– I Get Going
At that point, life got pretty out of hand, and what did I do when things got really tough? I split town. This time I went to Oklahoma to live with Tim, the same guy I hurt so badly when I had moved back home.
He flew to California and we were going to drive to Oklahoma to start our new lives together. But for four days before he came, I did nothing but get high on cocaine because I knew when I was with him I couldn’t do it. I literally stayed up for four days and four nights getting my fill. When we drove out of Los Angeles I immediately fell asleep, or maybe I passed out. Either way, I slept for twenty-three hours straight. I think that if I hadn’t, I probably would have died. My heart was beating out of my chest, and I could hardly see straight. It was very scary. It was the first time I think I almost overdosed, but God saved me, I know this now.
Here I was, a twenty-one year old cocaine addict, detoxing and withdrawing without any help. I was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I was miserable. My relationship with Tim was the pits; he expected me to cook and clean for him and give him a beer and let him read the newspaper. It was definitely not my kind of life. I hated it, and I was withdrawing from cocaine so badly. All I did was shoot pool and play poker - not fun.
I got a job in sales, and I thought that this would be my freedom. My territories included Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. About once a week I would go with my boss to these territories and present my products. My boss was approximately fifty years old and a very smart man, but a very perverted one too. He would convince me that the only way to really learn something was during the most intimate, vulnerable state you could be in. He said he backed up his beliefs with material from Harvard University. I respected him, and I was intrigued by his intelligence. We would be in our hotel room, and he would tell me to get undressed, and of course he would use the words “trust me, I would never hurt you,” so I did. While I was receiving oral pleasure from him, he would ask me the five points of selling. This was supposedly the best way to teach someone these selling techniques. But, what he was really doing was controlling my mind, and he had control of my mind many years after parting. We ended our so-called work relationship when he “accidentally” had intercourse with me. He was married and his wife was about to have a baby, but only now did he think he had committed adultery. After all, if he didn’t penetrate me then it was strictly business, and he was doing me a favor by teaching me at such a vulnerable level, or so he said. It took me years to realize that not only did he sexually abuse me, but he psychologically abused me too; he controlled my mind.
Well as you can probably guess, life was miserable. Again, I stayed true to my motto: when the going got tough - I got going! So I moved back to Los Angeles and moved in with Kathy, my old roommate, who I used to stay with while visiting from San Diego. Now remember I was completely dry from all drugs for about four months.
The very day I got into LA, I started using all over again. I was actually thankful that the first people I saw were dealers. We all went to the Colorado River for Memorial weekend, and I got high every minute I was there. From the minute we got into a van we rented, through the entire day, through the night, and as soon as I woke up the next day. I did so much cocaine that my nose wouldn’t stop bleeding, and even that didn’t stop me. I thought to myself, I would never go without that again. Life is too rough without it.
I got another job and started life over again. Kathy and I got our own apartment and began the partying there. I did my usual sleeping around; Kathy and I were very good at that. We would go out at night just to have sex.
One night I went to our usual bar and I saw a guy, and I thought to myself, “I want him.” I would always pick the best looking guy and conquer him. Well that night was no different. I conquered him, and I went to his condo with him in Marina Del Ray, with every intention on sleeping with him, though he was moving a little too fast for me. We were in the elevator together and he started going up my skirt and then he dragged me into his condo. I tried to play it cool, although I was terrified. He got undressed and put on a robe. So I said to him, why don’t you chill out and we’ll drink a beer. Well he had no interest in that. He started getting very forceful with me. I knew I had to make a decision to either let him have sex with me or he would rape me and maybe kill me. So I did whatever he wanted. He forced me to have oral sex with him, and as much as I wanted to hurt him down there, I was terrified. The next morning he gave me a ride home and like an idiot I kissed him good-bye. I walked into Kathy’s place, and I just busted out in tears - uncontrollably crying. I felt so powerless, and I knew at that moment that I would never let that happen to me again. That was my last one-night stand and that would be the last time that I would be date-raped.
After that incident, I found someone named Chris and fell madly in love, at least I thought it was love. We spent every day together and I stayed at his place until an event happened where he had to move into my apartment. It was Halloween night 1987 and we had a party at his house. There were a lot of people there, partying, but good people. And then this guy came in, who I had spotted and remembered that he was the one who had tried to rip off the house a couple of weeks prior to the party. I told Chris, and he told the guy to leave. The guy had a gun, so we called the police. They kicked him out, and this guy, who was a member of the Culver City gang, went home and made a bomb to blow us up and kill us. Instead, by the grace of God, it blew him up and killed him. I don’t mean that God killed him—that is not for me to say, but I do mean that God graced us and saved us that night. Now I had no relationship with God at the time, but I knew, in my heart of hardened hearts, that God spared me, and because He spared me also spared those around me. I knew at that very moment that God was protecting me. Of course that thought didn’t last very long because I continued to destroy my life.
Because of this incident with the bomb, Chris moved in with me, and a very short time after that, became my fiancée. We were engaged and trying to plan a wedding, but the problem was we couldn’t save any money, because we spent it all on cocaine. We were both heavily hooked on this drug. He would steel money from work to pay for our habit. In turn, I would call my parents to ask for money for our wedding plans, dress, flowers, arrangements, etc. However, when they would send me the money, I would spend it on drugs. We got to the point where we would scrounge his van for laundry money. It was a sad site. And with no money to pay for our wedding, we started fighting all the time. He would have bouts of rage. He never physically hurt me, though I think he was capable. He had turned into someone I didn’t even know. It was scary, very scary - the man that I was going to spend the rest of my life with was out of control.
When Chris was with me and my friends he would be himself, and he would get high on cocaine. But when he would hang out with his other friends, who he had known for a long time, he would act completely different. They didn’t even know he did drugs. He was living a double life, and he expected me to do the same thing. I could be a chameleon and act like anybody, anywhere. (I had the ability to change my personality to fit my circumstances). Even though I had this ability, I did not want to use it around his friends and he couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t be himself around them and therefore I think he was going crazy. Just like all of my other boyfriends, he had a terrible childhood and a horrible relationship with his father. That seemed to be the case with all my men. I guess it was a trend. Anyway, he really started losing it by getting very angry over the littlest things. I told him that if he didn’t get help I would leave him. He started seeing a therapist. I believe she could have helped him, but his fake friends were influencing him and they told him to leave me.
I’ll never forget it -it was Cinco De Mayo, 1988, and we were getting ready to go on a party yacht to celebrate this occasion. Any occasion was time for celebration! We were sitting in his green van, and he was in his usual quiet angry mood, so I said, “Are you OK?” He said, “No, as a matter of fact I’m miserable and I’m moving out. I don’t love you anymore.” Well those words echoed in my head like a drum, “I don’t love you anymore.” What was that supposed to mean? How can someone all of a sudden stop loving you?