I have been arrested twice for drunk driving.  I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t wreck, I had no children in the vehicle, or any other complications which would compound my guilt.

Let me tell you what it’s like to be under 30 with two very highly stigmatized arrests.  Since my last arrest in April of 2015, I have been incredibly depressed.  I until about a month ago, I would cry at the smallest reminder of my situation.  Even though I had accomplished many things in life, I felt unworthy of love, success, or escape from my situation.  I simply felt like a lesser human being.  I constantly fretted about how I would pay my student loans since I couldn’t get a good job, how I would explain my lack of success to my former law school classmates or family, how long I could pretend to be “normal” and “happy” with my life, and what I could possibly say to my future children about what I did.

I lost a man I loved because of the arrest.  I had to listen to the “I told you so” lecture from friends and family, and I learned that people will forgive mistakes, but they will not forgive patterns.  After my first DWI, people shook their head, chuckled, and said it could happen to anyone.  After my second one, I was isolated, and I could hear buzzing in my ears from people talking about how foolish I was.  It is extremely lonely.  I gave up on trying to be friend with the people I had been close to in my past with a few exceptions because, even if it wasn’t true, I felt those people were judging me.

For example, I went to a wedding for a girl I used to call my best friend in August of 2015, four months after my arrest.  Of course, she knew about my issues.  I drank at her wedding, and she came by the table and I made a joke about some of her coworkers that was inappropriate.  Everyone at the table had just been talking about the same thing, and they encouraged me to say something.  I often make jokes that cross the line, so it really had nothing to do with the drinking – that was just my personality.  After I told it to her and everyone laughed, she pursed her lips, shook her head, and just walked away.  I felt hurt of course – she was a great friend and I had offended her on her wedding day.  I found her outside later and said I was sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.  She said…yeah, I know how you are when you’re drinking.   The thing is, no. she. fucking. didn’t. She didn’t know anything about my problems, because she never cared to ask, and she was so rude that I always worried that she would ridicule or judge me if I opened up to her.  I asked my date if we could leave, and I couldn’t even wait until we got to the car to start crying.  He went to find her and told her I was crying, and she came to the car and said – get this – “I’m sorry if my friends were mean to you.”  I just shook my head and told her don’t worry about me, go back and have fun. I really considered our friendship over at that point, and I never actually told her what she did or how much it hurt me.  The thing I learned from that episode?  1) If you are afraid to open up to someone, they are not your friend, and 2) once you fuck up, everyone will judge you and see you as a product of your addiction.

After my arrest, I would get irrationally angry.  One small argument would result in me locking myself in a closet, threatening to kill myself, crying until I could no longer withstand the pain in my abdomen, or screaming and saying horrible things that I regretted as soon as they left my lips.  I would tell my boyfriend to just leave me, that I wasn’t worth anything, that he could find a better woman literally anywhere.  I  wasn’t trying to taunt him or beg for attention, I actually felt that.  I worked for a very awful boss (70 years old, power hungry, narcissistic jackass attorney who believed women belonged in the home and made blatant sexist comments to me an others), and even though I can usually deal with geriatric shit stains like him easily, every time we would get in a confrontation (read: weekly) I would cry.  I just couldn’t handle criticism nor friction.  Imagine a life like that!  It was just awful.

Little by little though, things started to change…