I am the mother of 4, 3 bio, 1 adopted. I live on the west coast. I am fighting to overcome the anger I feel toward the man who took the life of my youngest bio child. I am trying hard to educate myself re meth. Why do some people step over the line into murder, is it nature or nuture?

I wouldn't call myself computer literate so I'm slow to get profile info done. I'm trying, please bear with me. Everyone has such beautiful profile pages, hope I will too, eventually.

Drugs touched my life before I was a twinkle in my mamma's eye. She was a young woman during WWII, and like many of her time she dated and married a serviceman. This man was given anphetamines by the military to keep him awake and angry. He introduced my mother to them. My mom was no angel, she definately had her fun while she was young. The military guy eventually beat her, caused her to lose a baby, so she went into hiding in another state. That's when she met my father. My dad is pretty straight laced, an old jock. My mom had become an RN, she worked at a large hospital, Cardiac ICU. I'm sure it was tuff. She worked the 7a.m. to 3p.m. shift. She hated getting up early. Open heart surgery was pretty new, transplants were barely in it's infancy. She was stealing drugs from the hospital. In the summer of 1962, just after Marilyn Monroe died she got caught and was fired. I was 8. A few weeks later she started behaving differently. She stopped dressing in the morning, stopped batheing, stopped brushing her hair, wandered the neighborhood giggleing and talking to the voices in her head. That Febuary she attacked a child down the street, wanted to take his heart for transplant. She was arrested, then committed to a mental hospital. In a month she was stabalized and back home. Every other year she would wig again, take me on wild rides with stops in scary neighborhoods, her drug runs. It went on and on, the adults pretending everything was ok, she's just "excentric" they would tell me. Eventually I could take no more so one day I refused to go home. I went into foster care. It was no picnic but it was better than what I had before.

As a teen I experimented with pills, LSD and pot. In my day, and where I lived, hard drugs were taboo. Our watchword was "speed kills", the last thing we wanted in our acid was speed. I knew one girl in highschool who had used meth. One of my girlfriends used herion once and everybody was so shocked. No one used cocain. Things were so different then. My mom would often tell me to stay away from drugs else I could end up like her. By the grace of God I just didn't like the effect, so by 19 I just put it all behind me.
Or so I thought.

I settled down with my boyfriend. Head over heels in love. Not perfect by any stretch, but acceptable. Then his mom got sick, cancer, 11 months later she died. Boyfriend went off the deep end, started hangin with some people I did'nt like, started packin his nose with cocain. Became mean as hell. Stupid little naive me, I didn't get it. I was so intimidated, so terrified, so frozen. It went on for about 13 years. One night he went into a rage and I couldn't take anymore, police were called, he was removed from the home, a protection order got issued, he got the message. He quit using drugs and he quit drinking! It's been alot of years and he hasn't gone back.

When my older children hit high school they started experimenting with drugs. The fights were horrendous. I was told to "get that stick out of my ass". UUURRRAAAGGGHHH!!! Sent the older child to rehab twice, both times she ran off. The rehab people told me she had to want to stop using, else we were all wasting our time. So it continued, the fights, an unplanned baby, prison. In the midst of all this my second child started using. Meth was their drug of choice. Talking to them was like talking to a rock. My third child who was 5 years younger than the middle one, watched all this and developed a hate for drugs. I thought Thank God!

The younger child, Mark, used to beat up his high school friends if he caught them using. It actually worked with a few. If he cared about someone he would go way out of his way to help them. In 2005 he was spending time with a former relative who was out of control. Using meth and cocain. The guy was very paranoid, very delusional, he thought there were cameras in his walls, watching him, thought heliocopters were following him, thought someone, everyone was out to get him. Then one night out of the blue he shot my son. My child died. For the longest time I was just numb, couldn't do anything. Finally got on the computer looking for answers, that's when I learned about methanphetamine psychosis. I knew it, I was sure speed could make a person crazy. Now I understand what happened to my mother, now it all makes sense. I just wish my son had listened to me and stayed away from the nut who shot him.

The older two kids have stopped using, programs do work! I'm dealing with the fallout of the younger son's murder, his killer is fubar in the brain, I never know what will happen next.