Dear Caity Did,
Papa always used to say, “Skaty Caity is a heck of a lady; She won’t say yes, but she might say maybe!” It made us laugh so much even though, honestly, It didn’t really make much sense.
He’s been gone for a decade now, but his faith in us still follows us around this town. Today, you posted to Facebook that it’s been 3 years since you poisoned yourself with meth.
Poisoned yourself.
That’s how you worded it.
My heart swelled with pride when I read it, doom scrolling Facebook on my break. Pride, because you’re clean. For years, for decades, I have said that I have to continue to believe in you, to pray for you, and to hope for you even while preparing for the worst case scenario.
That’s the thing with drugs. There’s really no way to know how the story is going to end. It’s the most helpless feeling, to have loved someone since they were in diapers and then watch a substance that they thought was helping them destroy them.
You were so little- we were so little- when we were first introduced to drugs. People who have not lived the life that we did will never understand how normal drugs were in our day-to-day life. I have been in social work for about a decade now, and in one of my jobs, I was jokingly referred to as “the meth sniffer.” I could tell when there was meth in a home before even setting foot on the property. It’s like when someone who is autistic can just spot the autism in another person when nobody else in their life ever clocked it. That’s how I’ve always been with drugs. I can spot it from a mile away, because it has always been a part of my life.
The thing is, I never got pulled in. I didn’t even try weed until I was in my late 30s and it was legal. Throughout my life, people have given me a lot of shit for this.
“Cassi thinks she’s so much better than everyone else…”
“Goodie-two-shoes Cassi”
“Holier than thou…”
That’s never been the case though. I never stayed away from drugs because I thought I was better. Don’t get me wrong, when I was a kid and the world was black and white, I looked at the people around us and was determined to be better and do better, but not because of my own ego, or because of entitlement or because I think so highly of myself.
No, my sweet, incredible girl.
It was all because of you.
You, your brother and your sisters kept me clean.
When I was offered alcohol before I was a teen, I turned it down because I knew that if I went down that path, I wouldn’t be able to look out for you. When I was 13 and my first boyfriend tried to shotgun me with weed, I coughed back in his face and continued to decline the joint because I couldn’t have my ability to think clearly compromised. If it was, who would keep the monsters away from you? And when there was a meth lab… well… you know where there was a meth lab… I stayed out, and I kept you kids out, because if I went off the deep end, what was going to happen to my baby brother and sisters?
For years, I have said that God gave me cross country to keep me from following in the footsteps of those around me, so that I would stay away from drugs, sex and alcohol while I was young, and while I do still think that is true, I know now that athletics were never strong enough to protect me from generational curses.
You were, though.
You, Calvin and Cailee.
And then later, Destiny and Chandra.
Here’s the thing, though. Here’s the thing that I have spent my entire adult life wrestling with and running from.
I failed.
I didn’t protect you.
I didn’t save you.
I didn’t save anyone, not really.
You still endured the worst that humanity has to offer. This poison was given to you by the very people you should have been able to trust the most in the world, and you were still just a baby. You were abused in every sense of the word. You were preyed upon and exploited, becoming a mother yourself when you should have been protected and cared for, but were instead slut shamed, ridiculed and ostracized. You were blamed for seeking solace and comfort in the only place available to you, and then you were handed poison disguised as medicine.
I watched, feeling helpless and shameful, as everything I tried to protect you from happened anyway, feeling like I should do something, but having no idea what to do.
Holding your hand at the doctor’s office, white hot rage consumed me as my sweet sister, my minor sister, suffered with a pregnancy created by…not a minor, but a grown man she should have been safe with. Fuck that man. Disrespectfully. And the woman who called you a home-wrecking whore for being pregnant by him as a child. When you were still a pregnant child.
But you, Cait. You are stronger.
You are better.
You truly are a hell of a lady.
You don’t back down from a fight.
Over the years, I have learned something about people who are committed to their recovery from substance use addiction. They are an incredible breed of people. They have gone to war with their neurological systems and they’ve won. This is especially true for people who have been using meth for a long time, because meth impairs the neurological system’s ability to produce and store both serotonin and dopamine. If you aren’t familiar with the neurological system, this means that the person becomes biologically incapable of pleasure. Joy. happiness.
You see, meth “fakes” pleasure, so the neurological system stops producing and storing the chemicals that create it for us. Basically, your system is like, “Hey, you keep giving me all this fake stuff, which makes me feel WAY better than all this stuff I make myself, so I don’t need all this stuff I make myself, so I’m just going to stop making/storing it.” The problem is that once you quit giving your neurological system the fake stuff (meth), your body doesn’t just automatically start making dopamine and serotonin again. It takes months-often years- before the body’s production of these chemicals normalizes. In addition to this, meth affects the parts of the brain that control memory and emotional regulation. This leads to psychological/auditory/visual experiences that are related to the person’s worst fears and most traumatic memories. The damage meth does to the brain brings this to the forefront, forcing the person to experience paranoia, psychosis, hallucinations, nightmares and re-experiencing that is vivid, terrifying and feels very real. I have had many experiences with people who are in meth psychosis, and they are always 100% convinced that the experiences they are having because of meth are rooted in reality rather than in meth, and they are terrified, defensive, combative, and they act based on THAT reality.
But people like you, Caity? You didn’t let it win. Your own mind- your own neurological system- was against you, but you didn’t quit. You fought through the complete deterioration of your dopamine and serotonin, and rode through the depression, the fog, the confusion, the self-doubt, the questions, the shame and you did it. You gave your brain back its dopamine. Its serotonin. Its joy and its peace. You did for yourself what I never could have done for you. You did for yourself what nobody else could have ever done for you. You WILLED your way back to having a functional neurological system. If that isn’t some superhero shit, I don’t know what is.
Being in recovery is often stigmatized, even by those working in the field. People who have histories of substance abuse are often demonized and seen as less than, but I see you, Cait. I see your endless well of empathy and the way you try to understand other people, even those who have hurt you. I see you seeking to find nuance, giving out grace, giving and receiving forgiveness, holding onto hope and never losing your grit.
I know that things still aren’t easy. I wish they were, and for me, not much has changed. I still wish that I could throw myself in front of everyone who seeks to hurt you and take every blow myself so that you never have to feel pain. The difference is, that now I am older, and smarter, and I see you for who you are. You have made so much more progress without me standing in front of you. I know it probably doesn’t feel like people see the progress, but I do, and now I know that you don’t need me to stand in front of you blocking the door. You are better, and stronger, and everything that I wish I could have been when we were kids, but I wasn’t because I was also just a kid. Nobody should have expected that of either of us.
So instead of standing in front of the door, hiding you away in some misguided effort at heroics, I am going to stand beside you and champion you. You don’t need a hero, you need an ally. You are the hero.
Keep going, Skaty Caity.
Keep saying maybe.
Don’t stop now.
I love you to the moon and back.
Your big sister,
Cassi
The Journey is Real 