William struggled with his adopted family. His issues played out through anger, which first manifested in 5th grade and has only just finished its course, now that he is 19. His anger ran a harsh course through cigarettes, alcohol, sex, drugs, and violence. It's difficult to find solutions through anger, and it's a dangerous path — "a difficult learning tool" you might say — but anger is something we all encounter.
William, I am happy to say, found a resolution and a love for his family, though he and his family are still working to rebuild their relationships. And because their relationships are still tentative we've decided to disguise all the factual information in this interview, including his name, which is not William Ashburton.
The phrase "love conquers all" is trite and useless. Yet William's epiphany about love saved his life when things were out of control.
"Back then I didn’t care if I was alive or dead. I wouldn’t kill myself, but I’d get to scary points doing drugs that would nearly kill me.…
"I was overdosing on crystal meth, and we were… I don’t know… this is where I became unconscious… so this is what Sophia told me happened. When we got to the bedroom I said, “Please don’t tell my parents! Please don’t tell my parents!” … I wasn’t shaking any more but my eyes were open. Then I stopped breathing. Sophia was on top of me, pounding my chest, and I woke up! (laughs) That’s when my parents walked in. It was pretty noisy. So that was that night! Two days later, I went to a psychiatric hospital…
"So I stabbed her… with a pencil. That was bad. I’d never done anything like that before. I just got so mad so quickly that I thought it was OK (laughs… sighs), but it wasn’t. My Dad said I was lucky she didn’t press charges. What could she have pressed charges for? I don’t think it would have killed her. It was right here (pointing to his arm) … (sighs) Oh, what a life…
"I got their attention in a way I didn’t want. I didn’t want them to send me away or anything. But I got too deep into everything, and they thought I needed help… they arranged for me to go away to school in Utah. I went to Utah. I learned so much there. I hated my parents before I went: I hated them. I hated my sister, I hated my brother…
"My sister and I have changed a lot. She and I are best friends now… that just came out of the blue, like I don’t know how that happened… It was the day I came back from the treatment center. And she just… she gave me a hug for the first time ever. She had never given me a hug in my teenage years, ever. It felt like she loved me, and I started to cry. I’ve never gotten a hug from her. So I had to love her back…
"It’s so hard to tell stories. It is so hard."
Heritage School, Home Page
