I don't like what I am.

[A-OK]

Hello, im A-OK. Today is my saddest birthday ever, i just turned 16. I really havent been feeling myself lately. I just went through a point in my life where I was the happiest i've ever been. I had a girlfriend, I had a great group of friends and I had a best friend so close I would have considered him my brother. I grew up and currently live in a place where the temperature is always in the triple digets and everyone is retired. My life was going well until my mom was sadly the victim of a hit and run. When i heard the news it was in a little square at the top of my phone reading "your mom got into a little accident" ofcourse when i saw her in the hospital this was no "little accident". I saw my mom, blood all over her face, most teeth either missing or chipped. Holding back my tears i tried to talk to her but all i had was a lump in my throat. I dont have a dad so my moms best friend took care of me for a couple of weeks while my mom was in the ICU. During this short period i grew very close to her as a parental figure, id call her uncle julie because she was basically the cool uncle i never had. The only person i could talk about my feelings to was my girlfriend, soon after my moms accident she broke up with me. It hurt so much more because i was already broken from my moms accident. One day my cool uncle julie introduced me to her son, ill call him "Dyl". I really looked up to him, he would always give me cigarettes and booze. He told me about his past heroin addiction problems, some of the stuff he told me still gives me the chills. I thought highly of him as he broke his heroine addiction. He gave me confidence. Some time later my mom gets out of ICU and comes home, struggling to come up the steps on her crutches. It was hard to watch knowing how energetic she used to be. She loved Dyl, he basically lived with us for a while. One day dyl and i decided to throw a going away party for his sister, we got a beer keg cleaned up the entire backyard and put up cool art installations everywhere. I invited over a girl that i had a crush on. We did alot of partying and i thought it was going great until her and some guy started talking and i realise she replaced me with some other guy. I just went to my room and sat there thinking about how i wasted my time on that party. Overwhelming feelings of rejection and depression. Dyl comes through my door and tells me to go in his room, i follow him to find him and a girl with a mirror full of white powder in organised lines. He gives me a dollar bill. All i could think was "fuck it, this night cant get any worst" so one line turns into another. I didn't know what to think about it. I just did cocaine. I look into the mirror i just snorted off of and my pupils are huge. I felt like i was ontop of the world. After the party i started to down xanax like candy. I was so full of myself. I thought i was some sort of bad ass for putting these dangerous chemicals into my body everyday. Now i just know i was weak. I got into more fights, i started pushing all my friends away and worst of all i let everyone down. All i had was dyl. Then one day he's fucked up and walks in my room and passes out on my bed, he mumbles he has a xanax bar in his pocket and tells me to take it. I take out a little container from his pocket and open it looking for my crazed drug of choice. My heart skips a beat. I found a brick of black tar heroin. I pick it up and i cant understand what im looking at. I just keeping glancing at the dark sticky brick and dyl with tears in my eyes. I became alot more depressed and lost after that, i dont see dyl any more. My days of pill popping and rolled dollar bills are over. Im more lost then ever now. I dont know who i am, i lost my best friend, i lost most of my friends, i pushed the people closest to me away, i dont even know who i am anymore. What do i do?

[Anxiouspony12]

Sorry to hear about your mum and your girlfriend. You are only 16. You are sensible to quit with the drugs so much. I ended up in rehab for drugs and I started as a teenager. They don't solve your problems long term. Ok to take for fun with friends but not when you got things in your life you want to forget. Have you been tested for ADHD? Just asking. Cos I have ADHD & had similar things as a teen to you. Not saying you have just asking. It's hard to advice cos it sounds like a hard situation for you. Do you have stuff you like doing like music or anything creative? I think it's very important to have something you like doing cos it keeps you busy and you can meet other people that way. Trust me the friends who you do drugs with aren't always the best friends long term. You want some friends you can do fun stuff with outside drugs sooner or later. Are there any friends you used to hang with you could get in touch with don't worry if you had fight they might miss you and want to catch up with you now. You sound sensible you already worked stuff out. You maybe just need to find something you like doing or want to do and then you will meet people when your ready I think. And it's normal to feel the way you do right now. And birthdays can bring up all kinds of feelings. And I do remember being teenager and i always had my things I did like music. And I still do them now. I definitely would say find something you enjoy doing. It helps a lot even if it's just playing computer games or something. 😊

[Hidden]

Hello A-OK.

