Alright, lets go back about seven to eight years ago. I want to share with you all who I was, what I did and how I became who I am today.
I was 13 at the time had been in a new town for one full school year. I had a really rough school year to say the least. I was a different kid, I strived for attention doing odd things that not everyone else did. Such as cartwheeling up and down the hallway for an entire lunch break, or putting a pony tail on the top of my head and sparkly stickers all over my face running around saying "i'm a frosted flake". People mocked me and laughed at me, they teased me and told me I was different. About half way through my first school year in my new town there was an incident that caused me to get my mother to remove me from the public school system and start home schooling. One lunch period at school I was being taunted by the "popular" grade nine girls (you know who you are) I was in grade seven at the time. I was getting frustrated and I was starting to try and get away, I was blocked to the lockers. My back against them and a crowd of grade nines standing over me. Yelling at me, calling me down and then that's when it happened... There was one girl standing right in front of me giving me her hatred full force, and she dumped an entire can of Dr. Pepper on my head. I was absolutely devestated, I pushed through the group and I ran into the bathroom nearest to me, locked myself in the stall and cried for the rest of the lunch period. They followed me into the bathroom, banging on the stall doors, yelling at me to come out and face them. I was terrified and humiliated. I believe it was about a week later when my mom enrolled me into homeschooling and I stopped going to that school. I finished my school year at home with my step dad helping a lot getting me to finish my school work and stop telling myself I was unintelligent. My entire school life up until this home schooling started was French Immersion, I could barely write English properly and I even still have some troubles to this day. So coming into homeschooling I felt very stupid and like I didn't know anything. Turns out I'm wicked in English and I rock Math. ( i just started crying, I've never ever been able to tell my self that I'm good at English or i rock at math....DAMN THAT FELT GOOD) During this school year I had started smoking cigarettes... I know to young to be smoking. It helped me alot get through the bullying and the emotions I was dealing with because of it. I hid it from my parents as best as I could. During that summer I decided to try marijuana. I didn't smoke it every day or all the time. I had tried it once that summer and maybe two other times as well. I didn't want to try it and felt very pressured by other people to, that's why that summer I tried it for the first time, The next school year I started at a new school again in the public system, A different one, where I was enrolled into the English classes not French Immersion. I was nervous to be the new kid again but very happy that I was trying out a public school again. My emotions were surely very mixed. I started my eighth grade year not knowing a soul. It was tough to say the least. Then I met this blonde girl who used to sit alone by the front doors. I think we started talking because she too smoked cigarettes. In the mornings before class we would go down to the little path way and have our morning smoke. I was so grateful to have met someone that I got along so well with. Her and I started to hang out outside of school and during the weekends she would stay at my place. We drank quite a bit on the weekends and attended parties together, We spent most of our time together hanging out with our other close friends. During that school year a lot had happened. I made some childish choices like drinking before class on day or skipping school with her to not even really do anything. We got suspended for smoking on lunch break, which lead to rumors that her and I were drug addicts. I wasnt the most liked girl, that is definitely certain. Around exam time at the end of the year I was in gym glass and I remember this boy calling me white trash, now I was a violent girl back then I got into fights a lot I would hit people if I did not like what they were saying to me, I spent me entire childhood in anger mode, because of the bullying during elementary school, which continued on into middle school and even into high school. So I punched this kid who called me white trash and after gym class I walked out to my mother standing there telling me the school was asking me to leave and not come back to my classes. I was allowed to come back and do my exams in the help center and then leave again. Just so I wouldnt have to redo grade eight. I was grateful the school let me do my exams so I didnt have to do a new year of the same grade. During this school year at age 14 I lost my virginity. When summer came, I continued to drink and party, started smoking marijuana everyday and started sneaking out, staying out with friends partying. I started heading down a terrible path, I watched my friends do drugs and I got tired of them not listening to my begs and pleas about not doing the drugs anymore. They all told me not to do them but did them themselves. So one day to make my point and because my curiosity completely got the best of me. I said I want to try the estacy. So I tried it, and then a few times after that as well. I did not like it. I hated the way I smelled the way it made me look, I looked at pictures of me on the drug and I was completely disgusted. It made me feel disgusting the next day and just entirely was not worth it. I hate drugs. After my experience trying estacy, Ive only smoked weed. Never done coke, heroin, crystal meth nothing of the sorts. I hated watching what drugs did to some of my closest friends, It destroyed their lives and made them do things they never would have in