Carrie's Story: With Love & Light

My mother had come to visit. Now, Sam had told the other two about my mother and Topher was the brave soul that ventured to dinner with us. Sam and John (who I was to meet that night) were going to join us after dinner. To say plans went smoothly would be a lie! It was a total shit show, somehow Topher was able to talk my mother into going back to the hotel, and he called Sam and John, sending them to my apartment, on the basis of “he had a bad feeling”. My mother could take words and cut you so deep, I drank a lot that night. That night is much like a movie that moved slow, and I only have clips of it. I was numb, and I no longer wanted to feel. Enter John. He found me on my black and white tiled bathroom floor. 

It was a hot savannah night. I started the tequila early, there was an unsettling in my soul, I didn't exactly know why she was here, but I did know whatever was going on I was gonna be the target. And that is exactly what happened. 

At the time, I was running 10 miles three times a day, working out twice a day and eating vegan. I might have weighed 110 on a good day. I had been in Savannah for 17 days. I was not healthy, I might have looked healthy, but I was in a bad bad head space. 

 

A lot lead up to that night. There was years of disfunction, years of pain, years of being a target. As I sit here at 48, I can look back at this time, I have learned to talk about it. And now, I am writing about it. There has been a lot of forgiveness, even more learning to be ok with it, and so much work on my part to cut ties. But that night brought me the most amazing gift. 

 

I grew up in an alcoholic family. I drank at that time to numb the pain, to fill the emptiness, to cover up the rotting parts of me. At dinner, my mother attacked, this was a built up one, for I had not lived at home for a year. I needed the distance between her and I.

 

This is my story… and someday it will be a blueprint for someone to not only survive darkness but to make the choice to thrive and grow and become the most beautiful version. For so many years I allowed others to write in my book, and at 40, I took every damn pen back. I was done…but we will get to that later… for today for this moment is reserved for that NIGHT.

I had lots of medication with me at my apt. I drank a lot before dinner and at dinner. Thank goodness my friend walked my mother home. I learned later he had called my other friends to go check on me at my apartment. Thankfully they had an extra key and John was the first person I saw.

 

I had mixed a crap load of alcohol and swallowed a ton of pills. Not my best move, however I no longer wanted to breath. I wanted to close my eyes and never wake up. So as I laid on the cold black and white tiled bathroom floor, I opened my eyes to see John, and he was telling me “beautiful girl I am gonna fix this” then I would close my eyes, then open again to him saying “you need to look at me.”

 

I am gonna stop for a moment and describe John. Think Tyler parry, but he looks really good in glitter and feathers. John was a BIG man! He had been a body builder at one point in time… HUGE… John being the big man he is, picked me up, put me on the stretcher, as they were getting me ready for transport to the hospital, he made them stop. He pulled out a glittery lip gloss, and said “wait this queen needs glitter.” He went with me. His father, happened to be a Dr. The next morning, John went outside my room while his partner sat with me. I could hear him “Don't make the Queen come out, she is big and you CAN'T handle her.” There were lots of promises made between John and I. His father became my therapist, and the first therapist who wasn’t afraid of my mother.