Consumed By Poverty And Drugs

Having Sex With Your Dad

The diversity of stories that can be heard in the field of psychiatry is so great that you can easily become touched by them. One common theme is poverty and drugs; these two go together like peanut butter and jelly. Oftentimes, children who are raised in poverty are exposed to family and friends who suffer from a drug addiction, mental illness or physical and sexual abuse.

From a young age, children raised in poverty are at a disadvantage. They have to witness their parents arguing about money, bills and food on the table; their perception on marriage becomes influenced since they are little. Drug and alcohol abuse is not uncommon when money is a big stressor in the household.

A child will witness her father get drunk on bourbon and start transforming into a completely different person. He may start to beat his wife and flirt with his daughter. The daughter will run into her room or out of the house scared, hoping not to feel uncomfortable and violated. So she starts turning to drugs around age 16 when her friends who are also in poverty inform her, “This will help with all the bullshit!”

As she starts forming a new alliance with marijuana (not so much with alcohol as she doesn’t want to be like her father), she also starts entertaining the idea of newer and more powerful drugs. That’s when Lady Heroin comes into play. She starts snorting the heroin, quickly realizing how all of her physical and mental pain dissipate in the air.

The problem is that she’s only 16 and still reliant on her parents for food and shelter. She starts returning home later in the evening, with the hope that “pops” is passed out from his drunken state of mind on the corner couch watching Full House. As she slowly creeps into the living room, she hears footsteps coming from the kitchen.

Her father is standing there drunk with a creepy smile on his face and some dollar bills in his right hand. She wants to cry but has no more tears left. She already knows what might happen: he is going to offer money for her heroin habit as long as she has sex with him. She wonders, “At what point did I fuck up?”

She then realizes that everything turned upside down when she met Lady Heroin; she has become an addict since their introduction. Because she is so desperate for another bundle, she sticks her right hand out to accept the money as her father grabs her other hand and takes her to his corner couch.

As the full moon glows in the night sky, the sounds of father-daughter intercourse slowly increase. The story can be summed up into the following:

• Alcoholic father who is a sexual predator and performs incest
• Heroin addict daughter who was born into poverty and now lives to support her drug habit
• Poverty and drugs that have consumed this family

This is an example of a story that can be heard in the field of psychiatry.

Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)