hi i’m aspen :)

(this is super long i’m sorry idk if i’m supposed to explain it all. admins or whoever can delete it or tell me to if this isn’t allowed)

hi guys. this app is kinda really confusing so i hope i’m doing this right.

TW - drugs and alcohol, abuse

soooo the ptsd i deal with is drugs and alcohol, mostly it being drugs.

my dad is a drug addict and alcoholic. unfortunately he was abusive to my brother but also encouraged my brother to do drugs and drink. it didn’t help that my brother didn’t hang out with good people, but it was my dad that had the heavy influence.

before 2020 i’d joke about 420 and about drug type stuff, as some dumb teens do. but i can’t even hear 420 or stupid jokes, let alone make them. weed is the biggest trigger for me. the smell causes me to get angry and want to cry, and also get extremely uncomfortable and want to vomit. if i’m around it + the smell, it causes me to have panic attacks. even vapes can make me uncomfortable.

during 2020, when the whole pandemic started, my brother had forcibly moved in with my mom and i, and brought all his problems with him. it was okay at first but it gradually got worse. my brother went on to move his girlfriend in with my mom and i, and him. we live in a 3 room trailer, so it was crazy. but my brother started getting heavily into crime. was stealing things from

people, from my mom and i, other family members, stole lots of money, strange objects to sell for money, stole a lot of my clothes, stole my airpods too. he would steal the light bulbs in the house too, stole my lava lamp one the very first time. [side note, my brother had a bong as well. but it wasn’t to smoke weed or whatever you do in there.] my brother had crazy outbursts to us, would yell a lot or freak out for no reason. he didn’t sleep for days on end but then would pass out on the couch after so many days of not sleeping. he’d be out all night who knows where doing who knows what, would come home with random things like jewelry, bikes, kid toys, [my young niece lived with us while all of this happened too] and just other things. he also stole my medications i needed as well. but i couldn’t tell the doctors why i needed refills often.

my mom googled drugs that caused the behavior my brother was having. i was on the phone with my friend at the time, but my mom called me into her room and showed me what she was reading. and what she read, that described my brother to a T, meth. crystal meth in his case. it explained everything. but from then on, it got worse.

he had meth pipes hidden/thrown around our house, left tiny bags of crystal meth everywhere out in the open where my niece could have easily touched, he would be in MY bathroom flicking his lighter into his bong smoking idk what type of mixture in there. my room is right next to my bathroom. i heard it all hours of the night. sometimes when i hear lighter flicks it reminds me of that. sometimes i had to clean up the crystal meth mess he’d leave in my bathroom or somewhere else, there is permanent burn marks on my bathtub from him, stuff in my bathroom is broken from him too still to this day. sometimes i’d have to stay up at night and baby sit my brother as he was high off his mind. he’d bump into cabinets and counters, would trip over his feet, would almost fall. i yelled at him when those times came to go lay down and go to bed. my mom had to work, that’s why i had to.

during this whole time i had experienced manic episodes, but every single night. i was hyper, i’d do crazy make up looks on myself and take pictures, running around bouncing off the walls, i was loud. when we’d have really hard days/nights i would be throwing things around my room sobbing hysterically at what i was going through with my brother. it was so hard to live that every day for so long. i had to deal with it for almost two years.

when i’d go shopping with him and his girlfriend he would smoke blunts while driving, but they always smelt like burnt plastic. my friends sister told me he was probably mixing crystal meth in his blunts. i would tell him he was a meth head or a drug addict. and every time i’d say that he’d threaten to kill us and drive off the road or something; crash the car. it scared me.

during this whole time too, once, my dad had stayed with us for a night or two i can’t remember. but i was in my room, my brother was sober this time. it was almost midnight; he came in my room and told me not to go in the living room and i had asked why. he told me my dad had 3 huge plants of weed here. i walked into the living room and got so incredibly angry. my mom was up cleaning up the weed with my brother. i was angry, i was yelling at my dad. he just stood there and tried to speak to me but i wasn’t listening. i was so angry, that i had completely just dropped to the floor to my knees and started balling. my brother picked me up and brought me to my room. he gave me a hug and told me it would be okay and he’s getting it out with my mom. that didn’t happen tho.

but yeah. this plus what my brother was doing, it’s caused me a lot of trauma. i know have a huge trauma response to weed, even though you’d think the crystal meth would be the problem. a lot of my friends smoke weed and as does most of the US/the world. everyone i’ve known that have family who are drug addicts become one too. but i got the complete opposite; intense trauma and trauma responses; panic attacks. i was once comfortable in this world but now i’m not.

i feel like such a terrible friend because my friends care about me and my ptsd, and they don’t do anything around me. they can’t. but i feel like shit every time. i hate that my friends can’t be comfortable around me but i know that if they did it around me i would be having panic attacks. the fact my friends care about it makes me feel like shit. why did i have to get the complete opposite of everyone else?? why can’t i just be okay with it, why can’t i just be okay??? i can’t. not at all. not right now anyway

sorry this is long. but that’s me and my trauma.