Sitting at home, I looked down and recoiled in horror.
A nest of bugs was burrowing into my left leg and crawling underneath my skin.
I have to get them out! I thought, panicking.
Grabbing a pair of nail scissors, I sliced into my knee, creating a huge, open wound.
Minutes later, my mum, Kristy, came to visit and found me covered in blood and digging into my skin.
“Oh my gosh, what’s happened?” she asked.
“There are bugs in my skin!” I yelled.
Mum grabbed the scissors from me and drove me to the hospital, where a doctor told me he couldn’t find anything in my leg. He cleaned out the wound and glued it back together.
“When was the last time you smoked ice?” he asked.
“About half an hour ago,” I admitted.
It was 2013, and at 19, my addiction to ice had reached a new low.
Four years earlier, when my boyfriend first offered me crystal meth, I had no idea how dangerous the drug was. I just loved the rush it gave me.
Before long, I took it almost every weekend while partying with friends.
One day, when I was 17, my boyfriend, who I was living with, came home and turned my world upside down. “I don’t love you anymore,” he said.
Devastated and desperate to ease the pain, I started taking ice every day.
I partied even more and stopped taking responsibility for my life, ignoring my bills and couch surfing or sleeping in my car.
Mum stuck by me and tried to get help.
“I’m always here if you need to talk,” she’d tell me.
But I didn’t want her to see me like this, so I pushed her away.
The more I took ice, the more it affected my body’s ability to produce endorphins naturally.
It left me feeling physically exhausted and miserable.
By 19, my weight had plummeted to 47kg, and after staying awake for days at a time, I started having hallucinations, like imagining the bugs in my knee.
After giving me medication to treat the hallucinations, the hospital staff and Mum urged me to go to rehab, but I wasn’t ready to get help.
I started getting in trouble with the law and months later, I was facing up to 18 months in prison for charges including drug possession and dangerous driving.
I showed up to court, prepared to accept my fate.
“Do you care if you go to jail?” a lawyer asked me.
“No, send me,” I replied. “I have nothing to live for.”
But Mum wasn’t giving up on me. She asked people to write character references for me and gave the judge a letter, telling him about the kind person I was when I wasn’t on drugs and the previous
work I’d done facilitating personal growth workshops for local teenagers.
The judge instructed me to turn around and look at Mum.
“Kristy, tell Binni how you feel,” he said.
“I don’t want you to die,” Mum told me, with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I love you and know this isn’t who you are.”
The judge instructed me to get help and gave me a suspended sentence with no conviction recorded.
Though I was grateful to be given a second chance and moved by Mum’s emotional display, I still struggled to give up ice.
A few months later, in February 2014, I started feeling nauseous and experiencing stomach cramps.
“I have a pregnancy test if you want it,” my roommate offered.
I took the test, and when it came back positive, I laughed and cried with shock and joy.
The baby’s father wasn’t around, so I knew I’d have to do this on my own.
In an instant, I had a purpose and a reason to change. I picked up my pipe and other drug paraphernalia and smashed it all to pieces.
This child needs me, I thought and reminded myself of that as I detoxed.
I was so determined to stay clean, even the thought of doing ice made me feel sick. Then, at 22 weeks pregnant, a routine pap smear revealed I had cervical cancer.
I was stunned. I’d worked so hard to get clean and healthy for my baby, and now I was facing this frightening battle.
The doctor sensed my panic and quickly put me at ease.
“Fortunately, we’ve caught this early,” she said. “So we can wait until you’ve given birth to remove the cancerous cells.”
When my daughter, Payton, was born in September 2014 and placed on my chest, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace.
Everything’s going to be okay, I thought.
A week later, Payton’s drug tests came back all clear. She hadn’t been affected by the ice I’d taken before I discovered I was pregnant.
“I’m so glad she’s okay!” I cried to Mum.
Life has only gotten better and better since.
Six weeks after Payton’s birth, I had the cancerous cells in my cervix removed and was declared cancer-free. I was deliriously happy to be healthy finally and to love and care for my little girl as she grew.
Then, in 2018, I met my partner, Matthew, 30, at a bar I was working in. He’s a beautiful man who makes me feel loved and appreciated.
He’s become an amazing dad to Payton, now eight, and together, we had my second daughter, Layla, now four.
Matthew’s never judged me for my past and has always supported me.
“You’re the best mum,” he tells me constantly.
Today, I’m nine years clean, and life couldn’t be more different from when I was 19.
I own a home, have a close relationship with my family and love being on the P&C committee at Payton’s school, helping with fundraising and other events.
Over time, my natural endorphins returned, and now I’m so happy and energetic that I barely recognise myself!
I’m sharing my story to inspire others struggling with addiction.
I want to show them that it’s possible to turn your life around because everybody deserves to feel this good.
