In the springtime, I made friends with a Brandon whom I spent most my time with. We both got into abusing prescription medicine, which lasted for 3 months. Brandon's stepfather was a pharmacist and had cabinets full of free samples from the office. We got high or low everyday after school, mixing and matching whatever. Unaware of the consequences. I let myself overdose on pills twice, once by taking 8 times the dosage of some sort of pain medication. After a while, the thought of moving to Douglas was the only thing that kept me going. I know dad was good to me but there were times when he wasn't so nice. It was like I was spending my whole life trying to please him. During that period of time, he would come home fucked up and just say mean shit. Remember, I was in a very volatile period. He would ignore me a lot and say stuff like, "God, are we gonna have to put you in a fuckin mental home"?. Just totally being insensitive to me all the time. He used to mock me and yell at me. Nothing ever too serious enough to call abuse. A few times when I got out of control, he would totally manhandle me and started choking once. When I found out he did drugs, I was devastated. I just kept holding on to anything I could to keep from completely imploding. That was one of the hardest things for me to do in my life; wait til we moved to Douglas, and then everything would be fine. Everything would go back to normal.
When we landed in Douglas for the second time, everything was great for a while. I had all my old friends back and gained back some popularity I once had. I even had a couple of love interests going for me. I spent a lot of time with Jake who had just moved back from Pensacola. It felt good to be home, but under the surface I really needed someone to talk to. I was starting to come out of my funk somewhat but I felt so abnormal from everyone because I was just starting to realize how fucked in the head I actually was. I never talked to anyone about my ninth grade year for a year until I met Weston. That experience (ninth grade) kept building on the inside no matter how well I seemed to be on the outside. I became very manic, especially at school. I started to withdraw from my friends and started finding a connection with a not-so popular crowd. It all started with Jackson. He was a fucking rebel. He didn't give a shit about anything. He was so impulsive, and had a fuck you attitude. We were childhood friends, and though he had changed a lot, we still were connected by our past. At the time I had already been listening to more subversive music, but Jackson got me into NIN, Prick, Offspring, and punk bands like Zoinks!, Rhythm Collision, and Welt. I started hanging out with his skater friends and I felt at home with people for the first time. I felt like myself. Closing in on Halloween time, we had a pretty solid group going. Justin, Eli, Jackson, Jake, Ty, Eric, Sean, and I. There might have been others. We had a blast. It felt like it was us against the world. Actually, I think how I got to meet Justin and Eli was during this episode at school between the jocks and the rest of the school. Justin beat the shit out of Joe Voigt (pumpkinhead) during lunchtime. It started this rapid series of scuffles between us and the jocks. I started getting bullied by the jocks and hicks during this time. They would rough me up and constantly make fun of me for my clothing style. Then one day, some redneck was driving down the road after leaving the auto shop. His lugnuts came loose on his truck and his tires popped off. He blamed the incident on one of us. It was complete bullshit because all of us had an alibi. But it kick started this mass investigation in which we were unfairly searched, lockers, cars, backpacks, and patted down. They took a billy club that I had in my locker to protect myself. By the end of the week, it was determined that things would be settled Saturday at this undisclosed location. Kinda like in the Outsiders movie. We had allies from Casper willing to come down and help us out. The day before it took place, the principal got on the intercom system and warned students that if they were caught in any fights over the weekend, they would be expelled. So nothing happened, except for an increase in bullying. No one fucked with Justin. His legend grew in my mind more all the time. I really looked up to him as a role model. Everyone else in the community feared him. He seemed sociopathic. He didn't care what people thought. He wore only Manson and NIN shirts that he routinely had to change out of. He took no shit, girls loved him, he was very intelligent, and we bonded over our past of a Christian upbringing. He was my very own Tyler Durden. Reconstructing me with his nihilistic philosophy. I really kinda idolized him. During this time around Christmas, I started dating Jennifer Cox. She was a pretty girl but she was also very easy. I started obsessing over her for a while until I got the nerve to ask her out. Jen was a little slutty, but I sincerely cared about her and really wanted to have a long relationship with her and to open up with her about my problems. I didn't realize it at the time but all she wanted was sex. One night when we were in my bed, she got out a condom. I was mortified and disappointed in her. But I still cared for her after turning her down. The next day she tried cheating on me with fucking Jackson and dumped me the day after. I was destroyed. The first girlfriend in almost two years. I called my friend Ty to tell him about what happened and he took me under his wing. Then Justin called me up and we talked for a long time about what happened and he did a lot for my self esteem and to cheer me up. He helped build me up out of nothing. He tore down every preconception of high school life, and life in general. He showed me an alternative to religion. He helped me form an identity. And after that our group was as tight as ever. We all grew way more alienated from the rest of the school then we had been before. I had already been trying to emulate their dress code and I was buying the same music they were into because it was something I could finally connect with.
By February it all came crashing down. Justin got into a fight with someone, and afterwards threatened to kill anyone who fucked with him. The next day he was taken to the principles office under suspicion of having a gun in his backpack. He didn't, but was expelled anyway. They found a hit list on him, and called all of his friends into the office. Obviously we were all properly stripped and searched, even while my mother contested. The group eventually turned against each other and I pursued the punk scene on my own.