Edges Magazine issue 36 - I am determined to change MY Life

EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 36

March 2004

I am Determined
to change my Life

Jav shares his story and speaks about his rebellious youth within the Asian Community.

I am Jav I’m from Preston I am 25 years old. I’m from the Asian community where I had a strong faith. I have a family of my own, and brothers and sisters too. I was doing everything that I wanted but I had a problem with my dad. I never got on with him, in my own house. Everything I wanted to do I never got anywhere, everything I did, I never got anywhere in life, nothing I did could please him. So mum was the only person who took more interest in me and went to any lengths and get me to any places. I had to make more of my father. Mum was a very vulnerable woman.

I was a good person; was a very good person. People started looking up to me. Saying ‘oh yes he’s changed man’ The friends I used to hang around with they had always bad temper, cheeky comments, made bad jokes that made people angry, answer back at teachers, and they had bad ways and I was like the quiet one. I knew I’d do what they were doing but I actually hadn’t got to that stage. I came to a level where I wrote a death letter to a teacher and I thought that is something big to do. I got cheered on by my boys, you know that is a wicked thing to do, but I knew they would try to find out who the mystery person was. But I eventually got caught out within a week I just got involved and I didn’t even think about the consequence, and all I could think was, I didn’t know what my dad was going to do to me. But it never got that far it got as far as my sister but it still gave me a chance to carry on.

I’m still having problems at home but most of it’s kept at home, and school stuff is kept at school. I’ve never shared anything from school at home because they never listen to me so I thought I would become my own man do my own stuff. At school I used to wear these special hearing aid boxes, boxes for my hearing and that, and teacher used to wear one box so that she could talk to me and I used to get bullied and that and people used to pull the wire off and shout at me over the mike and it used to get at me did that. I was the only one in the class wearing it and I used to feel very isolated again so I took that off and I chucked it away in my bag so I wasn’t wearing it and my concentration in lessons was very poor.

I was always hanging around with bad people in there causing arguments and then causing fights, just looking for attention basically. But I still wasn’t getting any of that, I was led into wrong things, you know stealing stuff from school bringing home stuff, selling them at school and that’s when drugs were introduced to me. Wow I said where did you get this from, just the something I was looking for. I got my confidence back, I’m a big person. No-one can say anything to me. I started smoking day after day them days it was only a fiver, and it was going on very well from then. I was smoking rocky, cannabis, cigarettes and that was going on throughout my high school for about five years. And I really enjoyed that. And I was a person then, with attitude, I was arrogant, stubborn and if anyone said anything I used to be cheeky and answer back to them in a wrong way. I thought you know, this is the way to go about it.

When I used to go home from school it was a different life. My plan used to change. Used to come home, think my parents didn’t know anything about my attitude outside. I used to come home with a different face on like a sensible person. I used to walk in the house, with respect to my family. I’d go upstairs, and we couldn’t have food until we had washed ourselves, then we’d get a small amount of food and do our homework straightaway, then get sent out to Mosque.

We did our prayers at Mosque, come home, there was no outside life after school, no seeing friends for half-hour or an hour, straight back in the house eat your dinner and straight up to bed, and that was it. Make sure you do your work and everything and no other company, we were only allowed to mess around with brothers and sisters, couldn’t even do that. My life was very dull. I was looking for excitement and I wasn’t getting any of it. It was very distraught for me. Pressure was building on me any wrong thing I did I used to get bullied. Beaten by my dad for any little thing. He grabbed me by the neck once, I said ‘Dad I’m going to my sister’s I have to close the curtains. Are you alright with that?’ It’s just the way I said it to him in a friendly cool way and he didn’t like it at all he just got up grabbed me by the neck banged me against the wall, and I said ‘please dad don’t hit me because I’m wearing hearing aids and he found this an advantage, then all I could see was a big fist coming and banged my ear. Blood coming out and I’m crying like, like you know, like no man’s ever cried before. I’ve never cried before, and he didn’t feel sorry for one second. And I’m thinking why am I getting bullied like this and I’m thinking he’s going to kill me to death. All I said was can I go to my sister’s house. And he just got me down got a stick slipper or whatever and he’s whacking me all over. So I said sorry and when I said sorry he backed off. And he looked angry and swore at me and said’ get up stairs I don’t want to see your face’.

