To whomever may be reading this, I encourage you to read the entire thing as this piece of writing may provide insight into the life of an individual of which is dominated by disparity. A life of which is supported by no God, left untouched by any graceful force, and abandoned and repeatedly neglected and abused by the livelihood that embodies it.
	Of what significance might the ramblings of a neerdowell adolescent behold? On the contraire, of what significance does such an individual's ramblings not behold. My words are the guidance of life, an example of what one should not do. I am a leader. True leadership is learned on the front lines, and although I may not be taking the brunt of the force in the Great War of Life, I have experienced enough to set an example of which that should not be followed.
Let me lead you to greatness. Allow yourself to take from this a glimmer of hope for a greater future. Do not allow yourself to fall into the grasp of utter destruction like I have led myself to many times before, probably.
I write from my heart and from experience.
Three days ago I almost died.
Twice.
A horrible sickness had overcome me late one night. Burrowed deep in my bones was a sensation of pain that burned with great fire. This pain pulsated throughout my body with every heartbeat and grew stronger and stronger as the seconds passed by. It engulfed me. It was the feeling of death if anyone had ever felt it before. My mind had been overrun with thoughts of impending doom. All that I could think was “I am going to die, i am going to die, i am going to die.”.
	I was sitting down while this was happening. I decided to stand and attempt to make my way onto my bed which was but feet away. As I stood, I had lost my sense of balance. I lay my hand upon the edge of my dark burgundy wood finish bed frame, which was within reach from where I stood, to guide my steps. Once I had made it to my bed, I sat down. The pain continued as it grew in severity, and my mind continued to race with disparity.
A race that, in the end, my mind would win.
As I sat, I had remembered a breathing technique I used quite frequently in my day to day life to calm me down. It was a technique used by Marine snipers before they shot at the enemy. In order to perform this breathing technique, one had to take three deep breaths in and then release it all with one prolonged exhale. This would lower their heart rate and allow them to better control their body movement, an element that their life depended on. If they were to miss their shot, their position would be revealed and their life would be put in jeopardy, as if it hadn’t already been put in jeopardy by being enlisted. I had thought that if this breathing technique could be used to take someone’s life, it could be used to save mine.
I had performed this breathing technique throughout the duration of this experience, enduring every second of it.
Eventually, I reached over to the side of my bed to grab my trashcan. I then vomited a peculiar reddish fluid with chunks of what I had eaten that day. After I had vomited the pain had subsided and I lay with an open mind. I lay with my eyes fixed on the ceiling, wondering what had become of myself.
This phenomenon had occurred a second time the same night, consisting of the same events and ending the same way, except this time I lay with my eyes fixed on two images of the same ceiling, slowly fading to a blur as I fall asleep.
The next morning I woke up on my own, just before my mother knocked on my door to tell me that it was time to go to school. I sat on my bed with my head inside of my hands. I had a roaring headache. There was a hollow, subtle pain in the lower left part of my abdomen. It was subtle, but it was there.
I proceeded to get dressed and ready myself for the day.
The first step I took on the ground beneath my stairwell, I looked up into the sky and took a deep breath of the cold, crisp air that surrounded me. It was overwhelmingly fresh. With that breath, I had never been so happy to be alive.
Throughout the day I carried a water bottle from which I drank. I had thought hydration was crucial for my vitality. I had also performed that breathing technique whenever I felt anxious or that subtle pain in the lower left part of my abdomen grew. Doing it seemed to subdue both.
I go through the day feeling half alive until I return home. It wasn’t until then I felt alive again. I ate regularly with a normal appetite. I ate my stomach full, then went to sleep.
I woke up the next day feeling normal once again, mending myself to prepare for the day of school I had ahead of me. Once that was finished and I had come home, I lay down in my bed to sleep.
Around seven o'clock my family had returned home. As my mom had walked down the hall down towards her room and mine, I asked her from my half-awake state if she had brought me something back to eat. She said no and said that she could bring me back something if I was hungry. She said she had some errands to run anyways. After that she asked me;
“Are you okay? What have you been doing, just coming back here and sleeping?”
I said “I’m dying.”
I then smiled and snickered at her.
She responded, “Are you sick?”
I said “No, i’m fine.”
I later received my food and I am now drinking the beverage I received with my food as I am writing this.
Now, I have a little secret.
I know what peculiar red fluid exited my body that night.
Dextromethorphan is a cough suppressant found in many of your cold-treating medicines including Delsym, Zicam, Robitussin, and so on. You have probably ingested some unknowingly at some point in your life. Taken in large doses, this chemical can cause hallucinations, fatal liver failure, cardiovascular problems, and strong feelings of disassociation as well as many other ailments. This chemical is often combined with other substances like acetaminophen which is a pain reliever/fever reducer and, when taken in large doses, can bring fatal results. People usually consume a large dose of some medicine to try to get high from dextromethorphan only to die from overdosing on some other substance like this.
Dextromethorphan is sometimes used as a recreational drug.
