First Time Here

I don’t really know whats wrong with me. I’m always fucking up.  I can’t control myself.  I don’t even know why I’m writing this, i just want to let it all out.

I’m only 21 years old and I already fucked up my entire life. Everyone around me tried to help me, but I was too stupid to listen. I thought I had it all figured out. I thought life was a game. I thought I didn’t need anyone.  Now I realize how stupid I was.

Now everyone has left me. They don’t care anymore. I took them for granted. My father doesn’t talk to me anymore. My mother looks at me like I’m a piece of shit. My grandfather is completely disappointed. My best friend, or whom i thought was my best friend asked me to stop calling her. My friends do not want to hang out around me anymore. It’s like I’m just dead weight.

I was borned and raised in Central America, but my father moved to the U.S. when i was like six years old. I remember when he would come visit me and my mother a couple of times a year. he used to hide under the sheets on my moms bed, and them my mom would come to wake me up, telling me that there was something weird hiding in her bed. I used to get so happy, I already knew it was my dad. I was the happiest kid in the world. my dad used to abuse alcohol in the past, i remember seeing him drunk and reckless a couple of times back when I was a kid, but he never assaulted me or my mother. My parents always did their best to take care of me. they loved me. My whole family loved me.

I remember we used to have lunch at my grandparents house every weekend back when i was little. We used to play around with my cousins, watch movies, joke around. We where a happy family. We used to go to the beach together, go to the movies together, shit, we used to even go to the supermarket together. That’s exactly what I was remembering today, my mom asked me to go to Walmart with her and we went to the same Walmart I used to go to with my grandparents and my cousins years ago. It looked the same, same hallways, same food court at the entrance, same McDonald’s in front of the cashiers. I used to love going to the super market with my grandparents. I remember that after we where done shopping we would go have dinner at the McDonald’s inside before going back home.  I just feel so guilty right now, so sad, so empty. I almost started crying when i was there today with my mom. I wish I could just go back to being an innocent kid, a happy kid.

Now my family barely talks to each other. There are no more family gatherings or anything anymore. My aunt and my uncle got a divorce when i was around 9 or 10 and then my parents got divorced a year later. That was it. Just like that, my family was destroyed. I still see my grandfather often, my mom works for him, so I sometimes slide by his office to eat lunch with them. I know he loves me, I love him too, but I can see the pain in his eyes. I can see the disappointment. I can see how worried he is. What really kills me is knowing that I’m the reason for why he feels that way, I’m actually causing him psychological pain. I always wanted to be like him. Since my father wasn’t around much, he was my father figure. My grandfather is the best person I know. I admire him. I wish I could be him. Sometimes when I meet new people, I even tell them his stories from when he was a kid as if they where mine.

I don’t know when everything went wrong, I cant remember. I used to be so happy, I used to talk so much, I used to enjoy life. When I was around 12, I stopped talking. I felt uncomfortable talking to my family, I felt like I didn’t belong. I was so depressed. This is when I first thought about suicide. I used to pray to god every night, asking him to not let me wake up the next morning, I just wanted the pain and the sadness to go away.  I tried to hang myself. I tried to cut my wrists but I didn’t have the balls to do it.

When I was in the tenth grade was when I have been the most depressed in my whole life. I don’t know why. I had it all, but i just didn’t realize it. I had friends, I had my mom, my grandfather, my brother, my dad, I had a good life. But I just didn’t appreciate it. This is when I asked my father to move in with him in Chicago, I wanted a fresh start. I remember how anxious I was when i first told him. I wasn’t sure about how he was going to react. But he supported me all the way, he even started calling me once a week to see how I was doing and to let me know how the immigration process was going. I used to look forward to that phone call every Thursday. It made me feel happy and loved.

When I arrived to Chicago it wasn’t what i expected, but at least I felt inner peace, I was away from it all in a place where nobody knew me. But then I started missing my mom and my brother, my family. I used to cry at night because of how much I missed my mom. I didn’t have any friends so I felt so lonely. I’ve always been shy, plus I was the foreign kid who could barely speak English so I was kind of a looser in the American high school.

