Ashleigh (Sarah)

Past experiences with drugs

An entry from her journal when she was 13

For so long now, i have made excuses about drugs and this whole thing with guys and stuff... but it's time for me to face reality. the drugs that i've loved for so long, don't give an effect i'm proud of and it doesn't keep me feeling numb for very long. they solve none of my problems in life... the bare, brutal honest truth is that... i am just stupid enough to be addicted to them. the guys i've had sex with are just... there . they're just there for the few minutes of pleasure and could less about how i feel. and yet.. i manage to keep crawling back to them. adam, travis, billy jeremy, even complete strangers. and i guess part of the reason i sleep with them is cuz i'm so lonely and i just wanna feel loved... but i don't feel loved when i'm with them. they are friends i've grown up with and love, and they love me as a friend they've known most their lives. that's it. and i don't need sex... i really don't... it just feels good. alcohol is like the drugs thing. i learned something when i was very young, that drugs and alcohol are a powerful thing. i used to think they were my worst enemy. my mom was a former heroin addict, coke addict, and an alcoholic when she had me. she beat me for hours and put this family through hell. i used to pray she'd either get better or die. but as i got older, i tried my enimies... snorted just a little coke and drank just a little vodka... slowly. but i tried heroin and drank more vodka and partied every weekend until i had dug myself a hole too deep to crawl out of. and i keep trying to get up out of this hole, and it doesn't work too well.

Notes: (Ashleigh says "i am just stupid enough to be addicted to them" but Ashleigh is not stupid at all. She just has been in extreme emotional pain for most of her life, especially since her mother died and her father has neglected her and physically and emotionally abused her. Later she says, "part of the reason i sleep with them is cuz i'm so lonely." She is often left alone at night and for the entire weekend when her father takes her sister with him to visit one of his brothers or someone. Even when he is home he has left her alone crying and cutting in her room for hours and even days without talking to her other than to criticize her or complain about something.

Journal Entry at 14

The faces and memories of my past are haunting me. The people: sick, old,
young, rich, poor, clean, strung out, whatever they were, I knew them. It
wasn’t sex, race, or class that brought us together, but drugs: weed, smack,
coke, x, didn’t matter because we did it all. We traveled together and many
times, ended up in places we didn’t belong: hospitals, old buildings, crack
houses, some in shelters, or worse in jail cells. But to us, the worst place
to be was rehab and coming back, no one knew how to read your expression:
clean, faking it, whatever the case, it was good to have you back. They’d
taken you, tried to change you, and now you’re back for more. Coming out of
rehab and going back feels wrong at first, but they are friends, your
family, your drug buddies.
 

It wasn’t so bad all the time: money, sex, a perfect high, the rush, made
you feel on top of the world. We lived in the scummiest part of town, but
felt like it was our kingdom, and we rule. Of course, it sucks when the
people you’ve learned to love and risk your life for, die or end up in jail,
or leave you behind for a real home, real job, and a real family. It sucks
when the drugs you depend on are gone, and for whatever reason, you need
them more than anything. Withdrawals for days, even weeks, can be pure hell
for any user. It also sucks when the places you go are invaded by police, or
if by chance, you’re not welcome there anymore, leaving you to the streets.
It sucks when you get clean, but no matter the method, no matter the
technique, you relapse every time, bringing down the self-esteem you were
once trying to build up.
 

The trips were not so bad, cept when the money you get comes in thousands
and goes quicker than it came. Sure the sex is great, cept when you do it
for your next fix, which by the way you will need to literally do anything.
Yes, the drugs and the high, AND the rush, take away your pain,
momentarily…till they wear off and the depression and guilt set in. The
experience is one I will not forget. No, begging for money, doing the drugs
faster I could sell them, selling myself for a fix, passing out and being
raped, cutting from the guilt, trying to kill myself as I saw no other way
out, relapsing, and hurting the only people who cared, is not anything one
could even try to forget.
 

It’s stuck in my mind forever, there it is haunting me, reminding me of the
people I lost, and opportunities I gave up. These things have molded me into
who I am, and my only questions are… Why did it take so much? And if I felt
so high, so superior, so powerful, why am I letting it all go? These things
I will never know. But no matter what happens, my heart stays true, whether
clean or not, to the people who raised me… the junkies, the homeless, the
gangsters, and the only family I ever knew.

 

Appearance

Ashleigh tries to show that she is different by dressing like a "goth." She wears baggy pants, sweatshirts, chains and a lot of black. She is one of the thinnist girls in her school but still thinks she is fat and has trouble eating. She often dies her hair or spikes it, sometimes just to "piss people off."

School

Ashleigh feels forced to go to school. Her father, school counselors, and principals tell her, "You have to go to school." She has said many times how much she hates school. But no one asks her why she hates it or why she doesn't want to go. If they did, maybe they could learn something. Ashleigh has a lot of things to say, but very few people listen to her. Few people take her seriously or care about how she feels or why she feels the way she does.

One teacher holds a grudge against her because the teacher tried to pressure into being in the school band and Ashleigh refused to join. Another teacher had sex with her. She doesn't want to tell anyone about the teacher who had sex with her because she doesn't want him to go jail or lose his teaching license.

Her school counselors have forced her to go to the mental hospital when they found out she was cutting and writing suicide notes. They also lied to her about how long she would have to stay there. She hated it there and said it was no help at all, so now she lies to the school counselors so they will think she is not suicidal anymore. If they ask her if she has been cutting she will lie to them and say she hasn't.

She also lies to them about her father. They have asked if he has a drinking problem. She has lied and said no, even though he gets drunk and hits her. She doesn't tell them the truth because she says, "He would kill me if I told them."

When the teacher at her Ash's old school thought there were some problems at home and talked the mother about it, her mother hit her and told her to keep her mouth shut. So from then on Ashleigh started telling the teachers and anyone who asked that everything was "fine" at home even though her mother was hitting her.

Other people in her class judge, label her, mock her, insult her because of her clothes.

Her friends

Her friends are mostly drug users and drug dealers. They are the only ones she can be honest with, besides her friends on the Internet. They have been there for her when her father was asleep drunk on the couch or not at home at all. They have found her passed out on the sidewalk in the snow after she has tried to kill herself. They have taken her to the hospital and cared for her themselves when she didn't want to be taken in.