The Raven:

I am running out of stories maybe. I find myself wanting to share other tales of yore..tales that go all the way back to before prostitution and occurred in the medieval days of ravers and good ecstasy.

A while back, quite a while back, I may have touched on something called psychosis and/or hallucinations, whether they be auditory or visual. Now, most people (including myself), have found it amusing or just wondrous at least when they come into contact with or hear about a person that was so wasted that they are obviously totally out of touch with reality. It can be a laugh and scary. I feel like I may have mentioned this in regards to myself..and my own experiences but I can't totally remember everything I have written about in this blog. But hey, it can happen to the best of us. No one likes to admit that they have lost their sh*t at any time. BUT being that this is so many years after the fact I am able to look back now and laugh, as well as shake my head. In fact the other day I was at school telling a couple of my fellow students about the first time I had done ecstasy. It was ugly. I had put like a half gram of coke up my nose and was on my way to a New Year's Eve "rave" (we used the term "party") called "Life Force". First off, let me mention that this is an aside, this isn't even the intended subject of this post but just something I felt like sharing in this minute.

Anyways, we are at the party and I am there, out of my mind gassed on up and I am introduced to someone that is selling Es. Now, this isn't your average, modern, run of the mill E that is made of some unknown substances be they acid, PCP, etc. This was like, pure, split it between two people gel cap E, worth every cent of the forty dollars (yes, that's right, forty dollars - the cheaper the E is, the sh*ttier it is..so forty is not unreasonable). Within an hour and from a combination between the cocaine and the E I was hallucinating madly. That can happen if you do too much E, I really should have split it with someone but I didn't. So yes, mad hallucinations. I actually didn't have that good of a time that night as I was overly wrecked. But when I got home and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth did I get the real shock, the heart stopper, the "oh my G8d I should not have done that, what if I stay like this forever" moment. As I was brushing my teeth and I looked up and saw my eye.

My eye. My right eye has been weaker than the left for my whole life. I wore glasses as a child, contacts as a teenager but as an adult I never have. I mean, I do now so I can see better while driving and all that but my eyes both stare in the same direction, behaving like normal eyes nothing creepy. When I was young though, I had what one might call a lazy eye. Meaning one eye is normal and the other goes in, towards my nose.

It had been YEARS since I had even thought about my eye..and it was this night, this night doing too much E too soon that made it come and rear its head. I saw in the mirror that my eye was moving around in my eye socket with no rhyme or reason. It was terrifying. I was THAT GIRL. I was her, the girl that was pointed at and you may have said " look at her EYE" and "SHE must be so wasted", etc. I could control it if I tried hard enough but if I didn't it was bouncing around like that DVD graphic that is on your TV when you don't have a DVD in the player but the TV is set to DVD. You know?

It is funny when I think about it now but at the time it was crazy. And as I progressed through my drug using, and actually it was only in my crystal meth/E/MDMA/PCP/LSD phase (which lasted a few years), that I had to purchase an eye patch at a drug store just so I could go into day two or three of sleep deprivation without worrying that my eye was going to "go"....only the closest of friends where ever allowed to see me like that. And, since I am on the subject, my personal recommendation to anyone that does make a habit of consuming copious amounts of whatever substance (especially those that have a hallucinatory effect) and like to stay awake for days at a time, I would suggest that when you are in that very vulnerable and unguarded state, keep only your best friends around you. I found that it helped to reduce any unnecessary paranoid episodes as well.

See, at parties or raves I would actually enjoy singling out those that did appear to be losing their grip and would say things to them that would exacerbate their situation. For example, I recall one individual, he was a person that I knew and I had sold him some acid and could tell the he was trippin' HARD and I went up to him and asked him if he was aware that he was convulsing. He wasn't convulsing but it amused me when I saw that he panicked for a minute. I told him I was kidding so his initial shock became relief ( I probably helped him if anything). Another time I went up to this girl at a party and she was obviously too high, so I told her that her mum was at the door of the facility and that she was asking for her. I had no idea who this girl was so of course there was no way I could know her mother, but the girl freaked like I knew she would. One's mother may not be the best prescription for a youngster in the depths of an ecstasy high.

