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In the fourth episode of the series “Toxic“, The Geopop series that gives voice to those who lived firsthand the abuse of substances and drug addiction, we had the pleasure of speaking with Tizianaa 31 -year -old girl who is the courier and the tattoo artist today. His story teaches us how the fear of being injured can lead to the construction of an aggressive armor and the use of substances not so much for addiction – cocaine and crack in his case, but for play a role and defend themselves from the world. With the testimonies such as that of Tiziana, Maurizio, Gianluca and Ivana, we try to understand that the drug is often only the tip of the iceberg of a deeper malaise, made of fragility and insecurity.
Tiziana’s story starts from afar, from a profound sense of inadequacy already born at elementary. After changing school and country, the latest arrival has always felt, a feeling that pushed her to look for a way to stand out. “I’ve always had this desire to be out of the lines,” he says. Despite a present and loving family, Tiziana deliberately chose to become the “black sheep”, looking for the company of older people with a “wrong” air, which he saw as idols. This choice, however, was not born from a real attraction for that world, but from a need for protection, to try not to be afraid and have a sort of armor. This fear translated into extreme aggression, in those years the violence for Tiziana was a way to anticipate pain, attacking before you can be attacked.
Behind the image of the hard girl there was a profound contradiction: to a facade by “God who went down to earth” corresponded to a very low self -esteem. Aggression was therefore a mask to hide his vulnerabilityand the substances became the tool to consolidate this character. The meeting with drugs (cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy) took place at 13, but for Tiziana it was not an escape from reality, as much as a “Dependence on the image“That he wanted to project. The test came when, engaged to a boy who did not use drugs, he stopped everything for two years without any difficulty.
The end of that relationship had as a consequence the beginning of a darker phase. He started again with the cocaine and passed quickly to crackending up in total isolation and weighing 48 kilos. The spiral interrupted with a car accident, which pushed his parents to give her an ultimatum: the Community of San Patrignano or outside the house. A week alone, Tiziana understood that he had touched the bottom and he accepted the help.
The path in the community, which lasted three and a half years, did not change her character, but taught her to manage insecurity without aggression and ad accept one’s fragility. When asked about what he would say to the thirteen -year -old herself, Tiziana responds without hesitation:
To never feel judged, because everyone always judges you. You must be yourself, without fear of being ugly, beautiful, unpleasant, nice, because there will be so much people who see you beautiful and there will be people who see you ugly. You will never like everyone.
His story is a powerful reminder of the importance of listennot only the advice of those who love us, but above all themselves. Accepting help is not a sign of weakness, but the first step to get out of critical situations and stop “throwing away time”, to finally start growing.
