“Fien is one of my twins: a happy, bouncy girl who did well at school and had many friends. She had a trouble-free childhood with her twin brother Isaac, until my husband Willem had a cerebral infarction just after their seventeenth birthday. Fien came home from school to find her father writhing on the kitchen floor with eyes rolled away. Fortunately, she was very firm: she called 112 and did exactly what the social worker asked. Chris survived the attack, but is no longer the old one. The right half of his body has partially failed, he can no longer walk and talking is also difficult. It gets better with exercises and a lot of patience, but after a year of rehabilitation we are still far from there.
Incident
Willem’s ‘accident’ takes a lot from us, as a family. I admit: because of his care I often don’t pay enough attention to the twins. Shortly after the incident there was not much left of my cheerful Fien. She became quiet and closed and retired to her room. After school she was with her friends, me and Isaac saw her little. I heard from her brother that she had a boyfriend: an older boy from another school.
unmanageable
After a few months, Fien became increasingly unmanageable. She had extreme rages in which she regularly kicked or hit something. There wasn’t a door upstairs that didn’t already have a hole in it. No matter what I tried, she wouldn’t talk to me and expressed her anger by literally swatting around. I felt everything that she couldn’t handle the situation at home. But instead of talking, Fien isolated herself. Most of the time she spent with her friends or her boyfriend Igor.
Bruising
I will never forget the night Fien came home with a torn lip. Her coat was covered in blood. She had fought in a bar and things had gotten out of hand, she muttered. Fien wasn’t crying: she looked glassy ahead while I took care of her lip in the bathroom. When I pulled her sweater over her head, I realized how thin she was. Her bra seemed too big for her shrunken breasts, and there were bruises on her wrists and upper arms. I was shocked and asked what had happened to her. Fien shrugged and avoided my gaze. “Igor is really a dick sometimes,” she said, covering her body with her arms.
Oxycidon
This was too much for me: I kept Fien at home and demanded that she cut off all contact with that boy. But as usual, Fien locked herself in her room and said nothing. It was the doctor who suspected that something more was going on. After a visit, she found Fien very thin and absent, and asked if drugs or medication were involved. I was shocked by her question: I had no idea, but went to investigate. When Fien was going to eat at the neighbors, I grabbed my chance to search her room. At first I found nothing in the mess. Until I searched the pockets of her jackets and vests. Bingo: I found an empty strip of Oxycidone in almost every piece of clothing: a heavy and extremely addictive painkiller that can only be obtained by prescription. Igor’s name was on the label of the boxes.
Pills
That evening I decided to confront Fien about it. Her response was indifferent. “Had from Igor. She gets it for his hernia. Now they are almost gone”, was her reply. Again Igor. I tried to start a conversation with Fien, but I shouldn’t be so nagging. She needed those pills, she whined. Why should she feel pain when she doesn’t have to? I fired a load of questions at her: How long had she been swallowing that shit? And was that why she was so indifferent and absent? Why did she need those pills so badly?
Anesthetized
Fien turned out to be taking the painkillers for months. They numbed her sensation and made her float, she said. Nothing was bad anymore: not Willem’s situation, not my nagging, or the stupid stuff at school. When the pills were gone, she was stimulated and she smashed things to pieces at the slightest remark. Because she became very nauseous without the pills, she hardly ate anymore, she was shivering and suffered from palpitations. As soon as Igor came up with a comic again, her problems were solved. The puzzle pieces of her strange behavior finally came together.
Rehab
With the help of the GP we are now trying to get Fien off the Oxycidon. It is a heavy drug that can be compared to heroin, so every day is a fight. Fien still has withdrawal symptoms, which means that stopping with mouse steps is a breeze. I don’t know if she’ll ever wake up from this nightmare or if she’ll recover from her addiction. Time will tell.”
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