A Toxic Kind Of Love

Living with Ben and Susan was not easy. Susan would get drunk off of box wine and Klonopin, Ben would down two to three bottles of Robitussin and blast off to space. Me? I was damage control. My relationship with Ben was not perfect. We broke up once in the summer of 2014, but we navigated out way back to each other. I should have stayed away, but I was so in love with this man that I just went right back. It was shortly after that break that things slowly spiraled downward. One night I was playing a video game, minding my own business while Ben was tripping. He was having a bad time, unlike any other bad trip I had ever seen. He was sitting on the ground, cross legged, rocking back and forth hitting himself in the head. He was out of his mind. Eyes glossed over, couldn't talk, his tongue was swollen to the point he could barely move it. Yet he was just sitting there, rocking back and forth like a mental case, hitting himself in the head and pulling at his hair. I had never noticed before, but he had a bald spot at the back of his head where it was evident that he had done this several times before. This trance, continued to happen. I would try to talk to him about it the next day and address my concerns, but he would call me a liar and tell me that it never happened. One night I decided I would use his phone and make a video. I filmed it happening so I could show him while he was sober. During the episode, he got pissed off at me, stood up, proceeded to pry his phone out of my hand and throw it against a wall. He walked over to it, deleted the video and told me to never do that again. In a state of shock, I decided no response was the best way to go and began to work on some of my writing.

This was the first of many violent outbreaks that I would have to go through. I was so intrigued by Bens behavior while on DXM, that I wanted to see the world from his point of view. I decided that I would try Robotripping with him. Part of me wanted to get down to his level and see what he was seeing. The other part of me wanted to prove to him, that his behavior while on that shit was not normal. This, began my downward spiral into the world of heavy drugs. So I began to take DXM with him. The trip, made me warm and fuzzy and it felt like my body was being given a hug. I could not do more than lay down and sleep when I was tripping, so most of my time while on DXM was spent in bed. However, I never acted angrily towards anyone, I never had any compulsion to hurt myself or others and I always felt more creative. When I was not laying in bed, I was drawing. I could never bring myself to do it for more than one day at a time. My body felt weak, my stomach was a mess and my mind was beginning to meld reality and dream land together. It was a recipe for disaster for someone to do this every day, for weeks on end. Ben, had been doing this for years.

While DXM was Bens drug of choice, he also had other vices. Methamphetamine was one of those. As much as I hate to admit it, I allowed Ben to talk me into trying it. I had always told myself no matter what I did, I would never try Meth or Heroine. I stayed true to the ladder, but Meth...boy that was a whole other world. Meth made me feel things. More than Ecstasy every did, more than Adderall, or Weed or LSD. Meth, made feelings have colors and those colors washed over my chest like a work of art. I enjoyed it. He enjoyed it. We didn't binge it in the beginning, we would buy a sack, finish it and wait a bit to buy some more. The role that Meth plays, comes in later in the story. It is just important for you all to know everything that went into play in this relationship.

July of 2014. This is the month that began the change. July 4th, 2014 I went to a family pool party with Ben and his mom Susan. Susan's family was well off and the party was refreshing. The people were nice, they were sane, there was no mention of drugs, they wanted to get to know me. At the time I was working for a company that was putting me through school to get my General Lines License in Texas, so I was pretty well to do for only 20. The party was a good time, minus Ben deciding he would Robotrip on the way there and almost drowning in the pool because he was too fucked up to know which way was up or down while swimming on the surface of the water. I drove Ben and Susan home, because they were both to drunk to drive. I had stopped drinking early in the afternoon because I did not trust either one of them to refrain themselves from drinking too much. The drive home was pleasant, it was quite and peaceful. The night we we're about to have, was everything of the opposite.

So, we get home. Susan slept in the living room on the couch. She never got a bed after Benji left, and had been sleeping on the couch ever sense. So Susan sits on the couch and puts her TV on, while Ben and I go into our room. Ben was fucked up. He was being rude, and short and decided he would do his own thing. Grabbed him another beer out of the fridge and decided he was going to grab the shot gun and some ammo and go outside and shoot off some shots to celebrate the 4th. I was terrified. I begged him not to do it, he was so messed up he could barely walk, or talk and yet he wanted to go outside and shoot a gun into the air? I went into the living room and spoke with Susan who shared the same fears that I did. He would not listen to either of us and insisted that I go outside with him. We sat in the bed of his truck while he shot off a few shots and I sat there mortified the entire time. Eventually he had his fill and came back inside. Only, he did not put the shot gun back where he got it from. He brought it into the room with him. I was pretty upset at his behavior towards me and ended up laying in bed and cried myself to sleep. I was a tender heart, I never raised a hand nor my voice to him, so for him to be mean to me, hurt me. I woke up in a few hours, it was late. Maybe about 4 AM. I peeked at him, making sure he could not see that I was awake yet. What I saw shocked me to my core. Ben had the Barrell of the shot gun in his mouth, pretending to kill himself. I tried to talk him into putting the shot gun back in his moms room, I was worried about his state of mind. He was listening to Nirvana and singing all of the suicidal parts, yelling that he hated himself and wanted to die. I begged him to come to bed. Eventually he did, but he brought the gun with him.

Ben laid in bed next to me, and put his head as close to mine as he could. He told me not to worry about anything, that he was fine and to go back to sleep. He would always tell me to just go back to sleep. So, I closed my eyes. I felt movement, so I peered through squinted eyes to see what Ben was up to now. Slowly, yet deliberately, Ben loaded two shots into the shot gun. He took the gun, and he laid it horizontal to our heads, with the barrel pushed up against his temple. All I could do, was whisper 4 words "What are you doing?". It was enough to stop him from blowing both of our brains out. After that, I could not sleep. I stayed up all night until about 6 AM when Susan woke up. I begged her to take that gun from his room, I told her I saw him stick the barrel in his mouth. She did not take it out that day, but a few days later she snuck it out while we were away. This incident was just the tip of the iceberg.

More of my story in part 3.