So I left. I came back to my country. I felt happy, at least for a couple of weeks. I got into a new school, I made new friends, I felt inner peace. I really miss those days. Not a single worry in the world. This is where I met Cecilia. She used to like me and I knew it but I wasn’t attracted to her in that way. She has always been a really nice person, but I had never had a girlfriend before, I had never even kissed a girl before so I just didn’t know what to do. I never thought of myself as an attractive guy. I always thought I was ugly, I never thought a girl would like me that way. I eventually fell in love with her and I wrote her this long letter telling her how much I loved her. I’m not sure about what happened but she started acting weird afterwards, or maybe it was me acting weird. Nothing happened, we kissed once, but we just stayed friends, good friends, but just that.

We graduated high school in 2014, I failed a couple of classes so i had to go to summer school, but I made it, I was done with school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I don’t think i ever had. So I called my dad and told him I wanted to move back with him. I just though I’ll figure it out once I move back to Chicago. So I moved back and I felt even more lost. So, what did i do? I joined the U.S. Air Force. Like always, I didn’t know what I wanted, I didn’t know how I felt, I thought the military would fix me.

I did almost three years before I got kicked out last December. I got kicked out after going to rehab twice and after spending six months in a military prison. I just felt so alone and empty. I started drinking a lot. I would pass out drunk every night after work. I thought it was fun and cool at first but it never was. Then I started feeling lonely even when drunk so I wanted something else. I got drunk one night and drove off base to one of the ghetto areas in the closest town, it was like 1am so I just started driving around the block until I saw this guy riding a bike. I asked him for drugs, I had done coke in the past, so that’s what I wanted but he told me he “didn’t know ’bout no coke, but he could get me some yeezy”, I didn’t know what “yeezy” was but I told him to get me some anyway. That’s how I started doing meth. I loved it, that first line made me feel so good, so happy, so confident, so full. I didn’t slept, ate or drank water for two days. I ended up in the emergency room. I thought I was going to die.

I told myself that was it, that I had made one stupid decision but that I was going to get over it. I got drunk three days later and went to get some more. I started to get involved with all these people, meth heads, crack heads, low time drug dealers, prostitutes. I just hated to be alone so now at least I had some people to hang out with. I had some people to talk to. I had people who actually listened to me, people who “liked” me. I felt accepted.

Meth is not a game. I ended up being so paranoid, I couldn’t sleep, I would just look through the peephole in my door all night, thinking the FBI was going to kill me. I would go for days without food. I could barely show up to work and pretend I wasn’t high. I tried to kill myself on multiple occasions, I was even in a high speed chase with the cops, hoping that hey would shoot me, long story short, this is how i got my bad behavior discharge.

When in was in jail I felt so peaceful. I could sleep so calmly, I would just read and write, and think about life. I had plans for after I got out. I thought I was going to fix my life.

I got out of jail, and I got drunk the first night. I was doing coke by my second day out. I fucked up. I spent all my savings in one night at a strip club, I did so much coke I thought I was going to die. I crashed my car a couple of weeks later. I lost it all in less that two months.

So I moved back with my mom, thinking this was a fresh start, thinking this time I was going to change for good. But no. I didn’t.

I know it may sound stupid, and you could just say “well, then why don’t you stop drinking?”, but its not that easy, when I’m sober I just feel so empty, like life doesn’t have any meaning, the only way i can get a relief from this is by getting drunk and then going out to do drugs and get in trouble. This is exactly what happened last night, I got paid yesterday, so I got excited, I was supposed to fix my car and pay the money I owe to my mom, to my grandfather and my credit card. I thought I would just drink a couple of beers to enjoy my day off work. I ended up going to a strip club and spending all my money on private dances and coke. I don’t even look at the girls at the club in a sexual way, I just basically pay for the private dances just so that I can talk to them. I just want someone to listen to me. To pay attention to me.

Now I got no car, my mom is in a very bad  financial situation so she can’t even lend me more money to fix it, so now I can’t even go to work anymore. I will get fired.

Tomorrow I will call my grandfather, I will ask him if its OK if I go to his house to eat lunch. I do not know yet what I want to do. I can either eat lunch and ask him for help, ask him to give me a job, to give another chance, or I can eat lunch one last time and then go get his gun out of his safe and shoot myself in the head.

I think I’ll go with the second option, I can’t do this anymore. My life has no purpose, I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what I want. My friends are all gone. Most of my family is all gone. Cecilia is gone. She doesn’t even want me to call her anymore. She used to care about me, she used to listen to me, I used to love her. Now its all gone. My dad doesn’t even pick up the phone anymore. I understand, I was an asshole, I didn’t appreciate his help when he was so eager to help me. Now its too late. It’s all gone.