In Ecstasy (15 page)

Mum towelled me dry like I was a baby. She went through the clothes in my wardrobe, holding them up and then throwing them on the bed when she realised none of them would fit me. In the end she went downstairs for a steak knife and pushed a hole through an old belt, just so I could keep a pair of pants up.

‘You're so thin,' she said sadly as she pulled the belt tight.

I just nodded my head at her. She still hadn't asked me anything. I sat on the bed. My old room felt like someone else's. It was so pretty and comfortable. The bed smelled so clean.

Mum picked up my hairbrush and brushed the tangles out of my wet hair. ‘I've made an appointment with Dr Herneman. He's coming in to meet us at his office.'

I watched her in the mirror, studying me. My hair was past my shoulders and halfway down my back. I hadn't realised it was so long. Then I noticed how thin my face was, and the black rings under my eyes, my bloodshot whites, the yellowish lump on my forehead. The skin around my mouth was red and flaking, my lips dry and cracked. No wonder she hadn't asked what I'd been doing. She could see for herself.

In the doctor's office I still felt detached from my body. I sat on the hard plastic chair breathing in the clinical air. Mum sat next to me. Dr Herneman's been our family doctor since I was born. Mum's taken me to him for every childhood ailment. He knows my complete medical history. When he lifted the back of my shirt to listen to my chest I stared at the floor. He examined the lump on my head, and shone a torch in my eyes.

‘Do you know how this happened?' he asked.

I shook my head. My neck ached. The last three days were lost to me. I couldn't remember any of it.

He wanted to do a pap smear and test for sexually transmitted disease. I was terrified of knowing and equally frightened of not knowing. That voice in my head kept saying,
What have you done, Mia? What have you done?

I lay back on the bed, behind the curtain. Mum stayed in her seat by his desk. He inserted the speculum and I went rigid with pain.

‘I think we'll need to do a full internal examination,' he said softly.

My eyes were squeezed tightly shut, but tears still escaped. I nodded my head.

Back at his desk Dr Herneman started making notes on his computer. ‘We need to fill in an assessment and referral form,' he said. ‘You need to answer me as honestly as you can.'

I nodded wordlessly. There seemed no point in lying any more.

‘What drugs have you been using?'

‘Mostly ecstasy and weed,' I said quietly, without lifting my eyes.

‘Anything else?'

‘I drank a can with GHB in it.'

‘What's that?' Mum sounded frightened.

‘It's a powerful sedative,' the doctor replied. ‘The dosage difference between getting high and an overdose is almost impossible to determine.' I was staring at the carpet and felt them looking at each other. ‘That's why there have been so many fatalities.'

Mum made a small ‘oh' sound.

‘Anything else?' he asked.

I thought of the bag of pills Glenn had given me, but I didn't remember taking any of them. I'd taken the GHB and passed out. Hadn't I?

‘Alcohol,' I said. ‘Lots of bourbon. Maybe cocaine. I don't know about anything else. I actually thought today was Friday.' I looked at Mum, who had tears on her cheeks and was wringing the strap of her handbag.

‘It would seem you had an overdose of GHB,' he said. ‘Obviously not fatal, but enough to render you unconscious, in a coma-like state. You show signs of neck snap.'

‘Of what?'

‘An overdose of GHB causes a person to lose consciousness so rapidly their heads often snap forward and hit a surface.' He lightly touched the lump on my head. ‘Like that. How long have you been using?'

I didn't want to say it. Mum looked so scared and old. I felt exhausted. I just shrugged. ‘Since the start of the year.'

‘I want to refer you to a psychiatrist,' he said, tapping at his keyboard. ‘I think we need to admit you to a rehabilitation clinic.'

The suggestion was shocking. I looked at Mum, terrified. I didn't want to go into a nuthouse. I didn't want to be labelled psycho. Or druggie. What would happen to me in there?

‘Mum?' I said, grabbing her hand. She squeezed mine tightly.

‘Does she have to?' Mum asked.

‘It's the best chance she's got for recovery,' he said.

