I HATE MY PARENTS, I STARTED USING DRUGS BECAUSE THEY MADE ME FEEL LIKE A FAILURE- MAN SHARES HEART TOUCHING STORY

I always believed that home was supposed to be the safest place, the one place where you can be yourself, without fear of judgement, but for me it was different, i grew up in a house where you had to be perfect and i was far from perfect.

Growing up, I lived in a home where my siblings were celebrated for everything. Good grades.Good results. My parents praised them loudly and proudly. I can vividly remember during my 10th birthday i didn’t get anything but during my brother’s 10th birthday he got every thing he wanted, they even threw a very big birthday party for him.

They would constantly compare me to my younger brother every end of term because he comes first and i usually came last and remind me how i was a disgrace to them.

I ended up repeating primary school twice, which made me be in the same class with my brother.

One memory that still hurts happened on the morning of my first WAEC paper. I woke up nervous but determined. I wanted, just for once, to make them proud. My father called me into his room, and I thought he wanted to pray for me. Instead, he looked at me and said, “I’m not expecting you to pass. Just write whatever you can.”

That single sentence stayed with me longer than anything I learned in school. I walked out of that room feeling empty. How do you succeed when the people who raised you already believe you’ll fail?

As I got older, their words became the only thing I heard in my head. I withdrew from people. I stopped trying. I stopped believing in myself. I spent more time outside because being at home felt like punishment.

That was when I met the group that introduced me to drugs. I didn’t take it because I wanted to experiment. I took it because I was tired of the pressure, the comparisons, the feeling that I could never measure up. The first time I used those hard drugs i felt at ease, i just felt happy.

At first, it felt like a small escape from my reality. Before long, I was using just to make it through the day. Every insult from my parents pushed me deeper. Every reminder of my failure became another reason to numb myself.

I can’t forget the day my waec result came out, my younger brother passed with distinction but as usual i failed and my dad told me he could not keep wasting money on me that he can’t pay for me to rewrite another waec, that i should go and learn handwork that moment pushed me further to those drugs.

People say drugs destroy you. They’re right. But they forget to talk about what pushes people there. In my case, it wasn’t peer pressure. It was pain, the kind that starts at home and never leaves.

I am still using. I know it’s ruining me, but right now, it’s the only thing that makes the noise fade. Maybe one day I will find a better way to cope. But today, this is where I am.