First post on here. Being brave, I guess, but to be honest I just hope others who have been in my position and gotten out of it, or at least improved, will see this and be able to give me some actual advice from a place of understanding rather than judgement - because I get enough of that already.
In summary, I am somewhat (a lot) sure that I have either BPD or some type of bipolar. I am also 100% sure that I am undiagnosed autistic, and I’m 25 so to be honest having realised that over the past few years has been both helpful in understanding myself and also extremely upsetting because MY GOD I wish someone had realised sooner in my life.
Context explained, I’ve started struggling (more) with alcohol and substances over the last few years because my ex-boyfriend was friends with a lot of people who “casually” (and I mean that in that they were mostly in denial that it was an issue) drank way too much and used too much. I had never been around that kind of environment before and so it opened up a whole new world for me in a way - I’d only ever drank certain things that I had historically been quite fussy about (white or rosé wine, flavoured gin and lemonade, vodka and orange juice, etc.).
I’d already had my embarrassing drunk moments way later than the people I was around; while they were spewing up in a bush at 15 in a park after downing a bottle of vodka, I was almost 18 throwing up down myself and having to be showered by someone’s mum at their birthday party. Not fun. But yeah, I was fussy, and a lightweight.
Fast forward past university (which I didn’t get to go out much during because of a. the pandemic and b. an emotionally abusive and very controlling relationship), I was living with a housemate who I let stay rent free - and she was a massive stoner.
I’d first started smoking weed around 17, and it never had much of an effect on me - I started declining spliffs and joints because it felt like a waste to toke on it if it wouldn’t do anything for me. I remember the first time I got properly stoned, at the park I always went to with my college friends. It must have been stronger stuff than usual because the two people I was with were more proactive and regular stoners, but I didn’t expect that after a few drags of their spliff it would hit. Predominantly, I suppose, because it never had before.
But yeah, I got stoned for the first time, loved it. Went to a college lesson immediately after and felt like a proper wild child because I was pretty sheltered and it was realistically the riskiest thing I’d ever really done at that point? I think? I’m not sure. Anyway…
After uni, I let a friend stay with me and she was a mega stoner. Like, she worked from home for a pretty serious company and was repeatedly doing bong bits throughout her day. I have suffered with anxiety a lot throughout my life, and my job at the time was one which held a lot of responsibility for a 21-year-old freshly graduated person, even with the extensive life experience I’d already had - so I started smoking weed each evening to help me curb the anxiety and sleep (which I have to say, did work), and then I’d drink a lot on Fridays and weekends.
I resolved that issue after she moved out, and was healthier about things. I moved back nearer to my hometown, and then as aforementioned was dating my ex whose friends were often on “harder” drugs or drinking to excess - as he also did (on the alcohol front).
It really blew my mind to realise how many people were so frequently using cocaine (and other drugs, but mostly cocaine), and meeting people who were introduced to me as being dealers to the people I associated with. It felt like a whole new kind of life that I wasn’t anticipating, and I said no for a very long time before I started engaging.
Then, 2 or so years passed by and I had only ever indulged on the odd slightly-too-much-to-drink night out. However, over the past year or so, and moreso in the last few months, I’ve developed more of an issue with both alcohol and substances because my mental health has been diabolically awful.
It started because I had messaged one of the “dealers” I’d been introduced to when I had been in a pretty dark headspace, hoping to get something that would at least lift my spirits enough to get me through the night without doing anything stupid. He didn’t reply, so next time I saw him I asked if he’d changed numbers and he said he had and apologised for not being able to sort me out, and thus gave me a cheeky little freebie to make up for it. I told nobody close to me. I finished the bag within less than a week, and due to my deteriorating relationship with alcohol at the time, I loved that it kept me awake and sober enough to keep drinking longer than everyone else.
Hence, we reach the point in this waffle where I link back to the initial title. My tolerance for drugs is way higher than even my current friends who use more frequently than me. I got molly a few weeks back and gave some to my friend who is a regular stoner and user of other things like coke, molly and shrooms. I fucked him up badly because I gave him the same amount that I’d need to reach a decent high and it was too much for him. Thankfully he was okay, but I really freaked out.
Main issue I think is that I know my current substance fixation cannot last and I don’t want alcohol or drugs to become a full blown difficult to control issue. I have had periods of sobriety and managed perfectly well, so I know I can do it - it’s more that life feels so fucked up that I don’t want to. I’ve had to be perfect and responsible and do the sensible thing for so much of my life and it’s gotten me nowhere except to the depths of mental illness. I feel like I deserve the chance to be a bit of a mess for a bit.
People don’t like mess, though. The friends closest to me who would never engage in drugs or alcohol to the extent I have been doing do not love me for it, or for the shitty things I’ve done while being very drunk/drugged up in the past couple of months. I’ve had whole conversations with people that I don’t remember, talking about stuff that has hurt or worried them. That’s terrifying to me, and I don’t want to be like that. But I also don’t feel ready to quit it all.
I’ve been seeing someone new (A), who I have some anxieties about but really like. In light of this, and also in that I had previously developed quite intense feelings for someone (B) who was in an open/poly relationship (which I engaged with initially unaware of this and then agreed with the kind of understanding that it was a friends-with-benefits scenario), I had to talk to B about the fact that I couldn’t continue things because I’m not capable of loving someone who already has found their person and I’m like an addition to the love/life plan trajectory he already had with his partner.
It was incredibly sad and shit to have to call it off and I hate it because he feels the same but he’s capable of polyamory even with deep feelings but I’m not unless I am the main partner. It hurt a lot and I cried a lot and then wanted to just distract myself, so drank a fair bit and also picked up some coke. It hasn’t hit the way I want it to. A is sleeping soundly in my bed right now and I’m sat ruminating on all this waffle and wishing I just felt okay.
I doubt anyone will read this far, I know I’ve yapped far too much, I’m just in dire need for therapy which I’m on the waitlist for but haven’t gotten yet. But either way, whether you see this or not, I appreciate you engaging even a little bit with my messy brain. I hope you all know that you’re loved and strong and capable and all of us can get where we want to be as long as we don’t give up. I will do too, it’s just tough at the moment.
Lots of love x
