All Aimee ever wanted was escape. She tried all the usual means for her age. It started with cutting into her skin. A sudden feeling or pain that followed by a slight feeling of release made her days a little better. It was then followed up with alcohol and marijuana at large social gatherings that were hosted by friends of friends of friends where people would run into one another in the kitchen, back yard, basement or living room and say to each other “Nice party…” but you never really knew who the actual host was. Aimee escaped at those parties—never really knowing anyone, but always able to enjoy the escape she felt when she hit off someone’s joint or bong or drank from some jungle juice concoction.

The method of escape was upped when she was a senior in high school. Marijuana relaxing and calming effects held little escape compared to the dopamine explosions in her head and the euphoric feeling that showered her body when she would take that small periwinkle pill marked with a single lavender ‘X’ in the middle. One pill popped was better than five or six drags from a joint. Everything felt like center stage—lights and life burned brighter and felt wonderful…until, that is, you came down from center stage and your spirit went to the back stage to vomit and come down from the high.

She combined such euphoric effects with drinking, and by the time she added crystal meth, the TNT of euphoria and escape, to her cocktail of escape, Aimee had escaped everything and nothing. It wasn’t until she became a permanent resident of Ashcroft Behavioral Center for the Emotionally Disturbed that Aimee realized what she really sought. It was not the stress or pain she wanted escape from. Aimee wanted to escape life itself. Aimee sought the escape of oblivion.