And there used to be an isolation between me and my dad since childhood and he never really communicated that well for years. He used to be a stubborn man, he wanted a strict family basically. He wanted a family that didn’t go into trouble or stuff like that. He wanted a family that had fun, but fun in a minimum way. You know fun like what white people do he made me feel like, ‘ stay away from them they’re not good’. I’ve always had wrong encouragement from family, they have wrong thoughts about people in the outside world. The kind of life I’ve had is like looking through the bedroom window watching children playing outside in go-karts and swings and stuff and I’m like sitting in the window, blowing my breath on the screen, being myself on the swing and wishing I could go out and play with my dad, but my dad wasn’t the type. And that was my life at home.

Moving on from there, he pushed me into education, something I didn’t really like doing. I went into college and was doing well there and I thought this is like freedom you know and I got mixed up again. I pushed myself into the wrong people again, because of all the beating, all the agony I got from my dad, no encouragement from him and I thought I’ll do what I want to do, I’ll do it my way. So I started hanging round people who I used to see smoking spliffs and stuff. They didn’t bother, they liked to be smashed. They introduced a new kind of cannabis class A skunk. I smoked that, I was thinking yea man, family life is crap, this is better. My friends are better than my family. They listen to my problems and what do I get, I get a bag of skunk. And my problems have gone, and while I’m doing it my life is just going great. I’ve got a girl friend, I’m chilling out, I’m buzzing you know in my sexual life, go out, enjoying myself. And then introduced to alcohol a new experience for me, it was straight into my head and I was thinking what is this? It’s liquid buzz you know it’s like drugs yea but it’s liquid, this is good as well.
So alcohol mixing with drugs, it was a new way of life for me. I was thinking I was strong minded in my head, I knew exactly what I wanted, and I wanted drugs and alcohol to come to me in my life to stay strong to fight back with my parents, because there’s something that they can’t put me down forever. Alcohol was giving me that strength. I used to buzz at being drunk, taking the mickey out of people, swearing at people. It was something I think like I was carrying out my father’s attitude and behaviour inside me. And at that time it didn’t concern me. I was really enjoying myself going ahead with the damages and stuff. It just went on and on going home drunk out my head. No-one knowing, my eyes bloodshot red, my dad grabbing me asking me have I been taking drugs again and I used to tell him that I hadn’t taken anything and I used to get a bashing again, for telling lies to him. Someone had told him I was taking drugs, outside college and I told him it was not true. I asked him to bring the person who had told him to the house but he wouldn’t do that. He would never do that. He used to get the buzz of beating me up. And he would never bring that person in front of me and he just kept thrashing and thrashing, but I still got sent to Mosque. I was forced to keep Ramadan. I went to Mosque and kicked off with the priest there, I showed him my bad side. He asked me a question and I swore at him. I started putting my chest against his chest, you know like schoolboys having a fight, like come on what are you going to do you can’t tell me how to pray what to do I’m leaving Mosque after this. You’re not my dad, you’re a man with a beard and everything.

I couldn’t hack it no more. No one was going to tell me no more what to do. I had enough, then I pushed him and he said ‘ this is it, you’re not coming back, you’re dad’s going to find out’ And I felt in my heart Oh no if my dad finds out he is going to murder me this time. I’m not going to tell him because If I got found out I used to lie a lot about anything I did wrong, I used to cover up because I didn’t want to get a beating so I used to wait for him to find out then I would take that beating then. So I could manage to leave myself in peace till he found out. And when he found out it was not nice, he had a walking stick, and he told me to go over to him, he swore at my mum to get out and leave me with him because I needed a lesson. I told him not to pull that stunt with me, can’t you imagine for once in your life that this is all your fault, as a father, what you are doing to me? He wasn’t having any of that he looked me in my face and said it wasn’t him it was me doing it to myself and if I had a problem I should tell him, but I said I couldn’t because he was always beating me up. Everything I did I said you keep beating me up and he said why don’t you just tell me that you are taking drugs. I lied again and said no, but he said you’re lying again and why did you abuse the priest at the Mosque and I said I didn’t know why. He told me to hold my hand out and then he started whacking me. He said he would carry on until I told him the truth and he whacked and whacked and whacked my hand till I told him and then he told me to get out of his house. I went up stairs where I had a small bottle of Vodka and I had some and smoked a spliff through the window, to ease the pain. But I was crying and drinking and smoking and when he came up stairs I was packing my bag. He asked me where the hell I was going. I told him I was going like he told me to and he smashed me up again. He said ‘Do you think I’m going to let you walk out of my house?’ and I asked him if he was scared that I might go to the police. As soon as I said that he started beating me again.

