Unikum januar 2020

Ironically, I had not smoked for several months at this point
– except once the week before this very conversation.
So, as I knew the results of the drug test would be positive,
I admitted to the one thing I had kept from them.
Given their views on cannabis (cannabis use = heroin
addiction), I had felt it impossible to tell them about it.
To illustrate how utterly incapable they are of having
a conversation about recreational use, I will tell you
about the worst thing my parents have ever done:
A friend of mine was once brutally raped by their ex
(gender-neutral pronoun for anonymity). They were
almost choked to death. I know, because I was the one
who got them out of there and who supported them
moving forward. They spent some time at my parents’
house with me in the aftermath as this was one of only
two places they felt safe in the entire city, given that the
ex knew all the other places they liked to frequent. My
parents were initially sympathetic, but they banned my
friend from their property when they learned that they
used cannabis recreationally. Something that was only
known because my friend confided in my mother about
the event, where they had smoked before they were brutally
raped. So, They. Threw. Them. Out. My parents cared
more about their own misconceptions than a person in
dire need of support and safety. And as mentioned, this
was one of only two places in the entire city where they
felt safe. This is the one time that I will declare both of
my parents to have been horrible, horrible people.
Anyway, when my parents learned about my own recreational
use, their response was predictable: I was a
heroin addict. And finally, they had something that made
sense of what they both had had trouble understanding.
This – in their minds – explained my years of deception,
my financial troubles, my imagined social issues. They
finally had a narrative that proved their years of suspicion
right. It did not help to point out I had only tried it
for the first time long after I started having problems,
and that I had been doing extremely well for years while
using it every now and then, because “a heroin addict
lies to keep abusing”. I was told that they did not trust
my words even when they thought I was making sense.
Some of you might feel like I had dug my own grave here,
but even if you believe me to be a lying and resentful addict,
I ask you to be careful to judge a mentally struggling
person on the basis of drug use. Addiction is rarely the
cause of problems; it is an attempt at self-medication.
As I was declared a heroin addict, I told them
that I needed to get away and clear my head.
I have not spoken to any of them since.
I cut contact completely to protect myself, because
this event made me realise that my family had for the
last several years hurt me more than helped me.
I was initially happy to hear this, but then I realised
that neither of them has tried to reach out
to me. Even though they realised and admitted to
having been in the wrong, and that this pushed me
away, neither of them has tried to contact me.
Even so, I was intent on rekindling contact with at least my
father and brothers as soon as I felt comfortable with it.
But one day, because a friend was struggling and
I wanted to know what kind of support I should
provide, I googled “depression loved ones”.
The results destroyed me.
The articles explained everything that I had tried to
convey for years without the vocabulary to do so.
What the articles recommended not to do was what
had been offered as help, followed by anger when it
did not work. The articles explained my symptoms and
my deception. That this is common in people suffering
from depression, and that it is important not to blame
the person for the consequences of their illness.
It made me realise that none of my loving, caring,
supporting family members had ever bothered
to google what I had struggled to explain
to them for years. What they required of me to
convey when it failed to make sense to them.
None of them had ever bothered spending
the three minutes it took me to find and read
what would have changed everything.
Suddenly, my father’s proud position of “at least understanding
that [he] did not understand” was shown
to be utter shit. Suddenly, I realised that my medical
professional of a mother, who has treated patients with
depression, had no fucking clue what she was doing.
This recontextualised the last three years. I finally
realised that my mother’s behaviour was actively
abusive. I finally realised that my father, through his
requests for patience and generosity towards her,
had actively enabled and made excuses for it.
I had for years been the weaker party. My parents are
intelligent, well-educated, resourceful and most of all
healthy. Yet the sick one was required to do the heavy
lifting. To explain what they were at times refusing
to understand. And I got the blame when the help
that is empirically proven to backfire did not work.
And throughout all of our troubles, all of our tension, all
of the suspicion and toxicity and abuse that my father
and siblings were actively aware of and acknowledging,
none of them. Ever. Bothered. Googling. Anything.
I wanted to rekindle contact with everyone
except my mother.
Now I am unsure if I can ever forgive them.
Finally Recognising the Abuse,
the Toxicity and Its Enablers
A year later, I was told that both of my parents soon
realised that I was not a heroin addict, and that I
was suffering from severe depression yet again.
JANUAR 2020 UNIKUM NR 1 17