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Casey_03

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I have been having nightmares every night for the past few weeks, I assume because of the pregnancy hormones flooding my body. I also lie awake very often dreaming up catastrophic scenarios about all the things that could go wrong in life -- again, i'm sure, because of the pregnancy. One thing I keep coming back to and remembering is a group of drug addicts I met in Moscow. I spent a day with them because I was doing a series of reports on Russia's drug culture for a local newspaper, and I never expected it to be so harrowing. All of them had HIV and none were bothering to get treatment -- not even the mother of two children, who said she had never gotten her children tested for it, despite both she and the father being positive. Another girl, who was also positive with the disease, openly spoke of working as a prostitute. She'd had her left arm amputated after shooting up caused gangrene, and her leg was going down the same route. but while she spoke to us, she kept fixing her make-up -- applying more lipstick and mascara, adjusting her hair clips and asking if she looked okay. She then told us about how her clients didn't care that she had HIV/AIDS, and she described one married man who insisted on not using a condom despite the disease. After telling me and my photographer all of this, the girls giggled and ran off to shoot up again. When I left them that day, I was unable to talk or really process anything for a few hours. I ran into a colleague in the metro and he just took one look at me and said, "You look like you saw a ghost." I basically had seen a ghost, a few of them. All the girls I spoke to were dead within a matter of months. I don't know why I keep thinking of them now, but every time I get super depressed and start getting self pitying and thinking about giving up, I realize I don't even know the definition of giving up. Those girls had no will to live, at all; they were actively seeking new bottoms and they were the walking dead for the last period of their lives. I can't even comprehend what must have gone through their heads, or what may have prompted them to self destruct in such a terrible way. I can't say that thinking about them gives me any comfort, it doesn't, it makes me feel ill and profoundly sad. But at the same time it does remind me of how important it is to actually live.
 
I have been having nightmares every night for the past few weeks, I assume because of the pregnancy hor...
I am very familiar with this behaviour, and very specifically. Want to guess why? Потому что я из России, and I know how terrible it can get there. To me, I always think the same, when I think back to my experiences, that it is sad that their only happiness is found in self-destructiveness. To experience the bottom, though, can also help you keep others, and yourself, from it, with your experience, you can be a sentinel to loved ones who potentially could have ended up there, or at least perhaps even raise awareness. I shouldn't type much more, because I am only going to be more depressing, but what I can tell you is that I understand strongly.
 
"But for the grace of God go I" @Casey_03 . I'm sure if we were in their shoes we'd understand; (I personally might do worse, how do I know?) Try to rest your fears, and best wishes, health & joy to come, for you & your baby. :hug:

(PS, there's no shame in being thankful to not be going through what they are. Poor people. Talk about ptsd-causing. No one has a cap on suffering, and obviously their's is immense. )
 
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