I got so much beating that I couldn’t live my life without the drugs and alcohol, because when I used to drink and smoke it made me forget about my life and made me more confidant. My house problems were kept at my house and I didn’t talk about them to anybody at college, staff, nobody. Any awfulness that went on in college I kept it there. No one knew about it. It went on for years and years. I did a foundation course in engineering. I wanted to be an engineer and I went on the course and I got a diploma in engineering and he said that I was not going to get anywhere because I was daft. He said the engineering business would make my deafness worse. I told him that it was something I enjoyed and I had got on to the second level and he laughed.

So I carried on drinking and smoking. I carried on with my course but I was getting a bad reputation and missing lessons. I was cheating on my course, because my memory was not good. But I bragged to my parents but they never came to a parent’s evening or anything even though they were asked to come. I left college because my dad decided that I should and he asked me if I was seeing a girl, because I had been seen driving round college in a car with a girl, but I denied it. He then said that he had decided I should get married. Things were getting worse. My dad was a sick man, he had had by-pass surgery and he had been told that when he was fifty or sixty his arteries may give up. This was another burden on my shoulders. All my life I had done what my father wanted me to do, to his standards. I could not do anything for myself. But I decided to go to Pakistan to marry a girl I had never seen.

She was nice but as soon as I got there I wanted drugs and alcohol, so my brother-in-law to be got me some vodka and a big chunk of rocky, cannabis and I’d carry on smoking up there, he wasn’t interested he just got it for me. I told him he didn’t know what he was missing. I married the girl for sex but that didn’t come. We got married for bad purpose but we didn’t do that what we call nica like taking the girl to your house but my father wanted to do that in England. Coming back, got married and I was proper ill. They wanted to find out what was going on with me, well I couldn’t tell him because I was drinking very heavily. My girl friend was writing letters from Pakistan and I was scared if anyone would find out. She said that life without me was impossible because when I was on alcohol and drugs to keep on my level and to cope with my anger and family problems she took the drugs and now that I was gone she didn’t know where to get them, she felt like running away from the family strife but she couldn’t run away without me. In my head I felt like I had her wrapped round my finger, she needed me to survive. I now had the power to control. There is someone I got round like my dad got me round. The relationship finally broke up I told her to her face, got her drugged up and told her. It was doing no good, because I was just getting depressed and depressed. Dad come back get married up here again she comes over things weren’t working out with me and this girl, she’s from Asia and I’m from here. I’ve got a different view and perspective you know and she’s got a different mind. I told her everything that I took drugs and smoked and drank alcohol and on that first night our wedding night. I sat down drinking Vodka, making a spliff and she was probably thinking what’s he doing. I had to blagg her head and said I was smoking herb to clear my lungs at night before I go to bed I could see her in the house, she got scared and she wanted me to change, you know become someone sensible. I wasn’t having any of that. Why should I change for you? She saw me a couple of times with other girls. But I told her they are my friends I’m a bit flirty, that’s how it was. I can’t live without girls, I’ve got to work with girls and communicate with girls it’s part of life. And she bought the story. The marriage was getting depressed. I asked my dad a couple of times to get me divorced but he wasn’t having any of it. Then I went out into that dirty world again to get more support because I was going out of my mind.

My dad was getting very bad and I didn’t know what to do. I thought I don’t want him dying with me still married to this girl. I met a new friend and he said ‘Look mate I’ve got something that can ease off all your problems straight away.’ So I tried this Mr. Charlie- Mr White Crystal comes into my life. Oh yea I remember the first time I took this Columbian Slate, it was shiny white crystal, taking it every day. The first time I took it it was like the new buzz of my life and things started to look, you know beautiful square headed, I could drink as much alcohol....

.... as I wanted and I did not have to go home drunk. I did not want them to moan and moan at me I wanted them to stop hassling me. So the more I drank the more cocaine I took. I did not feel drunk at all, my breath stank, but that was all sorted. I could walk straight but I did not know the consequences, it made me more aggressive, it made me violent. I blackmailed people. I even trashed my own mum. I robbed her clean, I robbed my own family. I’ve separated my own family, I made hate between them so that they are all separate. My dad passed away and I knew now my mum was going to be more vulnerable and I was in charge. Started taking cocaine regularly cause I had friends, cousin friends and they were on the game and I used to get my hit free. But when I had been on it for a couple of months they turned their backs on me and they wanted money. At first money wasn’t a problem I had a good job, good house, I sold my house to the drug dealers so they could sell their stuff. I sold all the electrical equipment in the house to get money. That house became a drop in centre for all the drug users. It used to be a sex pad. No white people complained because I was the only Asian in the area, but they were getting worried because a lot of white and Asian people were coming to the house and a lot of cars parked there. Drugs were stashed there I never got to sleep because people were coming and making themselves at home partying from 5 in the evening till 5 in the morning. I was still taking Charlie, rattling in my bed in the morning, shivering, hungry, there’s no food in my cupboard. I couldn’t even eat, couldn’t drink, I was ten stone when I started and I came down to eight stone.