It was your 16th birthday, and you "called" on us. That's the youngest you can be, I believe, to be in this venue. Think that almost placing a sense of responsibility on us to help you in the ways we know how.

We may not have the answers you searching for, but we will be here to help you move on past the events of the last few weeks.

To tell you that you are young, and you will survive and thrive in time, is not much comfort to you now, is it?

From reading your post, you appear to be an honest, naive, caring and an intelligent young man trying to navigate yourself through the very difficult teen years. Sometimes you feel as though you are that emerging young man, and at other times, the old child still in you is trying to make sense of what appears to be a totally screwed up world.

And that is without all that has happened to you recently.

Anxiuospony12 has written to you and I hope you keep that reply, or any and all replies to you so you can read them when you need to remind yourself life will be better, and you are definitely a person of great value. Who knows how you will change this world, make this world a getter place, find the answers to questions that we don't have now.

So I will just speak to your broken heart regarding the girl at your party. Girls are absolutely crazy at your age, and so are you. I can say that because I was a teenage girl once, trying to figure out what teenage boys were all about. And from my brothers and teenage boy that was a close friend of mine at that time, teenage boys just haven't a clue as to how to figure out girls. It's the age of hormones. It's also the age of really liking someone and having your heart bruised. Who knows why she decided to chat up that other fellow? But maybe next time you're in a situation, you'll just go up and join the conversation she was having. Maybe she wasn't choosing anyone, but you'll never know if you don't follow up.

Don't think it was because you weren't good looking enough, attractive enough, kool enough, assertive enough, or anything else enough. Once you got to know her, you may have found she wasn't what you thought she was. Not a good fit.

This attraction, liking someone, is a crazy dance, isn't it? Just wait until you are older and decide you would like to marry. Whew....that's a discussion for another day.

These teenage years and your twenties are meant to meet people, to learn what you like about each person, and what is not your cup of tea. It's exciting and wonderful and comfortable to have a girlfriend that you can trust at your age.... the question is how to meet them if you live in an older age community Ah, there's the rub. Only you can figure that one out, as I don't live there. What about school, community center, I know, that doesn't sound kool. What about the grandchildren of some of the older residents......But you don't have to like the idea in order to maybe meet some girls who may be in the same boat as you....trying to meet other teens.

My Teen Age Sob Story......................................................................................

Probably the biggest heartthrob I had as a teen was a teen boy who participated in something called Junior Achievement with other teens and me on Monday nights. Absolutely cool, tall, blonde and couldn't care less that I existed. Man, did he blow it.

I ran into this same person a few years later and he was just as handsome and tall and kool.

I had managed to figure out how to pay for college and was earning barely enough to buy a second-hand car, pay for my sister's tuition, take my Mum to lunch once in awhile, pay for an older, 3 story walk up apartment and some decent clothes. I was active in our older neighborhood volunteer group of people my age.

We had dinner one time, and I quickly learned he was nothing like I thought he was.

He never tried to learn a trade, attend any school after high school, had a tiny one-room apartment, no car and worked as mail room clerk in an office building. No way to work his way up in that company, no ambition what so ever to better himself, help his parents' situation and the idea of doing free work for anything was beyond him. He explained, he "lived in the moment". He was a flower child who didn't realize the 60's were gone.

I was very lucky he coudn't care less that I existed when we were teenagers.

[Agora1]

A-OK. on your special day today, give yourself the gift of life once more by getting into some therapy. You have an awful lot of baggage for such a young age. My fear is once you have tasted the hard core drugs, you may one day be tempted to go down that road again. I glad you don't see dyl any more. But what if he reappears in your life at a down moment or you meet another dyl, then what. Counseling would help make you strong again so that this doesn't end up ruining your life. You are lost. How can you know who you are after all this life trauma you've been through? Please make a call to a therapist who deals in drug abuse. What was once can happen again. I want you to find that young man you once were and look forward to a future of happiness and stability. You deserve it. Everyone deserves a chance in life.

We will support you A-OK, you will not be alone in this journey but make that call. Give yourself a birthday gift on your 16th that you will remember for the rest of your life. You are not alone Happy Birthday my friend, Best wishes for a good year. Agora1 x