I sat in the back, Mum was in the front and Dad was driving. It could have been a nice family outing, except they were divorced and driving me to a rehab clinic. Through the entrance gates, the centre loomed up at me. It was an old, heritage style building with beautiful gardens. There were people sitting around on the grass and park benches chatting and drinking from polystyrene cups. I watched them curiously. I'd imagined demented people dressed in nut house pyjamas, shuffling around or tied up in strait-jackets. Dad pulled into the carpark and shut the engine off.

‘Right?' he asked, turning to look at me.

I nodded. My mouth was dry. I still felt numb.

He looked at Mum and smiled. ‘Okay?' he asked. As I watched her nod her head the thought occurred to me that I hadn't seen them this civil towards each other in ages.

My room was nice. It wasn't like a hospital at all, more like a hotel room. It looked out onto the beautiful gardens, though the window was barred. There was a nice built-in dresser, with a mirror securely attached to the wall and a comfortable soft bed with a floral bedspread. High up on the wall was a TV set, and the framed print was, I noticed, covered in plastic, not glass.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

Maryanne, my counsellor, was standing in the doorway, behind Mum and Dad. ‘It's time to say goodbye,' she said, reaching to touch Mum's elbow. Mum sat next to me on the bed and put her hand on my leg. ‘I'll be back tomorrow,' she said, kissing me on the cheek.

Dad kissed me too. ‘So will I.'

I watched them walk out the door and looked at Maryanne. ‘What now?' I asked indifferently.

‘Now we get started,' she said, closing the door behind her.

The little chat we had then was our first session, I found out later. That was part of the therapy she used. The counsellor gives little direction and allows the client, in this case me, to decide which issues to discuss. But I guess I wasn't that forthcoming, and Maryanne realised I was going to be hard work. I was more interested in how I still couldn't feel anything. It was almost like I'd been so overwhelmed by the extreme emotions I'd felt when I woke up in Glenn's bed that now I was empty.

‘You're depressed,' she said when I tried to explain how hollow I was.

‘But I'm not. That's the thing. Drugs made me feel great, happy and free. It's only recently that I feel so bad.'

She nodded her head as if she'd heard it all before. ‘When you see the doctor we'll look at medication for your depression.'

Coming down had always been bad, but now it was a million times worse. The bleakness was so overwhelming that I often wondered why I was even trying. To ease the depression they prescribed anti-depressants; to get rid of the voices they prescribed anti-psychotics. When I was rational enough to consider myself again—when I finally re-entered my body—I found it strange that they were prescribing drugs to help me with drug abuse.

Many nights I sat up in bed wishing I'd done things differently, wishing I'd listened to her, back then, after Tower died. And those nights when I lay awake picturing her alone in a rehab centre, I'd try and think of better times. Something would always come to me. One night the recall was so powerful and funny that I laughed out loud. Mum came into my bedroom frightened, I think, that I was having a nervous breakdown. So, of course I had to tell her the story.

In year ten we had a student teacher who was doing his final prac at our school. We were always getting student teachers. I think our regular teachers were lazy and saw them as slave labour. Anyway, this teacher was one of the most appropriately named people in the world—Mr Lush. He was totally luscious. Not particularly tall, but with a body to die for. He was a footballer whose dream, he told us during class when we were supposed to be working, was to be drafted into the AFL. His major area was PE but we were lucky because we also had him for English. School had never been so good.

We were all in love with Jamie Lush. We tried to pry personal details out of him—was he married (no), did he have a girlfriend (tragically, yes), how old was he (twenty! not much older than us), and so on.

Now, we also had a guy in our year, William McRobbin, who we'd known since forever. He was everyone's mate. On Mr Lush's last day we discovered that from the rear he and William looked a lot alike. Same height and same build.

At lunchtime that day Mia and I were in the artroom trying to finish my screen print project. I was running out of time. We'd managed to get it nearly finished but we were both late for class, so we took off, fast.

Mia ran up a flight of steps ahead of me, clutching her bag tightly with one hand. She looked down and noticed she hadn't cleaned her hands properly. They were still covered in wet paint.

