Swinging on a swing under a thick branch, sheltered by the shady old maple tree in the back yard. A good memory from when I was young girl. A very good one. My father would push me for as long as I wanted and he never seemed to tire of it. When I think back now, I know he must of had so many things that needed to be done, he worked as a union representative in a steel mill, yet that didn't prevent him from taking the time to push me on that swing. I have pictures of that, him and me and that old swing. Mom would bring us lemonade and fruit slices. I had an old blanket that I used as a picnic blanket. It had a picture of Mickey and Minnie Mouse dancing on a shooting star while fire works exploded in the back of them. The three of us would stretch out on my blanket and eat the fruit, drink the lemonade and find animals in the clouds. I loved those afternoons. I was the only child and I never suffered from lack of attention or love. I grew up in Farrell, Pennsylvania. Our house was not the biggest but it held more love then one might think those walls could handle. That is what makes it so hard to look at them now...my parents that is.

I was average in school, my appearance and my grades. I didn't have a lot of friends. I found it more pleasant to play by my self or read a book. Nancy Drew was my favorite from the time I started reading until well into my high school years. Boys were always a curiosity to me but they were simply too erratic and impulsive for me. I kept my distance from them. I still had a great relationship with my dad and mom during my high school years. I see now that once puberty hit, I changed how I behaved with my dad. The onslaught of puberty seem to wreck what we once had. We went from wrestling and hugging and hanging out eating ice-cream while talking about sports and music to a more physically restrained affection. We didn't talk as much about sports and music because I started to listen to music that he didn't understand and I simply loss interest in sports. I thought it too boyish for me as I was becoming a woman. More like a silly girl then a woman in retrospect. Still, we all loved each other and that stayed the same. I suppose it is still there now, I am just too filled with shame to accept my parents love. I don't believe I am worthy of it anymore. They tell me no, that I am as worthy of their love as ever. They try to make me feel like our love, the love of a mother, father and their child, can never change. I hear them but I see a difference in their eyes when they tell me this. It is different then before.

My life changed in college. Not for the best. I met and began dating my first real boyfriend in college. My life changed in college. Not for the best. I met and began dating my first real boyfriend in college. His name is no longer important. I will call him Tony for the sake of using a name. Tony was from Detroit, Michigan. He was the first person I had met from a big city. Well maybe not the first I had met but was the first that I got to know. He was tall and confident in a way I hadn't seen. He didn't take any crap from anyone. Other girls watched him as he walked through corridors or when he walked through the campus. I saw it all of the time. It made me feel a sense of power knowing that they watched him but it was me he was watching. He was mine. I began to pay more attention to how I looked and what I wore. I even found a lady who taught me how to better apply makeup to accentuate my features. I wanted Tony to keep on being interested in me. Through him, I became visible in a way I never was before. I lost my virginity to Tony a few months after we started dating. It was sooner then I wanted but I was afraid if I kept saying no to him, he would find some other girl who would say yes. It wasn't romantic and it didn't feel good for me. It hurt and it felt...messy and dirty. It happened in a bathroom in the woman's residence. We he was finished, he slapped my ass and promptly walked out of the bathroom while saying the words, "And that's a take." over his shoulder. I didn't know what that meant at the time. Alone, I cleaned myself up and quietly walked to my room were I laid in my bed and cried.

Tony became distant with me and started to talk with other girls. I couldn't get him alone to ask him what was going on. I was so stupid and trusting that I thought if I gave him space, he would come back to me. I told myself that maybe he felt bad about how it happened between us...the sex. Not only was I wrong about that, I discovered that we were not alone in the bathroom at my residence. He had a buddy sneak in before we got there and video-tape us doing it. They circulated the footage around the school and eventually put it on the internet. I was mortified and enraged when I found out. How could he do that to me? When I built up the nerve to try to watch the video for myself, to see if you could see my face, I was met with horror. My face was clear as day and he had labeled it with my full name and called it 'Slamming A Home Run'. Of course I stormed at him in a public display of emotion that did nothing but make me look like even a bigger idiot. People called me a slut and a whore who didn't even know me. Other males on campus thought me easy and the cat-calls and groping began. They offered to 'do me' in countless cheap and humiliating ways. I felt shame and guilt. The worst by far was when I was off campus and in a restaurant and a man closer to my fathers age recognized me from that video only I didn't know it. I saw him starring at me but didn't pay much attention to it. I got up and walked towards the restroom and didn't hear him follow me. When we were out of site, he grabbed me from behind. He covered my mouth with one hand and grabbed my breasts with the other and press me against the wall while pushing his hips into me. He said my name! HE SAID MY NAME! He told me what he wanted to do to me in a disgusting slimy voice. I felt his erection against me and I was so scared I couldn't make a sound. A noisy server came walking randomly in our direction and that is what saved me. He let go of me and walked back out front and kept on walking out the door. I was terrified to go outside because I thought he may be waiting for me out there somewhere. Eventually I had to risk it and leave. I made it back to the campus. I dared not tell anyone what had happened because I was afraid the video would come up and I would be told I brought it on myself. I felt my life was ruined and there was nothing I could do about it. I was afraid all of the time. My marks began to fall and I started experimenting with drugs. Worse became worse.

