I remember

I'm Juliana , my friends call me Juju & my family calls me Jolie. Im gonna tell you what it was like for me growing up with my mother who was a drug addict.
I remember one day I was getting ready for school and there was an ambulance going down our street, we lived 6 houses apart. I was back and forth between my grandma's house and yours at the time, I had no stability in my life, which I feel like a child needs. My street was very quiet, but when I heard the sirens and looked out the window I knew it was for you, and that you must've done it again. I was told that you overdosed for what felt like the thousandth time, but this time you didn't wake up. I felt something that morning I never felt before that time or ever felt again, I felt like there was a five hundred pound weight lifted off of my back. I felt so relieved. Not because I ever wanted you dead, but because I wouldn't have to come home from school and find you passed out anymore. Because now before school it would be normal and I wouldn't find you with a needle in your arm, as I cried and yelled at you to stop. You telling me, "I need to, it's okay Jolie.". I wouldn't have to look for or find random needles, crack, or heroin in the cabinet, just because I went to go brush my teeth. I would no longer reach for a pair of shoes at the top of the closet and accidentally grab a spoon with cotton in it instead. I wouldn't have to look in the trash and see paraphernalia, all because I went to throw a gum wrapper away. I wouldn't have to take what I found in the cabinet and shove it in the gutter outside our house and throw grass on top of it, so no one would accidentally see it. I wouldn't get yelled at anymore for throwing your drugs away because you "needed" them. I always understood it, how you hurt so you felt like you needed something to numb the pain, but now I'm hurt and it's because of you. I used to write you letters before school or bed because I was scared and knew you couldn't say anything while I was at school, and you wouldn't wake me up while I was sleeping. I used to slip them under your door. They usually said something like "Mommy I know what you're doing again, please stop you're going to die. I love you.". I used to sit outside the bathroom door while it was locked and you were in there shooting up. I could've picked the lock, but I wouldn't because I didn't want to see a hot spoon or a needle in your veins instead. I would sit outside the bathroom door and just listen to hear if your body would drop to the floor so I could run in there and save you. Sometimes I even fell asleep outside the bathroom door and any noise I would hear on the other side of the door I would jump right up, scared knocking on the door to make sure you were okay. All I ever wanted as a child was to be loved, I mean I was loved, but not how I should've been. There's nothing like a mother's love right? Now I don't know how to receive love or give it. 
Everything with my mother went on for years. I remember the thousands of times you would leave in the middle of the night, I would wake up and walk to my grandmas when you weren't there, just to get internet to call you, back to back on my iPod I would download texting apps where you can call people. I would be crying while I ran out of minutes to call you and have to watch a 5 minute video to call you for 1 minute. You barely answered my calls or texts, I was always scared you were dead in a random motel across the state somewhere, or missing. When you did answer, you told me you were 10 minutes away. But you didn't come home at all or for days sometimes. The craziest part to me was when everything was better again for the two weeks you were sober, not strung out, in rehab, or jail, nobody spoke about it. Until it happened again, it was a cycle that was never ending, a terrible cycle, a cycle that broke me and everybody who loved you. It's still breaking me years later. It does affect me in so many different ways, I have nightmares about the things you put me through every other night. When people ask about you I say "She was an addict.", but they never understand the whole other part to this, what I've been through, or what comes with having an addict as a parent. Yes, I can tell them but I don't want people to feel bad for me, or pity me. I really dont know what I want honestly, but I do know I don't want to be put through that ever again, I never wanted to be put through that in the first place. I was so young, I still am young. I feel so confused and lost about everything sometimes and I have so many questions. I remember when I first started smoking weed the person I told about you said to me "You're gonna end up just like your mother.". I never told anyone about you or what I've been through again after that was said to me. I told my bestfriend years later or tried to but when he asked "Overdosed on what?", I just said "I don't know.", but I wish I didn't know. I know way too much. I remember telling one of my closest female friends at the time that you were an addict, and they told me they were scared of you , like you were a crazy monster from a movie. I remember I was having a sleepover with three girls I had just started getting close with, we had just came back from the movies, you were in my room with a needle. I pushed you out of my room as quick as I could because I didn't want them to see, you weren't even supposed to be there. I pretended like nothing was wrong and continued on with my night. I was so embarrassed because my friends couldn't know what my life was like, I had to pose like there were no problems in my life. I didn't wanna be the kid who got made fun of just because of my home situation, but it wasn't really much of a situation it was my life. I didn't wanna be the kid who had drug addict parents or the kid with "problems" at home. When I got older and got friends, I posed to be happy all the time even though I would still have to come home to this, but really, this was draining me and slowly breaking me to the point where I didn't want to be alive or around anybody. I remember you would point out the scars on my thigh and say "I don't like that.", or "What caused you to do that?", but how could you not know you were the cause? After saving you for so many years from your own obvious death wish, and hiding the fact any of this was going on for years from my friends and your other children, my siblings. I was tired and broken inside. I know I shouldn't have blamed myself, because I was a kid. I shouldn't have been in that position anyway, but I did and I felt like it was always my responsibility to save you. I would tell myself things like "If you let her go out she might get a bag of coke that was laced and because you don't stop her, her death will be your fault.". I know it's not my fault but it's still how I felt. I remember times where I would find where you kept your wallet, with your money and cards. I'd hide them, so only I knew where they were, and you couldn't get to them because I didn't want you to go out and buy drugs. I used to hide your car keys because I didn't want you to go drive somewhere to buy drugs. I would get yelled at because of hiding your things, but I would act like I didn't know what you were talking about. I would of rather got yelled at all night then let you leave. You knew why I did it, you were never dumb, just made dumb decisions. It ate you up inside the fact that you hurt me by doing this, I know you loved me but it never felt like it. Every time you would ask me how I felt about any of this while you were sober, I would just say it didn't effect me and that it's okay. I didn't even wanna talk about how you made me feel or anything YOU did to YOU because I didn't wanna trigger something in your brain, and you go get high again because of me or what I said. I remember I came home from school one day and you told me "Lock the doors, don't open it for anyone, even if they knock.". I asked why, you wouldn't tell me, then locked yourself in your room, so I went to my room and fell asleep. I woke up and went downstairs, at the bottom of the stairs there were seven police officers, and you were there crying. You told me you had been yelling my name before that from downstairs, and I wasn't waking up, then you hugged me in handcuffs and told me you loved me. Anytime I get in any situation with the police, they always run my name and ask if I'm your daughter, when I say yes I get looked at sideways or treated different. Since then I've grown up a lot and I'm trying to live with everything you put me through, when I was younger I didn't think I would have "trauma" from any of this, I just thought eventually you'll stop and everybody will be happy and loved, that's not how things work though. I now push all these thoughts to the back of my head and hold them inside there forever. I let all my sadness turn into anger, it was okay at first, but now I feel nothing. Or over a minor inconvenience, every feeling I've been bottling up since I was six will hit me all at once and I'll disappear on everyone for a month because I don't know how to deal with my own emotions. I forget memories a lot and can't focus for more than five minutes. I hate being yelled at, I don't know how to deal with serious conversations or confrontation so people think I'm "nonchalant" or that "I don't care" when I do, it's probably because I think a lot but say nothing. I just wanna be genuinely happy, I wanna be able to still get excited over little things, I wanna listen to music and still feel the whole song through my body. The thing I want most is to know how to give love and accept it. This was my reality of living with my mother who was a drug addict. When I say my "parent was an addict" THIS is what I mean. If your reading this, I hope it helped you get a better perspective on what it's like living with a parent with a drug addiction and if you've been through this I'm here to talk.