Keep going round to my mum and she’s looking at me like I’m evil. Walking in with a smile on my face asking how she was and my little girl, I never looked at her once, I never even touched her, no get away from me I don’t want you. As soon as I see my mum praying I start ransacking the house trying to find her purse, and I knew she’d got money in her purse, oh yea she had money in her purse. I used to go to her bedroom, look through every single drawer, with confidence, knowing I wouldn’t get caught. Up till now I never got caught, and I robbed enough money and I made her feel like she is the one loosing her mind. She came crying down stairs saying that she thinks someone has robbed her purse and I said ‘Mum how could someone rob your purse, did you go to town yesterday there you are you went spending money. When you opened your purse some may have dropped out’ I called her a stupid woman and made her believe that she could have lost it. She said that was true and I used to walk out of the door telling her to sort it out and I would be back later. Then I used to smile, walk round the corner, count the money and ring the dealer for a pop-up. Then I’d ring my mum and ask if she was alright telling her I’d see her in the morning. It came to the stage, I did things to my wife and it got to the stage where I couldn’t look after my money.

My house was barely a house it was just a crack house there was alcohol bottles on the floor nothing in the house at all, just bare there was nothing to sell for money. My mum locked the door on me she wouldn’t let me in, my wife wouldn’t come and see me cause I’ve done things with her. It wasn’t me and I met a new friend and he gave me some gear for myself and said that if I did some runs for him he would give me more. He gave me about 10gms and I said I would sort it out for him. I smashed all the 10gms up lit up 20 cigarettes and put them over the cocaine waited till they bubbled and melted into the fags and I put them all back into the decks prepared for my next night out. Snorting all that lump of powder straight into my nose. Got it into my throat, washed it down with straight Vodka just like it was water. Went upstairs to get changed and my head started spinning, I hear people banging on my door mice running on my ceiling, I was sweating and my bones were shaking and I picked up a knife wondering who was in the house, I tried to go down the stairs quietly but fell crumbling down all the stairs banging my head and I thought I was gone. I opened my eyes for a second and realised I was on the couch with two police officers there. I woke up at 11.45 in a hospital bed, oxygen mask on my face, all wired up to instruments. My family was there, my mother with the Holy Koran praying, and weeping, my wife weeping, my father’s brother was there. And I woke up with a buzz wondering what I had done. I looked up at a bright light at the ceiling wondering if God had given me the chance to come back on earth or had I done it myself. I looked at my mum and wondered why I was punishing her and I wept. At that moment the doctor walked in and told me I was lucky to be alive with a good family round me. I had been unconscious for so many hours they had nearly given up on me. He told me to prove something with my life and I looked at my family and realised this is not what I want. I left hospital a few days later determined to stay clean, back to my family to help with my problems. I got in touch with my case worker and she put me in touch with THOMAS.

An appointment was arranged, I arrived on the day but 5 minutes late. I was given a later time but I left the house in tantrums giving my number to a lady at the door, I was angry and I walked away in anger and picked up a bag of skunk and smoked it thinking I didn’t want to hear from them again. I was on Charlie again and when I had a phone call I threw it away, but things were getting nasty the house was a drug den. I had nowhere to go the doors were all locked and I realised I could die. I ended up back in hospital with another warning that they could do nothing to help me. I got an order from Social Services telling me that I couldn’t see my child again.

I made another appointment with THOMAS and I turned up early, had an interview with Damo and he promised me three weeks wait. I left that building with hope, stayed home with my family and kept clean. I came into THOMAS and I have learnt a lot about things I did not want to think about. I can relate to my old past and the new me. I’ve learnt about kindness, honesty, humility and about spirituality. All these new things and my faith has come back through being here. They’ve done a lot for me letting me go to Mosque one day a week and I appreciate that. I’m proud of myself that I have achieved something. And I would like to go out of this place with hope for the future.