I aquired 5 bottles of Robitussin DM and had anticipated on drinking all 5 of them. Each contained 30 milligrams of dextromethorphan hydrobromide and 12.5 milligrams of doxylamine succinate per 20 milliliters. Each bottle contained 118 milliliters of cough syrup. Rounding 118 milliliters to 120, I did the math. 120 / 20 = 6 (approximately how many “servings” of cough syrup in each bottle) 6 x 30 = 180 (milligrams of dextromethorphan per bottle) x 5 = 900 (milligrams of dextromethorphan in 5 bottles of Robitussin DM) 12.5 x 6 x 5 = 375 (milligrams of doxylamine succinate in five bottles of Robitussin DM). That is how much I anticipated on consuming. Probably not life threatening, but what do I know.
Never do this.
Ever.
Drugs should be avoided at all cost as they bring nothing into your life but vices that look to destroy everything in your wake. You enter a stupor of disparity. You can’t think straight. Recovery is damn near impossible. You become a prisoner of yourself, locked in a cage of your own left with nothing but yourself.
My life is lonely.
I have inflicted harm upon myself, intentionally and unintentionally. I have cut my wrists, I have stabbed and shot my hand. I still have a metal pellet that resides in my palm. My father has left his impression on me. A burn scar on my right hand and a cross on my left wrist reminds me of him every time I look at them.
I have smoked plenty of weed, tried cocaine only once, tried half a tab of acid, consumed alcohol, and have now used dextromethorphan.
I am not proud of any of this.
I am, in fact, disgusted.
I am disgusted in myself for everything I could have been.
I could have been successful. I could have good grades in all of my classes. I could have been a musician like I had always wanted. A veterinarian even. A somebody. I now lack motivation and a will to live.
Do not let yourself follow in my footsteps and encounter the same fate as I have. It is not the way is life is meant to be lived. I do not know the meaning of life, but I do believe it is meant to be enjoyed. My life I do not enjoy living. My life is a candle waiting patiently to be blown out.
I did not lie when I said that a horrible sickness had overcome me. It was a horrible sickness, indeed. It was a sickness of the mind that had taken me as I sat before 5 open bottles of Robitussin. I had drank 3 ½ bottles of this poison. I did not want to drink it, but I did. I had hesitated many times and eventually had to force myself to. Almost unwillingly. Almost.
 This was not my first time consuming this drug, but it would be my last time. The other 1 ½ bottles I had thrown into a bag filled with empty bottles and containers and pill packaging that I had later taken out to the dumpster to dispose of.
I was disappointed in myself.
I had acquired a gram of marijuana that night. I waited for about 30 minutes to roll up a blunt to smoke around the same time the DXM (slang for dextromethorphan) would kick in. As I made my way to the balcony wrapped up in my blanket, an overwhelming feeling of depression took ahold of me. I opened the door and sat on a foldable black chair and lit up the blunt. I looked up to the sky and I said;
“God, now more than ever, I need you to hear my plea for salvation. I know believing you is a matter of faith, but I need some kind of proof that you do indeed exist. Something that shows your influence, something. Anything.”
I sit, pondering the world, talking to God expecting some kind of response. I was looking for answers.
Then, the Bible popped into my head.
I then started to think about what I had in my hand and wondered if it was okay with God that I smoked cannabis. It was, indeed, put on this Earth by him, wasn’t it? I then started to think about the connotations that weed has. “The Devil's Grass.” That brought me to the conclusion that something with such an unholy connotation could not be accepted by the Lord. The Lord, if he exists, wanted nothing to do with me. Now that I think of it, I had smoked holy scripture before with a former friend of mine. He tore out a piece of Bible paper and rolled a joint with it. We smoked it. If God does in fact exist, then the Devil has his grasp upon my soul.
As he would also have a grasp upon the soul of my old friend. He was the one who gave me the opportunity to try cocaine and acid. He had told me stories of how he had performed satanic rituals when he was a child and that his soul belonged to the Devil. He had also told me about times where he had almost died. He told me about how he was supposedly born dead. He was a criminal. He was to be feared. There were times when he had a number of drugs on his person. So many that I couldn’t remember all of the names even if I had tried. I had seen him almost die in front of me one night overdosing on drugs. This person was with me the night I shot my own hand with a CO2 gun.
After this train of thought on the balcony, I stood and walked to my room where I sat down in the chair where I would begin my journey somewhere in between life and death.
This pain I experienced throughout my body that night was greater than any pain imaginable. If I had to describe in one way, I would describe it as the feeling of death. I am convinced it was indeed, death taking ahold of me.
Let this be your guide to a better life, away from all of these negative influences. Become successful. Live a long, happy life, with a strong, caring family that is united and cannot be broken apart. Strive for greatness and never give up. Do not give into those that try to tear you apart. They are hard to notice. Don’t give into the temptation of failure. That is also rather hard to notice. Stay true to yourself and never stray behind.
As of now I don’t know what will happen to me. Since my experience with death, a sense of tranquility has overcome my entirety. Despite the situation I am in with my grades, I am at peace. I anticipate on dropping out of my advanced classes to attain a basic high school education so I can at least leave with a high school diploma. At this point the only thing these classes are doing is hurting my GPA and I cannot build the motivation to do anything productive with myself.
Something in particular took ahold of me so that I would write this paper. What exactly I do not know.
I just know that I feel better now.