As a last thought I will mention that often a person in recovery will question themselves this: "will I ever have as much fun as I did while I was getting high?". I mean, that was the problem right, it was too much fun? (I am not referring to my heroin/prostitution days - that was in a way enjoyable but mostly miserable, I am talking about the getting high...getting really, really high. On e's, acid, mushrooms, MDA, crystal meth, etc..you know, the raver "party" drugs that I mentioned a few paragraphs back). Well, I still ask myself that same question because I find that a lot of life still pales in comparison to dancing your f*cking brains out in the middle of the forest ( I went to a lot of outdoor parties) as the sun comes up with a bunch of your friends that are going off as hard as you are.

This isn't to say that I don't get my kicks these days...but it's just something something about those nights. But it does/did get ugly AFTER the party - I will give you that. That sounds so cliche, there must be an after school special out there with that title, "After the Party". Maybe an A & E Special Presentation about the dangers of ecstasy and raving and how there is a direct link between raving and eventual turning "out" to work the streets....(there is no link that I am aware of, I am just an anomaly, soon to be martyr.)

This wasn't even what I was going to write about today, I was GOING to write about a time when I tripped out mega hard and badly, psychosis style when I was with a date out by Cambie and 41St....I guess I will just have to write about that next time.

Yay and oh yeah that's awesome but still.

I saw my infectious disease doctor on Thursday. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep the night before. It had been so nice to not have to think about hepatitis c for so long....since I had completed treatment I just stopped thinking of myself as someone with hep c. Not that a person with hep c is different from any other person but I had sort of convinced myself that my having it may hold the key to my ever finding happiness. I know that sounds ridiculous but still, this is how I felt. Like, why would anyone love me when they could find a girl that had never BEEN a prostitute or a girl that didn't have hep c?? This is poisonous thinking, I realize that, but this is what went through my mind on more than one occasion. Hep C isn't even a big deal but I secretly felt like it was. I play tough like I have come out of "it" all unscathed but I haven't. I still feel like I am constantly trying to make up for lost time, time lost out there....

Anyways, so I saw my doctor. I had told very few people about my appointment. I had to leave school early and just said I had a specialist appointment, told only one person that it was relating to my liver. I just said I had been getting check ups ever since my liver enzymes had shown that I was in stage two cirrhosis of the liver, forever blaming it on my past drug use. It made me feel incredibly lonely to not be able to share this with anyone really, no one really understood how nervous I was about this appointment. It had been postponed once already and I was hoping it would be again. I told maybe 1 friend and then some family members..only people that had already known that I had had hep c in the first place. But as I said only one person from school new that I was seriously concerned...

Speaking of this person I had told, something funny occurred between us the other morning when we had met before school for coffee.

To make a long story short we were discussing something about the internet and I mentioned I had a website. What was the website?? Well, I just came out and told her that I used to be a prostitute (she already knew about the addiction). THEN, after I swore her to secrecy, she then made me vow secrecy in return and told me she actually does that NOW, to supplement her student loan. The work not the drugs. Work in the sense not like I "worked", she isn't working the street she just knows this guy, and he has money - he just shares it with her... She ***** him *** and he ***** *** ***** etc, blah blah blah, whatever they do together is their own business. I don't care what anyone says but it IS work. Another interesting detail is that she is a lesbian which I think makes the story even juicier. Hah, awesome. Like what are the chances?? She had me believing that she just had a very well paying catering job. I mean, she made mad cash at the job and I always wondered how she was able to pay for all her expenses on a part timer's salary. It was funny though, she referred to it as "coming out" to each other, her and I's sharing, which is a great way to put it and I am smiling as I type this. I love her and I am not going to even think about the ethics of anything. I accept her as she accepts me. We did both admit to each other that we may have some faint issues with sex as a result of these experiences but we had to get to school and had no real chance to get any deeper about it.

Back to my hep c story. Did I mention THAT THE HEPATITIS IS STILL NOT THERE?????? Yes, it's true. My doc asked me how I felt and I said great. He said "you should, because you are cured". He actually used that term. Cured? I didn't realize one could be cured but he said he would be very surprised if it ever came back. That it had a less than one percent chance of ever showing it's hideous face again. For now he ( Dr. F) will see me in 6 months then eventually it will be annually. Now I just need to worry about getting my son tested.....

One step closer to personal forgiveness, I hope.