Brilliant … But Bouncy

I Had Slaughtered My Own Soul.

I was raised in a warm, loving home. I had two kind parents, two younger sisters and a poodle. We went sled riding when it snowed, went to the beach every year for vacation, and ate dinner together every night. There was no abuse, very little yelling, and a whole lot of love.

None of this stopped me from becoming a belligerent alcoholic who blamed my parents for everything from my low self-esteem to the despairing state of the universe.

One day in the summer of 1985, just before my senior year of college, my parents gave me an ultimatum. “Follow our rules,” they said, “or move out.”

“Then I’ll move out!” I screamed. I spat and swore. Then I left.

A guy I’d met at a gas station at 3 a.m. picked me up on his Harley, and off I rode.

We lived in a cell-block sized apartment with a mattress on the floor and a chain by the door to threaten possible intruders. I’d never gotten lice before. Even though I wasn’t of legal age, I drank beer at dive bars, watching gray-haired couples waltzing to country songs older than me.

I went back to college wearing sorority sweatpants, a leather jacket and an enormous metal skull ring. I lived across the hall from the dorm’s largest authority figure, which I rebelled against instantly, thoroughly and consistently. My 21st birthday was spent passed out on a sidewalk.

I partied as though I were still single; my nights were whatever I wanted them to be. I drank and drank and drank and drank and drank.

My good days were spectacular, even though I couldn’t remember them.

My bad days were always someone else’s fault.

I believed in one thing: freedom. I believed I had the right to do what I wanted to do, whenever and however I wanted to do it. I shoved aside anyone who tried to get in my way.

It took five more years of chasing “freedom” to discover that I had slaughtered my own soul. Those years were the most brutal years of my life, and I created them with my own choices.

The day I raged and left home, my mother cried. Having no kids of my own, I was completely self-absorbed. I don’t think I truly understood the love of a parent for a child until I had a child of my own.

It never occurred to me that my mom was worried for my safety. After all, I had it all under control. I had “freedom” and I had my life under control.

Until I didn’t.

Everything I was, everything I wanted to be, disappeared the day I left home. I gave it away, purposefully, thinking I could find something better, something more “real.” That was the day my life started to unravel, the beginning of my learning that I was the source of my own problems.

It was so much easier when I believed in the illusion.

The details of the next few years are about to unravel on “paper” for the first time. To be honest, I’m a little afraid.

But here goes.