When he first sat down to talk to his father, North student Rupert Dars** didn’t exactly know what was going on with his mother.

But the words that left his father’s lips caused him to go into complete shock.

His mother had died on Sept. 28, 2016 because of the mixture of drugs she was ingesting, including Suboxone, a narcotic.

“It took a while for it to hit me, but when it did, I couldn’t stop crying,” Dars said. “Why did she have to be on that stuff to be happy? Why couldn’t she just be happy with me and my sister? I asked myself these questions. I believe she did love us, I really did. But at the same time, I didn’t know because she was always messed up.

While Dars was growing up, he witnessed how drugs affected her.

“My parents got divorced in eighth grade, and I grew up with that stuff around me,” Dars said. “I would come home and never see her. She was always messed up, and when I did see her, it never went well. [We were] just always arguing because she was always messed up.”

But he didn’t understand as a child that his mother was addicted to drugs. He had always wondered why she acted that way but never asked.

“I knew something was wrong with her,” Dars explained. “I was always just told that she was sick, and I knew there was something else in that statement, but I never really wanted to figure it out. I wanted to still think that I had a normal life and just pretend I wasn’t in the situation I was in.”

Dars tried to live a normal life and ignore the feeling he was different from the other kids. He didn’t mention his problems to anyone. He kept it hidden so well, just so he could have the feeling of normalcy.

Dars’ mother’s choice to start taking non-prescription drugs began when he and his sister were born. When he was around three years old, she began seriously abusing drugs.

“Pills [were spread] out on the bed,” he said. “She would stay on a high and not communicate with anyone until she came down from her high. Dars said that when she started, she couldn’t stop.

“I had to deal with this my whole life, and I have never seemed like the type of person whose mom was a big drug addict and ended up dying,” Dars said as his voice became more grim and profound. “I seem like the type of kid that had no problems. [But] I want to spread the importance of drug addictions and how easily it is to become addicted to drugs, hard core drugs. You just can’t stop, and I have seen what it does to somebody. It killed my mom. It ruined her life completely.”

Name had been changed to keep student anonymous**