heroin, the destroyer

I sent Michelle home to her parents' house today, to live there for the rest of the month. On Monday evening I found out she has been using heroin for a month or so. She was high when I got home. She has been getting it from this guy named Bill, who I knew was a drug connection, not a friend. I found the bags and I saw a tourniquet in the garbage can. I basically went into a state of shock and am still too overwhelmed to really feel this. After my therapy session last night I decided that I need some space to deal with it. It it not exactly the same, but it feels much like she had an affair in terms of all the deception. She loves me more than heroin, and she said that, and that I'm the first and only person she has loved more than heroin... but she still went there. At least five times, so... I'm surviving on meditation attempts, xanax, and a partial emotional shutdown.

On top of this, or underneath it, the pressure from school is immense. The expectations and demands are so high. Honestly, I feel like I can't do this. But another part of me knows that I can, so I keep taking the next step - reading the next assignment, writing the response, going to class. How I will write thirty pages during the first month of July is beyond comprehension. I don't even know what the fuck I'm supposed to write these papers about... I can't even really absorb the information I'm reading. The professors don't seem to realize that some people are taking more than one class and have a full time job. And now, Michelle will not be around to help me with simple things like grocery shopping, cooking, and laundry. I called her parents and told them she relapsed, and I asked her to stay there for the rest of the month. It was a sad goodbye this morning. We commuted to work together. I turned around as I got off the train at 34th street and I saw her looking down and starting to cry again. I said she can come back in July, and in the meantime I will try to focus on school. I don't understand the power of heroin addiction. It's like, I know she loves me more than anyone or anything, I know she loves her job, her life, yet she would RISK IT ALL. What is that? It's an evil drug. I truly hate it. It's another person inside her who runs her like she's just a shell. And her ability to lie is terrifying. How do I trust her again? I know I will try, I have to, I love her. I already forgive her insofar as she has hurt me. I guess I just have to take it one step at a time. I have to trust in my "higher power" or whatever. Some people are able to stay clean from heroin for years and lifetimes, even if they are always, inside, an addict. I think she can do that, if other people can do it. What will it take for her? She swears that she's going to get stronger and really work on getting control of this. She has a great therapist, an addiction specialist. But seeing that therapist didn't stop her from using...? They say addiction is not logical. I can grasp that. But that is the scariest part. It's fucking disgusting and sad! Michelle says that she will kill herself if she loses me. But knowing that, she still takes the risk, lying so convincingly, to my face, meanwhile pursing her drug - for weeks now, this has been happening. I suspected, but I couldn't prove it and I don't want to spend all my time being a detective. I want to trust her. My heart feels broken and I really just want to curl up into a ball hide, but even then, my thoughts will be there, and hell.