In front of us, moving at a snail's pace, was William McRobbin in his footy gear.

Mia was two steps behind him.

‘Hey, Billy boy,' she shouted, slapping his bum through his white shorts. ‘Shift your arse.'

He turned, and of course it wasn't William but Mr Lush.

I was on the stairs right behind her. She took an involuntary step backwards and slipped down the stairs onto me. Mr Lush tried to grab her but she went down, taking me with her. We became a human snowball, rolling down the steps until we reached the landing. Luckily, only our dignity was hurt. Well, destroyed. We were mortified. I remember thanking God he was leaving. At least we'd never have to lay eyes on him again.

He ran down the stairs to check us for damage, but he couldn't get any sense out of either of us. All we could do was lie there laughing. And when he'd helped us up and gone ahead to class we laughed all the louder. On his bum, where Mia had slapped him, was a bright red handprint.

I sat in the psych's office listening to her going on about the behaviour that had driven me to this point. It all seemed like crap. I felt like she was looking for reasons where there weren't any.

‘The drugs allowed you to love yourself,' she said, watching me closely.

‘Don't know what you mean.' I said. It seemed kind of pointless.

‘With drugs you were able to relate to others without fear or defensiveness.'

‘I just took them for the sake of it,' I said quite angrily. I was angry a lot of the time now. What were they trying to prove, that I had problems and that's why I took drugs?

‘You were trying to feel better,' she said. ‘It made you feel whole and in touch.'

Of course I was trying to feel better. They made me feel great. That's what I'd been telling her. I sat in her office, looking at her degrees on the wall, and for the first time I wondered if there was a reason why I'd done it. At Dom's party, I'd popped the E because it was offered to me. I didn't think it'd lead to rehab. I didn't think it'd lead to anything. I took it because I wanted to have fun. I wanted to fit in and be like everyone else. I wanted people to like me.

And it had been so much fun. I did fit in, and that's why I kept doing it. I liked myself best when I was high. I felt invincible and beautiful and confident. It was when I wasn't high that I hated who I was.

The counselling was hard, and I dreaded the sessions with Maryanne. I cried a lot and I was pretty low most of the time. But in the end, I guess it was the group sessions that really helped put things into perspective for me. Hearing other people's stories.

Lois was twenty and had had such a bad session on ice she'd locked herself in her house for a week, paranoid that the neighbours outside were calling her name.

‘It kidnapped my brain,' she said. ‘One hit was all it took. It was instantaneous. I was out of my mind.'

Even with Glenn I wouldn't have done ice. I used to watch the ice addicts shuffle in to score. Their vacant eyes and desperate itching scared me to death, and they could be totally unpredictable and violent. Why would anyone want to try a drug like that?

‘It was all I could hear,' she continued. ‘Lois, Lois, Lois.' She shook her dreadies, and the coloured beads rattled. ‘It sent me fucking crazy.'

‘Are you're glad you've detoxed?' I knew from our drug lectures that detoxing from ice only takes twelve days and then you're totally clean—physically.

Lois just shrugged. ‘Yeah. I don't think this is it but.'

‘What do you mean? It made you psychotic.' She'd made deep cuts in her body, and picked holes in her face during that psychotic episode.

‘I just can't imagine never using it again. The rush is indescribable. I can't explain to you how amazing it is. The idea of never feeling that way again, I just can't imagine it.'

‘So you'll go back to it when you're out?'

‘Probably. I can't say I'm over it. The rush is worth it. It made me all I could be.'

I couldn't believe what she was saying. She'd nearly killed herself.

‘What about you?' she asked.

‘It made me confident, I could talk to anyone. I guess I was at my best on it.' In here everything sounded like a confession.

‘So will
you
do it again?' Lois asked.

The question seemed monumental. It would be easy to say no—but what if? Right now I still felt too frightened to think about touching it. But I suddenly realised I'd never be that person again unless I continued using. The Mia I was on Es was so much better than the real me. And despite Tower's death I'd gone back to it, I'd convinced myself it was all okay. I didn't start out hating who I was but I ended up there.

