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every time we tell our story, we discover what is true.
over the last year, i have told the story of hitting rock bottom over and over and over again.
when i tell people, “I’m sober.”
the next question is always, “Why?” or “What happened?”
over the last year, i’ve refined it, having had to pitch it to family, to friends, to strangers at parties.
but after hitting rock bottom, when i first got out of the car, i was frozen. i couldn’t make sense of what had just happened. i couldn’t summon language. i just knew that my body had tasted true, genuine terror and fear for the first time, and i was different. in the month following, i was prone to snapping, yelling— when before, i had never raised my voice. it took days to peel my shoulders from my ears, to calm my nervous system.
as i counted days, i continued to refine the synopsis of what had happened.
i refined it so as to communicate the severity of the event without emotionally dumping. i was careful not to overshare [unless asked]. i used a direct quote, the one that i could not forget even if i tried. and i was certain to stick as closely to the truth as possible.
And so, I have this polished gem:
My ex-fiancé and I ran out of weed, and over the course of a three-day-drive from New York to New Orleans to spend Christmas with his family, he became irritable, verbally combative, and suicidal.
I had a panic attack on a patch of grass outside of an Alabama gas station.
When I finally got him home to New Orleans, and because he is an anti-natalist, he said, “I’ll only go to rehab if Paulina promises to never procreate.”
So… now I’m sober.
cue: laughter
Oh, what’s an anti-natalist? he believes that people shouldn’t have children and that we should walk into extinction hand-in-hand.
in the first thirty days of sobriety, re-telling my story actively re-traumatized me.
each time i told it, my nervous system would go alight— like i was reliving what had happened. over and over again.
the first time i shared a version of this publicly was on one of my favorite podcasts Duncan Trussell Family Hour. i had asked my dad if we could go on to talk about IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE AWKWARD long before sobriety trundled into my life. i was only thirty something days sober when we recorded with Duncan, and my dad was just kind of like, “Do you want to talk about it?”
i felt hesitant, but i did anyway.
after it was over, i felt ripped open ass-to-mouth. i felt overexposed. but i wasn’t living in my body still, i wasn’t attuned enough with myself to name the feeling. holding these overwhelming feelings, i came downstairs to leave a dish in the sink, which my brother did not want. when he asked me to put it in the dishwasher, i snapped at him, yelling, “Jesus Christ, Jordan.”
each time i told it, i discovered what was true.
each time i told it, the closer i got to the truth.
and so, the more time i have sober, the more succinctly i have been able to summarize what happened. the more i told my story, the less traumatizing it felt.
it’s heavy, it’s hard— but i’m not going to yell.
i want to make something clear: i do not resent my ex. it isn’t my job to take his inventory— it is my job to take care of myself. and so, we are not in contact, and that is for the best. i write his name on my prayer list nightly.
i do feel gratitude for him. i lost myself trying to prove to him that i was worth loving. my codependent need to care for him— to use like him and to facilitate his using— brought me to my knees.
that’s when i learned: love should heal, not destroy.
and our relationship and our addiction absolutely destroyed me.
through extracting myself from the dark web of what we had become, i found myself.
and for that, i am thankful.
so what the fuck happened?
we were driving from New York to New Orleans to spend Christmas with his family.
the day before we started driving, Omicron had hit New York City. i was supposed to babysit, but spent the day at a clinic in Long Island City trying to get my third booster shot.
we had run out of weed, after getting $500 worth from a LA dispensary while out west to spend Thanksgiving with my family. so, from November 27 to December 19, we plowed through $500 of weed products. we weren’t “normal” weed smokers— back home in Brooklyn, we were consuming almost 100 mg of edibles a day. bong rips and dab rips all day long— near constant 24/7 self-obliteration. so it was very important to me to find the one place with the highest mg edibles i could find- and to buy $500 worth of em— so i could smuggle them home.
