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testing them, first of all by storytelling, then by faking accidents. When that
didn’t receive any attention I drew gravestones all over my bedroom and
schoolbooks, on my hands, anywhere and everywhere, saying I wished I was
dead. Nobody really took any notice so I thought I would try faking suicide. I lay
on the landing with a bottle of pills by my side, pretending to dead, or at the very
least unconscious, but mum and dad would just step over me. Obviously they
knew I was attention seeking.
These elaborate attempts to try to feel accepted had no impact, so by 12 years
old I was at the experimental stage of drinking and partying – then at 13 I
discovered drugs. This was great, I thought. At last I had found a place where I
belonged. This quickly moved into using to increase my social status – although
in reality I was just a little girl crying out for help. Drug taking, partying,
criminality and bunking off school were all part of my daily activities and I found
a sense of purpose and belonging.
By now I had lost even more friends. Katrina, my rebellious friend in school,
had a massive brain bleed and died, as did Mark, the bad boy whom I so
admired. The list went on and included family members, which reaffirmed to me
that everyone I got close to died and I felt that I was somehow to blame for this.
I was just 14 years old when I first tried heroin. It was in a house in New
Brighton, with an older lad, Gary. I had acquired a load of barbiturates and he
wanted to swap. I wasn’t impressed at that stage, preferring stimulants, acid
and downers.
It wasn’t until I was nearly 16 that heroin re-entered my life. All the lads were
doing it and it was all very alluring and exciting. Through shoplifting and
excessive drug and alcohol taking I had gained acceptance to the bad boys’ club
and was given full membership without knowing exactly what I had signed up for,
apart from a feeling of belonging and acceptance.
Next issue: Marie’s experimentation takes a more serious turn
ON 21 MARCH 1968 I ENTERED THE WORLD,
named Marie, I was a person
with the same opportunities and chances we are all born with.
Until I was seven years old, I was a happy-go-lucky child. I loved playing with
my toys and daydreaming about life and what I was going to do when I was grown
up. I was the eldest of three children and we had a busy family social life. Our
extended family was a major part of our lives and every day we would go and
visit a relative – up to three times some days – or they would come to our house.
We were just a normal family, until tragedy hit. On a family day out to visit
relatives in Stoke-on-Trent, my little sister Pauline was brutally killed in a road
accident. It seemed like it happened in slow motion and there was a silence that
cloaked the screams of horror. I recall a bystander saying it was OK, my sister was
OK. I looked at her wondering if I had gone mad, watching her tiny mangled body
strewn across the road. Was it a bad dream, with my head playing tricks on me?
Pandora’s Box was about to be opened. I was a seven-year-old kid struggling
to understand what exactly had gone on and finding it difficult to make sense of
it all. The world seemed to go on as normal, but it was far from normal. My
resentment for people grew – all around silly things. My mum and dad had said
a funeral was no place for child, but I wanted to be there to hold my dad’s and
mum’s hands, but instead I was made to stay with Uncle Jimmy. I made that
man’s life hell – he had never done anything wrong, but simply because he was
the one who had to mind me. I picked up resentments everywhere, putting them
in my backpack of insecurities. It was a heavy burden for a child to carry, but
somehow I felt the accident was my fault.
When my playmate was killed in a road accident in September that year, I
began to feel there must be something wrong with me. I became disconnected
at school, and rather than study I would just daydream. My parents never gave
any reason for me to feel this way, but somehow, in my distorted mind, I felt I
was burden and that it was probably my fault Pauline had been killed. So I began
22 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| September 2012
First person |
Marie’s story
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
‘I was a seven-year-old kid struggling to
understand what exactly had gone on and
finding it difficult to make sense of it all. The
world seemed to go on as normal, but it was far
from normal. My resentment for people grew...’
In the first part of her story,
Marie Tolman
explains how an incident in her
childhood turned her world upside down and sent her down the path to addiction.
My journey
of self‐discovery