Rachel Forde

Then the demons wouldn't come, you know, sleep paralysis.

I remember hearing them, hearing the demon or whatever, you know, come up my stairs.

I was like, oh, my God, please, please.

But you can't move.

You can't, you know, you can't speak.

And then you'd get the heavy weight in your chest and.

Absolutely horrendous.

I did loads of things to try and stop that, you know, like putting the phone outside the bedroom, like meditating.

I'm actually half laughing to myself now because I'd be doing all these exercises in a hope that I'd be able to stop all these mad mental things happening to me.

but I never once looked at the substances I was putting in my body that were the cause of what was going on for me.

It's absolutely insane.

It is the definition of insanity, you know.

You must have been...

It's unbelievable, the grip it gets you.

And yes, it is codeine.

For me, it started with codeine, but I suppose it branched out onto different benzos as well.

all prescription medication that like that, that needs to be highlighted, I suppose.

Yeah.

These are all legal drugs.

So I suppose when I did eventually make the decision to start my life out, like a lot of people would know what methadone is, Brenda, you know, and it's an opiate substitute.