after i got my booster, i came home and opened the container holding the 20 mg tablets to discover that most of them were gone— from fifty tablets we were down to maybe three or four.
i took them. fell asleep.
the next day, the first day of our drive, i was *definitely* feeling the effects of the booster— but i packed us for our trip. i put our clothes into one giant suitcase, got all the Christmas gifts lined up and ready to load into the car, and took breaks to lay in bed because i felt so ill.
that first night, he drove us to Baltimore.
i remember flitting in and out of consciousness because i felt so shitty, as he listened to a Philosophy Professor extrapolate on anti-natalism. i held the dog in my lap and heard him say, “YES! The misanthropic lens! Yes!” as i was drifting in and out of sleep.
when i opened my eyes, i saw small rabbits and animals scurrying across the road. they did not exist.
when we finally got to Baltimore, i fell asleep.
i was so used to feeling uncomfortable.
every time we tell our story, we discover what is true: but how much do i share?
every time we tell our story, we discover what is true: what was the breaking point?
the ideology that he digested on that Friday night drive to Baltimore would be spouted, spewed and misconstrued throughout the duration of the drive. he had been preaching every single day of our engagement, moving between dab rips, but perhaps he felt vindicated by hearing one seemingly trustworthy source? a random professor in South Africa?
we had to find PCR testing on Saturday morning in Baltimore. he was angry— wanted donuts. i did everything i could to find him donuts— good ones, nice ones. even after we found them, he was still irritated.
it felt like i couldn’t do anything to make him feel not wrong.
while i drove us towards North Carolina, he started in on me about my desire to have children— his irritability, which had been mounting since the day our engagement went live seven months prior, was coming to a head.
i didn’t know what i was witnessing, but this is when i began to recognize a major shift in him.
for months after the fact, i did not know for certain:
there is physical withdrawal from weed.
weed is addictive.
weed withdrawal can make you irritable and combative, physically and emotionally (and yes, even violent).
weed induced psychosis is real.
but i didn’t know any of that yet. at the point, i was just driving down the highway, begging, “Please stop yelling at me,” as his dog tried to crawl out of his lap into mine.
but he just kept getting louder and louder— and in my mind, i can’t even hear his words, they were the same as always but louder— it just all goes black until i screamed:
”I DON’T YELL BUT YOU’RE MAKING ME YELL!!!”
to which he replied, calmly, “If you’re going to have a panic attack, you should pull over.”
only then did i remember i was driving down a highway, my hands gripping the steering wheel.
i pulled over at a McDonalds, and sat there, head in my hands, sobbing, chanting: i want to go home i want to go home i want to go home.
there, in that moment, when he screamed at me, i heard what i had been repeating ad nauseam for three months prior while promoting my book:
if you don’t have trust, compassion, or boundaries— the relationship is dead.
prior to that moment, my trust in him was all that was left. no one else trusted him. no one else thought he was the one. but then again, deep down: neither did i. but i had already handed my trust over to him blindly, and when he screamed at me until my brain went dark, i realized:
i don’t trust him anymore.
and only then could i see: he’s not offering me compassion or respecting my boundaries. my head in my hands, i continued to chant, i want to go home i want to go home i want to go home.
but he convinced me to keep going— to keep driving. that he was sorry, that he was sorry, that we should keep going, that he couldn’t go back alone.
i was so used to him ranting at me— or behind closed doors, screaming at his mother on the phone so loud i could hear it through the walls— so forgiving him felt natural.
but i felt it this time: this time was different because i was not stoned.
but what to tell you next? what else is true? how much do you deserve to know and how much do i deserve to keep close, for myself?
there were so many moments— so many minor, tiny shifts over the course of that drive that had started in the weeks and months prior that slowly pulled me out; that woke up the small, shivering voice of my intuition. that drew me closer to my family, to my home. to safety.
the voice started off softly, saying, “home.”
