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IELTS Topic: HEALTH
Reading 2
Why I took drugs
Original source: The Guardian
Katie Everson turned to drug use in an attempt to fix herself
It’s hard growing up. Exams, break-ups, betrayals and bad decisions inevitably mark the road to adulthood. And there’s no map to help navigate this journey.
I was searching for the “real me” for a long time. When I was six years old, a teacher kept me in after school for not doing enough work. She shouted at me: furious, relentless, vein-popping, until my mum arrived. Other parents had alerted her and she rushed into the classroom. Vaguely I recall the dusty, rubbery air and the parquet flooring, but mainly I picture the teacher’s towering height (I was short for my age which can’t have helped) and I feel again the FEAR; my whole body, super-charged, shaking, the gallop of my heartbeat in my ears, my evaporating stomach, and the voice saying, “you’re not good enough.”
It’s hard growing up … I was searching for the ‘real me’ for a long time
That voice would eventually become my own, because, as far as I can remember, that was the moment that my angst-ridden, insomniac journey with depression and anxiety began. Only I didn’t know it yet.
When I was seven years old at a new school, I cried all day, every day.
When I was 14 years old, I cried in maths lessons.
An improvement, I guess. It wasn’t that I was bad at maths; I knew my way around a quadratic equation, let me tell you. It was that I was bad at being at school.
For me, the environment totally sucked because A) there were all these people who were obviously smarter/cooler/better than me; and B) every time I did or said anything, the voice was saying, “Stop that immediately! You’re not good enough! You’re a disgrace!”
Source: Andrew Angelov/ Shutterstock
Obviously, this is not a great way to be. So I tried to fix it. Which is hard, when you don’t understand the problem. I just wanted to feel better, to be happy. Maybe I could displace the feelings of inadequacy somehow? How about smoking? Or booze? Let’s try that… You see where this is going…
It’s a fact that some teens do drugs. They’re not necessarily bad people; they’re regular people, led by experience to choose a certain path.
You don’t have to come from a broken home … to take drugs. Sometimes it’s a simple quest to feel good.
Fierce expectations from educators; the massive mental and physical upheaval of being an adolescent; peer pressure, or simple curiosity can make drugs a tempting prospect. And let’s not forget, some drugs do make people feel good. You don’t have to come from a broken home or have a skeleton in your closet to feel drawn to take drugs. Sometimes it’s a just a simple quest to feel good.