Without Es I couldn't be the person I wanted to be and that desire had overpowered my fears once before. Suddenly I understood what Lois was saying. Giving it up for good meant giving up all the best parts of it too.

‘I don't think so,' I said, unconvincingly.

After the first week I graduated to family therapy, and Mum and Dad were brought in separately to the counselling.

Early in the session Dad said, ‘I just don't understand why.'

That's so typical. Everything is always about him. He wasn't asking about
me,
he wanted
me
to help
him
understand it. He made me so mad.

‘Maybe that's because you just don't know me,' I spat at him. ‘You don't know me well enough to know why I do
anything.
'

Dad looked shocked at my outburst, but I didn't care. I figured this was the whole point. Let it out. Tears fell from me quite freely now.

‘You walked out on Jordie and me. You left us and we just didn't understand why. Why didn't you love us any more? Why didn't you want to be with us?' I wiped my nose on the back of my hand. Maryanne silently offered me a tissue.

‘I loved you too much to stay.' Dad moved closer and tried to grab my hand.

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?' I pulled my hand away. ‘You loved us so much you left us? What a load of shit.'

All I wanted was to swear at him, I couldn't think of things mean enough to say. I wanted to hurt him so much.

‘I didn't love your mum any more. And I'm sorry that happened but I couldn't help it.' Dad had tears in his eyes but I didn't feel sorry for him. Not one bit. ‘It was so complicated and it had nothing to do with you kids. But we stopped talking to each other. It got so she'd talk at me, never to me. I'm sorry, but my feelings for your mum are probably not something you should hear.' He shook his head sadly. ‘I'm so sorry that I couldn't have been more of a man and stuck around for you and Jordie. But I just couldn't.'

I looked at him in disgust. He was pathetic.

Mum's sessions were better. It was like we were all receiving counselling, not just me. Maryanne seemed to think my dysfunctional family had something to do with the mess I was in, and as the therapy went on I started to see a common thread, though I didn't see how it was the cause.

‘I was so angry with you,' I told Mum. ‘When Dad left and you were devastated for so long, I wanted to slap you. I wanted you to stop ironing his shirts and making him dinner. Stop letting him come round whenever he liked. Stop being so weak.'

She tipped her head to one side. ‘Isn't that funny,' she said. ‘I was trying to make everything better for you and Jordie. I thought doing those things would make it seem like he hadn't left and you wouldn't feel so bad.'

‘Doing it for us or doing it for yourself, Mum?' I'd never thought this before. Sometimes the perceptions that came to me sober were as profound as those I'd had on E. ‘You were desperately hoping he'd come back.'

‘I suppose there was a part of me that did.' She reached for Maryanne's tissue box. ‘But I knew he wouldn't. Maybe I was clinging to the familiar too. I wanted things to stay the way they were.'

We sat silently, Mum wiping her tears. I'd been angry with her, it seemed, forever.

‘I'm sorry,' she said eventually. ‘I wanted your life to be perfect. I thought if I gave you enough freedom you wouldn't have to sneak around behind my back, like I did when I was your age. I wanted us to have a better relationship than I had with your gran.'

‘You said you didn't want me to make the same mistake you did. You never even wanted to have me at all,' I said, and it sounded so nasty. Mum recoiled, like I'd slapped her.

‘No,' she said, ‘you misunderstood me. I never meant you. You were never the mistake.' She reached over and took my hand. ‘You were unplanned, certainly, but a mistake? Never.' She squeezed my fingers and tears rolled down her face.

‘But you said—' The breath caught in my throat. For months I'd believed she'd never wanted me.

‘I didn't want you to be swept up so young and lose yourself.
That
was my mistake. That's what I meant. When your father left I had no idea who I was any more. I didn't know how to function. Alone, nothing defined me. I didn't want you to spend your life trying to please someone else like I had.'

I didn't know what to say. Sadness overwhelmed me.

‘But I don't know who I am any more either,' I said finally.

Mum wasn't having it. For the first time in my life she seemed strong. She squeezed my fingers tightly again.

‘But I do,' she said, ‘and it's not too late. I know exactly who you are.'