after the second day of driving, we arrived in Asheville, North Carolina. we stayed at an AirBnB that had no doors, and i could not fall asleep next to him.
when he laid down, i got up.
i tried to fall asleep on the couch. i could not relax— be at rest— around someone who elicited fear.
i did not sleep.
i spent the night, eyes wide open, staring at the flickering flames of a fake fireplace— a screen simulating comfort. i couldn’t settle, i couldn’t surrender to sleep, i couldn’t relax until— I dreamt.
he tip-toed into the living room around six am, trying to be quiet.
upon entrance, my eyes sprang open: the last thing i saw, GLASS and BLOOD.
i saw him, i said: “I don’t think we should drive today, I think we should take today off and drive tomorrow.” my best friend Chelsea had just moved to Charlotte— there was no way she was awake before the sun on the weekend, but i knew she’d take us in. or, her parents’ lake house was open, no more than an hour away.
i was finally thinking about the people outside of the car, outside of him, people who could serve as refuge— people who were safe.
he started right where he left off: “NO, I have to get to Baton Rogue today because I have to work tomorrow and if I don’t get there I’ll be mad because I don’t want to drive on my ONE day off—”
i felt my soul starting to lift out of my skin, as it had done for the duration of our engagement, attempting to cope with the onslaught of his words. and because i was used to saying yes when my body screamed no, even though my dreams showed me GLASS AND BLOOD, i let him convince me back into that car.
the messages were coming, had been coming steadily for years, but i didn’t know how to listen to them yet.
i could hear them, but I did not listen. I would learn.
when i tell it in minute detail, i try not to fall into victimization— i am not trying to convince you that this man is a monster. i don’t believe him to be. i am instead remembering someone in the height of his disease.
addiction is a surreal killer who wants us all dead.
addiction killed the people i thought we were and lied to me about who we had become:
addiction contorted him into someone i did not recognize.
addiction (and codependency) turned me into a weak, feeble pushover.
addiction killed us, even though we were still alive.
we were back in the car. he was driving. i was holding my breath.
i got a text from my best friend Jen who was back in New York: Did you see what he posted?
i asked him, “Did you post something?”
the yelling started: “WHO TOLD YOU? WAS IT JEN? WAS IT YOUR BROTHERS? THAT is SUCH a BETRAYAL of my TRUST—"
he continued and Jen texted back: If he wants to subtweet my literal best friend and his literal FIANCÉE on his literal only Instagram page when he knows we are mutuals??? What the fuck does he expect is going to happen???
for the first time in three days, i was hearing a safe voice— after ten years of close friendship, she had proven herself safe. my best friend since college, i finally heard someone outside of the car.
she sent me a screenshot of his post: a taxidermy baby alligator head that I had purchased on a swamp tour in his hometown the year before and my mini disco ball ornament shoved into its mouth. i had heard it all for so long that i couldn’t tell what is right or wrong, true or sane.
i watched the bubbles on my phone screen as he continued to scream, “This is SUCH a BETRAYAL of my PRIVACY! You were NOT supposed to see that! I woke up and wrote it this morning and felt PROUD of it! Jen owes me AN APOLOGY!”
Jen texted, I will not be making amends with him.
when asked to choose between my best friend of a decade or the man producing terror and fear? the choice became clear.
we parked at another McDonalds and he jumped out of the car to yell into his phone again and i dialed my mom’s number. i don’t remember what I said, but all I heard was “Come home immediately” and “Get out of that car, now.”
it was only when i heard the fear in her voice that i understood that i was in danger.
my mom on speaker, i Googled the closest airport— Charlotte, Atlanta. but no flights were convenient. as i saw him approaching, i hung up the phone— afraid he’d know.
he silently got into the driver’s seat and pulled back onto the two lane highway.
immediately, in the distance, i saw a small animal.
i asked, “Is that a dog?”
i watched as a car drove towards it, but the car quickly turned left towards Walmart. the dog started to test the idea of crossing the highway.
