Through the glass

Nothing is clear when you look at it through glass.

It was my third year straight abusing substances. My whole worldview was distorted — just like people’s faces appeared to me. I never looked at myself in the mirror. The glass was thicker now, opaque enough to reflect all the light it caught, but shiny enough to absorb all the darkness I exhaled. I couldn’t bear to meet my own eyes.
They reflected a state of mind I was ashamed of.

Everyone was after me — even the ones who cared, the ones who loved me most. I kept telling myself it was just a phase. I’d been through worse. I could get back on track. Easily.

I was so naive.
Two goals in life: get high, get higher.
I had to fall at some point.

The curtains banging against the windows. That’s all it took, and paranoia got a hold of me.
My enemies didn’t have faces anymore, nor reasons.
For the longest time, I thought the CIA was after me.
When I realized — despite my stubbornness — that I was going mad, I thought I was some kind of experiment.
But when it became something I couldn’t comprehend, let alone explain, I lost every connection to reality.

I ditched my family, moved to another city, lived on the streets: no documents, no phone, no money.
Only the clothes I was wearing.
I didn’t use while on the streets — just a couple situational hits of hashish.
Still, my mind was racing like it never had.

It took a long time before I accepted help.
I couldn’t trust anyone. It wasn’t pride: it was fear.

A priest took me in.
I couldn’t speak for two weeks.
But what first looked like senseless goodwill lit a small spark of reason in me.
I told him about my family.

He managed to contact them.
They came. I got help.

When I got out, the people who loved me were relieved — you could see it in their eyes.
But there was something else reflected in their looks: fear.
The same fear I used to see in my mirror.

Mistakes change you.
But sometimes, they change the people around you even more.

I was walking on razor-thin ice.
I was bound to fall through.
And all it took was some curtains banging against glass windows.