Page 1 of 11 ZOOM I'm the Girl Who Clawed Her Own Eyes Out. This Is My Story. As told to Elizabeth Narins 11-13 minutes + Just over a month ago, I could see. Or maybe I should put it this way: I had both my eyes, but they didn't help me notice how dangerous my life had become. Then, on February 6, my world went black. I had been a straight-A student in Anderson, South Carolina-| was even in the National Honor Society when I left school at age 17, midway through eleventh grade. Between working long hours to save up for a car, and missing school because of a heart arrhythmia, my grades had begun to slip. I thought taking time off from school would be better than tarnishing my academic record and would leave me with a better chance at securing a college scholarship to study marine biology, which I'd always wanted to do By age 18, I was drinking alcohol socially and smoking pot often, while working diligently at my part-time job. I suspected I was prone to addiction, since it ran in my family, so I actively avoided what I considered more serious drugs. 1 of 11 K --------- 1/26/20, 7:55 PM Page < 2 of 11 ZOOM + --------- K But when I was 19 last summer, I was smoking pot with an - acquaintance at his house and got a strange high. Later, I googled the symptoms that surprised me the most numb lips and feeling like I was on top of the world. I'd long been a religious Christian; the high made me feel particularly close to God. I think the pot I'd smoked had been laced with either cocaine or meth, both of which are stimulants. I was surprised, since I'd never perceived weed as a gateway drug, but here I was, being exposed to substances I never wanted in my life. Because I'd gotten the pot from the friend I smoked with, I felt like he'd betrayed me and left my job to distance myself from him. I didn't end up going back to school. 3 of 11 Page < 4 of 11 ZOOM Courtesy of Kaylee Muthart I didn't have a job and my relationship with my boyfriend of two I'm the Girl Who Clawed Her Own Eyes Out. This Is My Story. 1/26/20, 7:55 PM about:reader?url=https://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/a19... + K --------- years began to deteriorate. To cope, I kept smoking pot and drinking alcohol and started taking Xanax recreationally. On the verge of our breakup, I had a mental breakdown. (Months later, in February 2018, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It made sense, since when I felt happy, I felt super happy, and when I felt down, I felt deeply depressed. The turbulence left me especially. susceptible to drug abuse, my doctors later told me.) I finally got a new job, but having lost my boyfriend and a series of close friends, I was lonely and unhappy. I remembered the way I felt on the laced weed and sought that kind of peace again. At the end of August, with another acquaintance, I decided to smoke meth for the first time. I stayed up for nearly three days and experienced hallucinations I wasn't expecting when I looked in the mirror, I thought I saw blackheads coming out of my face and I spent an hour picking at my skin until I drew blood. When my roommate dropped me off for work that evening, I was too embarrassed by my welts to go inside. Soon after, as a result of missing work, I lost my job. When I sobered up, I watched a video I'd filmed when I was high, and it totally frocked me out the girl Loow who kont talking Page < 4 of 11 ZOOM When I sobered up, I watched a video I'd filmed when I was high, - and it totally freaked me out the girl I saw, who kept talking and talking, seemed so different from the real me. After that, I steered clear of meth but felt so low that I asked one of my roommates, who dealt drugs, for ecstasy. At the time, the substance seemed safer than cocaine or meth, since I knew people used it to feel more free when they partied. I thought it would make me feel more confident; when it delivered, I started taking it once or twice a day on most days until the end of November. 4 of 11 I'm the Girl Who Clawed Her Own Eyes Out. This Is My Story. 1/26/20, 7:55 PM + about:reader?url=https://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fitness/a19... K --------- While on ecstasy, I studied the Bible. I misinterpreted a lot of it. I convinced myself that meth would bring me even closer to God. So, after Thanksgiving, when I was feeling particularly lonely, I smoked meth with a friend. Within two months, I progressed to snorting it, then shooting it as often as I could by myself or with friends. I was surrounded by heavy drug users. Two or three times, I tried to stop: I carried meth in my pocket all day as if to prove, "This stuff is my bitch," but I always ended up taking it. My mom realized I was struggling with mental-health issues and drug abuse but later said she felt helpless; I wouldn't commit to Page < 7 of 11 ZOOM + K --------- here's what happened: Thinking the friend I'd gotten high with had gone to church, I wandered there along a railroad track. Even though it was 10:30 in the morning, everything looked dark and gloomy apart from a light post, where I thought a white bird was perched. It was then I remember thinking that someone had to sacrifice something important to right the world, and that person was me. I thought everything would end abruptly, and everyone would die, if I didn't tear out my eyes immediately. I don't know how I came to that conclusion, but I felt it was, without doubt, the right, rational thing to do immediately. I got on my hands and knees, pounding the ground and praying, "Why me? Why do I have to do this?" I later realized this wasn't a personal religious calling - it was something anyone on drugs. could have experienced. Next, a man I'd been staying with, who happened to have a Biblical name, drove by and called out the window, "I locked up the house. Do you have the other key?" A sign, I thought, that my sacrifice is the key to saving the world. - So I pushed my thumb, pointer, and middle finger into each eye. I gripped each eyeball, twisted, and pulled until each eye popped out of the socket it felt like a massive struggle, the hardest thing I ever had to do. Because I could no longer see, I don't know if there was blood. But I know the drugs numbed the pain. I'm pretty sure I would have tried to claw right into my brain if a pastor hadn't heard me screaming, "I want to see the light!" which I don't recall saying - and restrained me. He later said, when he found me, that I was holding my eyeballs in my hands. I