the only declarative statement i could manage was: “Follow that dog.” he performed a U-Turn. forever good in an emergency, i ordered him, “Turn left.” he did. i flung open the car door and i started to sprint after the tiny dog. my car continued after it, zooming ahead of me. and I ran and ran and ran until I couldn’t run anymore, realizing that I had to stop running because I could not breathe because I hadn’t truly taken a deep breath in three days and my ribs were cramping as I am came to terms with the fact that I had to stop running because of the physical weight of my body.
a childhood athlete, i was instantly demoralized by the fact that I could not run after a stupid dog, that i was too heavy to save anyone— let alone myself.
but then i realized: this weight that i carry, this isn’t me.
it’s him.
i took my first deep breath in days.
i looked to my left, a scummy pond guarded by thin limbed trees. i looked up, the sky was blue. i remembered i have two feet. that I could walk. the first time i looked up or walked in two days: I took my time and remembered to breathe.
i saw my car parked outside of a brown shack. the closer I got, the more clearly i saw him on the porch, crouching small, his dog’s food in his hand, a peace offering. the tiny chihuahua quaked and cowered, rightly afraid.
he knocked on the door. he directed me to get small and not make eye contact. he threw a pebble of food. he knocked again.
an old man came out to the porch, he told the old man, “Your dog was on the highway!”
and the old man replied, “Oh, really?”
and we said, “Yeah, really!”
the dog sprinted inside.
he said, “Oh!” but he did not say thank you. as soon as the door slammed shut, yelling was heard through the walls.
he smiled at me for the first time in a long while, said, “Glad the dog made it home okay.” i couldn’t bring myself to speak, to make eye contact. the fear had not abated. but more than that, it was in that moment that i realized: he showed more kindness and compassion to a dog on a highway than he had shown me in seven months.
each moment i pulled away— had time to myself— the more clearly i could think. i was slowly coming back to myself.
i said, “I’ll drive.” i had the keys in my hand. i turned the ignition.
in rural North Carolina, Google Maps was not working. i didn’t know which airport to go to— not one flight was convenient. his phone was perched in the holder in front of me. his mother called, then his father. he hit IGNORE as he said, “I’m not talking to that BITCH.” And “What the fuck does he want?” his brother called, I hit ACCEPT before he could react.
his brother asked, “What is going on? Mom and Dad said you’re ignoring their calls?”
“I am NOT going to New Orleans alone. If Paulina’s not coming with me, I’m not coming home AT ALL.” he said he was going to drive back up north, alone. he said he is going to spend the holiday alone in our apartment. he said he is going to drive my car for two days in the direction in which we came.
and that’s when I know: I can’t go home. Not yet.
little tiny micro-movements. tiny revelations. little moments in which i knew what was right and what i must do.
i told his brother, “I’ll get him home. Don’t worry. I’ll get him home.”
i started driving South, the route still calculating on the digital map, he screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I’M NOT GOING HOME.” but I understood that the only way for me to make it home was to know that he was home— the home we shared was no longer home.
things will never be the same.
The Map calculated: twelve hours to New Orleans. and it is then when the journey to my rock bottom truly begins.
in that moment, I knew that I would be driving the whole way there— not knowing what he’d do in the driver’s seat.
they say that your bottom is when you stop digging. but i also believe that your bottom is when you are farthest from who you are meant to become.
when you’re using, you don’t realize how whole-heartedly you have abandoned yourself.
that, you have become unrecognizable to yourself and to others.
as always, thank you for reading. thank you to The Blushes for our brilliant theme song and thank you to Sydney Herrera for her brilliant sound editing.
feel free to throw Sydney a tip:
next week, we have a guest writer: ALEX BROOK LYNN
then the week after that: Part Two.
please remember to heart, comment, share, subscribe.
thank you for being here. thank you for reading my words. thank you for receiving me.
xoxox,
paulina
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