A Relationship in Retrospect
When I was 17, I met an older, seemingly more responsible guy who piqued my interest. He spoke to me about the world in its entirety, the social construct of the 21st century, and other intellectual ideas that I didn’t speak about with my peers in high school. He told me I was mature, and I thought he was an upgrade from my last heartbreak.
When we began to get to know each other more intimately, I thought I gained an insight to his mind and views on life. As each day went by, I seemed to end up going down a rabbit hole with someone whom truly harmed my existence.
I was never one to mess around with drugs. Substances I couldn’t physically control didn’t make me feel safe. I didn’t know how they would directly affect my body or my mental cognition, so I never gave them a try. When I had first met him, he seemed like a healthy, strong, mentally stable 21 year old. Suddenly, I was thrown into a relationship with someone who’s mental functions and brain had succumbed to the manipulation of prescription drugs, seemingly overnight.
The first time I had learned my boyfriend at the time was on drugs was when I walked into his room. It was a mess. Things were everywhere, littered all over the floor, but on his shelf, were a mixture of pill bottles-some empty, others brand new. I picked them up, to which he came running. I was merely searching for understanding, some reasoning behind why these were here. The names, Adderall and Lorazepam, foreign to me at the time. I didn’t understand why they were there and what they were for.
Eventually, getting to know my then boyfriend more, I learned he was at the disposal of his psychiatrist, someone whom was supposed to help him cope with his issues, only gave him more to handle. I watched someone I love disintegrate to become a shell of themselves.
Nothing was scarier till when he was popping six pills a day. This one to level this, that one to fix that. All of them had a “purpose” to “fix” him. I used to tell him that he should ween himself off them, I did research, seeing what they could do to his brain and body, getting concerned. Before I knew it, I was visiting him in the hospital, after his first of unfortunately many seizures due to one of the various medications he was taking. No one thought enough to take him off the meds, between his abusive psychiatrist, his absent parental units, and himself, as the victim.
During this transformation, he became unstable, argumentative, and verbally abusive, switching between a constant state of love and hate. I, the victim of his love and torture, didn’t know how to cope with his disintegration, and eventually gained the strength to walk away from his unhealthy lifestyle.
I don’t know if I would consider my ex boyfriend an addict. He was in a place of uncertainty, where his willpower had been withered away by an external force, someone who was supposed to help him. He ironically always told me he could drop them whenever he wanted, he didn’t need them to survive or be mentally stable. That being said, walking away from the being he was, I am not sure how reliable I am as a narrator to the broken story that was the relationship I had survived.
