One pill

One pill is all it takes to destroy someone you love.

Someone you care for,

Someone you used to know.

One voice could save a life or many more…

Always speak up.

I’ll use myself as an example of how

One pill could change it all.

8th grade, the loss of one of the most known and welcoming kids you would ever meet,

His presence alone could light a room like the 4th of July, like the feeling of being next to a warm fire during the blistering cold.

Now though he hasn’t died, I lost him as my friend to substance abuse/addiction,

I always thought to myself I could never

Be like that, be so different,

So addicted.

Addict is a label that should never be put on a teenager in this manner being labeled as an addict won’t help.

But one day unexpectedly school got to be too much for me too much drama and I was behind and had no friends really, and I was already prescribed meds so I thought

“Hey what’s a few more, won’t make a huge difference”

That night I stayed awake till 7 am the next day, feeling like a cloud floating in the wind,

the next day, and couldn’t sit still even if my life counted on it.

It eventually wore off and, I began to crave that feeling, that escape

I didn’t have many friends to turn to either, and reaching out to family would be too hard.

So the year went by, but then one day everything went wrong,

I met someone at school who I had a liking to, and my mom wouldn’t let me go to school, an said “you shouldn’t have a summer u barely passed

Even after begging and begging, the answer was still no.

So I did the only thing I knew how to cope with, I grabbed my pill bottle, and instead of one or two more,

I took them all and started to wonder why this was happening to me, and where did I go wrong.

I woke up in the ER, and my mother rushed to my side in tears, “We thought we lost you”

Those words put my mind in a blender as just when she said that my doctor came in and told me.

“This is a miracle u almost flat-lined, and barely woke up .” Those words shocked me.

“I almost died?” and went on to learn I was labeled as an addict and a druggy.

But I wouldn’t let this addiction and abuse hold me down because I was given a second chance and a new outlook on life, I gained a skill I never knew I possessed.

Writing.

Writing was my way to talk about my experience and hopefully reach those who need to hear this,

To know they are not alone, and that there is help and hope for them too.

Addiction/ abuse has no racial preference and happens to those close to you, even when you might not expect it.

Always be supportive and never put labels and shame someone with a mental illness, they can’t control

Because they too were just like you, and the only thing that changed them was.

One Pill.