I Was Shamefaced As a “Face of Heroin” Journal Entry 2017

As I wrote this draft of my blog introduction to the world , my face was burning with embarrassment. I know the contempt pre-drug Caroleena would have had for the person I had become. I wilted under the glare of my old self condemnation and simultaneously was embarrassed by the hard line inability to understand another’s pain that was one of my old self’s characters. Anti-compassion, that was me. But still, I wrote this passage for you:

I would rather you not read these words. Therefore I suspect these humiliations will help someone. You don’t get the joy of helping people for free. You pay in your pride’s blood

Today, August 18, 2017, I saw a front page story on a magazine entitled, “the faces of heroin,” According to the story 1 person dies in the United States dies of an opioid overdose everyday 10 seconds. We are in the middle of the worst addiction crisis in history. I knew it was time to tell my story. I am a face of heroin, and I will definitely have a big target audience. I went to the finest schools where I learned how to tell a story and make the story good. But going to the finest schools has backfired on me, as a heroin addict. Bc people love to use my past to shame me. “All that school for nothing.” 👩‍🎓Or they say “How the mighty have fallen.” And thet smile. Well pleased at my (or anyone’s downfall. And they say, at least I’m not that bad. I know. I’ve said this). I have to heard that I am living proof that affirmative action doesn’t work, unless you want to see an educated junkie. I get so angry bc a big part of me agrees with them, my ever-present detractors. The ones in and outside of my head, that’s where they are, where they have always been. So many enemies, so discouraging. Yet the me that is me, that I do not identify as my enemy, would have been more than contemptuous of a woman with my addiction history, prior to the start of creating said history, doing the thing called life. No one would have looked down on someone like me as much as I would have. As much as a part of me still does. However, at this point on my long, winding road, to no discernible goal, I believe there might be a maybe. Maybe I can do some good. Perhaps I can use the elite status that I trashed, to tell a story and tell it well. ✍️Maybe I can tell you all why. No, I don’t have the answer to why I became an addict, but I can for sure tell you how. I can detail the what, as in, what happened, how it happened. You’re interested, yes?

And I am brave enough to tell you this ugly truth? if I am going to be totally honest, I am brave enough to tell you this now only because now addiction is a white thing too. And if it is a white thing than it is something that happens to real people, worthy people. I told myself as I grew up I would never buy into racism and believe things like people who look like me are prone to criminality. But I bought the whole bag, unconsciously designating myself as an exception to the rule until I appeared to fall under the rule with my own addiction. I have to say, they were right. Right about me. The only thing that kept me going in my early days was the surety that I’d prove them all wrong. To lose that was to lose my purpose and I started to concede that my birth mother should have had a different ending for the story she called the coat hanger story. If only she had shoved—hard– that coat hanger into her violated womb where I trespassed, uninvited and unwelcome. If she had ended me before I became me…no, that is just useless speculation that cannot end because we do not know what would be if we had never been.

People, like me, who should have succeeded with their advantageous gifts, have failed. I am willing to tell you my story bc I know the thing I would have been most ashamed of is not true. Seeing that whites are as susceptible as blacks to addiction is what this brainwashed person needed to see to know that like any sickness, weakness, foible, or fault, addiction is not a black thing, but a human thing. Maybe you’re more advanced than me and you’re past considering race. I’m where I am. If analyzing racial statistics brings me enlightenment, that’s ok.🌓

Yes, I notice race, just like I notice height and hair color. It’s a relief to drop the vain hope that no one will notice I’m black. It’s freeing to be able to say, “I noticed there are more people who look like me in prison than college. What’s up with that?” And I may be one of the very few who has been to both places and is willing to talk about it–Now that I know I didn’t fail bc I’m black but bc I’m human. As crazy as it is to say–and I challenge you to find anyone saying things this honest–the opioid crisis in white America brought me a lot of internal peace. I’d like to be the bigger person but part of me is small. You too?

Our split nature

If you have ever snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, for whatever reason, and you feel some kind if way bout it, you’ve come to the right place with this kindred spirit, in your online travels. Welcome to Harvard XHooker in Honolulu. You are home. Love, Caroleena Renee, the ExpertEscort