought was death. I was throwing up and miserable one second then filled with energy the next and dancing the night away. As we were leaving I felt the left side of my body shut down and I got tunnel vision, but only on the left side. It was like the left didn’t even exist. Somehow I kept walking just fine but I had no idea what was going on, I didn’t know where we were or where my car was or how we were supposed to get home. I knew I couldn’t drive my manual car under such conditions. I tried and so did Nikki but to no avail, I had to beg Branden to drive my car home and I’m thankful that he stayed cool under all of my crazy antics. On the car ride home I was yelling and hitting myself and asking questions for days, I was so lost. Only he and I were in the car but I was convinced wholeheartedly there were in fact six people in the car and they kept disappearing. We got to my friend Charlotte’s house and my cousin Brooke put me in the shower, I was only left alone for five minutes before I started screaming. I was terrified, I thought I was completely alone one second and then the next I felt as if everyone was in the bathroom and they were going to look at me. I would get mad at myself and hit myself in the face to try to wake myself up, it never worked. Brooke came back, dressed me, took off my makeup and fed me graham crackers. The worst part was that we had to be back at my house by 6 am so that Brooke’s dad could take her home, it was already 3 am. Somehow they had convinced me that I should go outside and run to try to wear this off, once outside I didn’t want to do it anymore and refused. Ty stood next to me in the middle of the street with Sean and they were both in stance ready to run with me. I still refused. Brooke began to scream that the cuckooies(monsters) were coming after me and I started to run out of sheer terror. I found out she had lied and I was livid. Sean took me inside and laid down with me in bed trying to get me to go to sleep, it was no use. The inside of my head was wild, there were 6 people in my head and we were having a conversation floating in the darkness. Apparently these 6 people were pretty funny because I kept giggling out loud which made Sean uneasy. I made him turn on and off the lights countless times as he listened intently to me try to describe what was going on internally. I didn’t understand how I was ever supposed to get into my house without getting caught, let alone drive there. He briefed me at least 5 times on it until I said I felt confident with it, although I never really did because I never grasped it. When the time had come, I had everyone leave the house, packed up my car and drove home while Brooke was scared shitless of me trying to drive. It felt like I was riding on a magic carpet, just floating down the road and somehow I managed to get us safely home on a 3 mile drive. I went to my room when we got home and just laid there for hours wanting to get up and tell my mom what had happened, I just wanted help more than anything. I finally fell asleep and awoke only a few hours later. I felt cracked out and I looked cracked out. I did everything to avoid my parents and somehow, just somehow I got away with it.
To be continued.