It happens fast you know. You go from being a regular girl into a heroin addicted slut. My experimental phase was short and my dependency came fast. The heroin was cheap at first. I could afford the little amounts I used. But as I needed more, money became and issue. I did horrible things to get the money I needed for my fix. I didn't want to alert my parents by asking them for money so I came up with my own ways to get money. Hell, I was a sex celebrity. Fork over some cash and you get to slam a home run with me. Sex felt like nothing to me and when I did it for money, it gave me a sense of power over the dirt bags that lined up to pay to have sex with me. It worked for awhile to keep my in my stash of drugs. That is until I got kicked out of school for not attending classes and failing too many courses. I had no where else to go but home. The school sent a letter to my very surprise parents explaining why I was asked to leave. Asked to leave....that is rich. Like I could of said no and they would have said okay then, you get to stay. My parents where dumbfounded. All the while I had been telling them that school was great and that I was doing better then I had expected with my grades. I came home too skinny with circles around my sunken eyes. If my parents had any idea of the signs of addictions, they would have known right off the bat. They didn't. I passed it off as having the flu or menstrual issues. It took until I became so desperate for money, that I arranged for someone to break in to our house and steal my moms jewelery, before they figured me out. Like I said, I did horrible things.

My mother had a ring that was handed down five generations from mother to daughter. It was valuable and since I knew it was eventually going to be given to me, I didn't think It would matter if I could get my hands on it now and hawk it at a pawn shop in Mercer, the next town over. I wanted the money bad so I set up a break in with my new heroin supplier. It didn't work to plan. My father came home early and caught the guy doing the job. They fought until the burglar hit my dad with a bat and gave him a concussion. My mom found my dad bleeding from the head and laying in the living-room with the living-room table smashed to pieces. She found him bleeding and unconscious and it was my fault. She called the police and the police caught the burglar I hired. He confessed to everything. That is when I got my criminal record and when I could no longer look at my parents in the eyes.

The court forced me into a methadone clinic and my parents requested I be placed under house arrest instead of going to a jail facility. Meth clinics are hell. They try to cure you of addiction by using methadone which is a less addictive substance to rid you of the heroin addiction. They call it Replacement Therapy. There is always a dealer somewhere outside, waiting to give you some samples of their heroin if they can catch you alone for a few seconds. Heroin feels way better then meth. You would think they would police that a little better. I was restricted to my house and always had to be in the company of someone the court approved of as a chaperon. That changed my parents schedules significantly. They had to arrange new work times so one of them could always be home. That meant everyone in the world new of my situation. They never said a bad thing to me...my parents that is. They never showed any anger or disappointment. If anything, they expressed love and, believe it or not, they apologized for not being there enough for me when I needed them the most. They said they didn't see it and should have been looking. I never said anything at all about that back to them. I felt nothing but shame. How could I say anything to them. I let them down in the worst ways. I was the worst daughter ever.

It has been five months since my last heroin experience. I am still under house arrest for another seven months. I have gained back my weight and my face isn't so hollow looking anymore. I know I hurt my brain using those drugs and I do spend time worrying how bad I may have damaged it. I don't feel like using any longer and am finished with the Meth lab.
For the first time I have opened up to my parents. I told them last night how it all began. I told them about Tony and the video and the man in the restaurant. My dad cried openly as I told them both. My mom didn't cry while I stumbled through my story, she looked to the floor the whole time but would not let go of my hand. She held it tightly. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. I cried so hard at times I couldn't speak. They waited without a word in those times for me to pull it together and continue my story. I cried not because of what I went through. I cried because my mom and my dad were being torn to pieces by what their little girl was telling them. When I managed to finish my story, both my mom and dad stood up and gathered me to them and hugged me fiercely. They did not let me go for a long long while. We all cried together and I felt that love again that I truly believed I had lost for ever. I felt that love that I remembered from when I was a little girl on that swing. Now when they tell me they love me no matter what, I see that the look in their eyes hadn't changed. It has been the same the whole time. It was me who had changed and that changed girl didn't know what she was looking at. I am back and I can see better then before. I will never totally forgive myself for putting them through what I put them through. I know it wasn't in my control what Tony and his friend did but I could have chosen to handle it differently then I did. I could have talked to someone. There are laws that protect women who go through the things I experienced. It isn't easy to 'go public', trust me...I know, but it is so much smarter in the end. There are people who want to help. They are there and they won't think you a stupid person for being used. I wish I knew these things a little sooner in my life. So here I tell these things to you.

It was with their urging that I wrote my story down for others women to know. If my experience can help even just one other woman from making the mistakes I made, then it is worth while. Shame and embarrassment can be very powerful tools when used against you...even when it is you that uses it against yourself. Don't be a victim...even if the Tonys of the world trick you into being one, you don't have to continue it. It doesn't make you a bad person. Count on love having the power to save you. It saved me. If you don't have someone to love you like I did, then I want you to look me up. I will help you. I have had the best teachers of love. I have learned how far a mother and fathers love goes when their child goes astray. I have also learned how much I can love in return. And there is plenty of it in me to share. I owe them both so much and will never hurt them like that again. They saved my life.

Last thing I want to write. I want to simply give my thanks. Thanks mom, thanks dad...you are wonderful.