Mel Of Bacchus

Continuing on from yesterdays post about my coffee trauma (here if you missed it) it was quite obvious to me at 12yo that my Mum was stuck in this relationship with Troy.

After the 8th overdose I started to kick back and argue with Mum and Troy about their pill and alcohol addictions and how this was effecting me.

After three months of no schooling and watching Mum and Troy piss up their pay and doctor shop up and down the Traralgon train line I’d had enough.

I’d been to all different doctors with Mum where she would put on the shakes and tell them that she hadn’t slept for days to get pills and she had two doctors in Moe where she would just walk in, state what pills she wanted and pay the doctor for the prescription.

I went with her one day to the doctors surgery in Drouin, again she replayed her whole sleeplessness act but this time as the doctor wrote out the prescriptions I started telling him that my mum wasn’t sick, that she was fine, she only comes in here to get medication to go home to her husband where they split whatever she and he got that day and took them all at once.

I told the doctor that they then drink to get “higher” and the medication then made my Mum hallucinate.

Mum stroked my hair and said calmly “it’s okay my baby girl, mama needs this medicine. The doctors helping me. That’s what doctors do. You’re too young to understand my love… just go wait outside if it’s upsetting you..”

The doctor looked up at me and watched Mum play with my hair. He then continued writing the script and I walked out.

You see what he didn’t know was just a few hours earlier I had walked in on a conversation Mum and Troy was having with my 11yo brother.

They were wanting to teach him how to “put on the shakes” and tell the doctor how he couldn’t sleep.

They told him that if any of the doctors prescribed him tablets, they would pay him $20.

I was absolutely outraged bursting into their room yelling and screaming and shielding my brother from their bullshit.

Like hell was my brother about to do that!!

So after we left the doctors and got around the corner Mum slapped me across the face.

“How fucking dare you!” She whispered.

Every part of me wanted to hit her back, but I didn’t and just walked away.

I walked home knowing Mum would be going to the chemist after that and I grabbed as many pill bottles out of the bin as I could find.

After I took my brother to school the next morning I went to the library to look up the medication to understand what it does to people.

I learned how to “Google Search” earlier that year on the grade 6 bubble computers at the Pakenham Consolidated School I went to when I lived with my Dad.

I wrote in the three names that were on the bottles “aladorm” “muralax” and “tamazapam” and found out pretty much what I had already figured out. They were all sleeping tablets which was why Mum and Troy were always “on the nod” unless they took them with alcohol, then they would hallucinate and start fighting with people around them or each other.

While I was at the library that day, I decided to Google searched Troy’s name and last name curious to see if anything relating to his past would pop up.

It did! A mugshot image of him came up and when I clicked on it I was completely mortified at what I was reading.

The article from an online news source had me read that he did 7 years in prison for get this.. “slashing his ex wife’s face to the point of non recognition”

My heart fell into my stomach after reading this. I felt myself sink in my chair. I wondered if Mum knew. I started shaking. If I wasn’t already scared of him hurting or trying to kill my Mum I sure as hell was now.

There was very rarely a day when Mum wasn’t off her face or he wasn’t with her so when was the right time to tell her?

All I knew from that day on, at age 12 was that I needed to protect my Mum.