a million years done sober. That is why I have chosen to not even experiment with anything else. I was 14, naive and seriously stupid. I cannot even tell you how grateful I am that I did not become addicted to the drug that I did so stupidly try. I am forever gratfeul that drugs didnt take over my life and that I know within myself that even through out all the hard times and the shitty situations in the past few years of my life, I have stayed away from chemical drugs. Yes, throughout this I have smoked marijuana. I know and respect that everyone has a different view point on marijuana. I know that some people view it as a drug and other people do not. I am one of those other people. I have used marijuana in a medical way and in a way you would use say alcohol. I have smoked it for pain, to get the munchies to make eating easier and I have also used it to calm myself down. I don't wish to always use marijuana, This week I am starting groups to start learning other coping skills so that I'm not resorting to marijuana anymore. This is so hard for me to write because of the judgement I may get from people, but this is my life and im showing you the facts. I want to be open and honest about my journey so other people in the same place or similar places or have friends or family or colleagues going through it they can use my journey as a tool. If Im not straight up about who I am or what I've done. How will they know before it gets this far? How can they learn some of the warning signs to help themselves? They cant. That's the answer. If I am not honest and myself, what is the point ? I started school at a new school again for grade nine, At a school where I knew few people because the community is not the biggest. my year was rocky. I dont blame anyone but myself. I was running away from home it was during the period I was experimenting with drugs... I didnt try them anymore and just drank instead. I remember I met this guy at a party and we just kind of clicked you know we chatted and what not and then later that night he kissed me. Well we talked and hung out quite a bit and drank together. Then we started dating we had intercourse one singular time when I was 15. We broke up a week later because I was actually interested in a girl. Her and I started dating, about two and a half months into our relationship I started to throw uo in the mornings and I didnt want to drink anymore,. My body was changing... So I went to the doctors about two weeks of this going on, Only to find out little 15 year old me is PREGNANT! Me ? Pregnant? You've got to be kidding me. I took a week exploring my options and talking with my parents. I was keeping my baby. I could not bring myself three months in to end it. So I started doctors appointments, baby groups, prenatal classes and baby classes. I changed my entire life around I stopped hanging out with the "friends" I had because they just wanted to drink anyways. I was so happy. I felt like this little baby inside me saved my life. A gift from god. Even my mom and step dad said that. It might sound strange to you, let me explain. Yes I was only 15. I was also drinking my face off every weekend, sneaking out and starting to disobey my mom, which is something I really didn't do before. So when i found out about this little baby I started treating myself better and changing my life around for this beautiful child inside me, I stopped the partying and the bad scene. When my beautiful daughter was born, I was in awe. I went right back to school about two weeks after she was born. Then when she was around six months I starting working on top of school. My mother helped me with watching my daughter while I went to work and school. Later on I got enrolled into the Mothers Program at the highschool. the summer before I started at the Mothers Program I met someone. We clicked and started dating we dated for probably about a year or just over. When we broke up, a lot happened in my life. I unfortunately got arrested for assaulting my mom and step dad. This ripped our family apart. I went to live with my dad, we made a plan i was to live with him for an entire year and then see how things were. I didn't listen and I packed up and moved back to my mothers house. Even with all the tension from the arrest and the entire ordeal. Im ashamed and embarrassed by what I did that day. I own what I did that day.. Unfortunately it happened., today is the present and that was the past. During my short stay at my dads I started dating that guy again.. Well when I came back to my moms I found out I was PREGNANT again.... only this time I was 17 and at time my daughter was between 15-18 months old/ Holy crap. My life came crashing down as when i moved back him and I broke up... I cant share the next part with you yet,, It hurts to much, Ive blocked it out safe in my mind and I am not opening that up today. Another day maybe or maybe not. Anyways the beginning of my pregnancy was torture and hell. The pregnancy part was fine, baby was good at first and then everything went down hill. This is when my eating disorder really started.. After the trauma I went through,,, (the part I cant talk about right now) I didnt have control over my own life, I couldnt control anything I felt besides my intake. Without even realizing it I was starving my self and the baby inside of me was being affected. I was in and out of hospitals with IVs because of dehydration. On bed rest for four months, had to stop going to school because of it and then my son came 2-3 weeks early, healthy as could be. I was so so grateful he was so healthy. I feel awful that I didnt take care of myself during my pregnancy and that I didnt do more for my son. I will forever live with that... during the pregnancy it caused a lot more strain on my relationship with my mom and step dad. Three weeks after my son was born. My mom the ministry and I had to come up with a plan because it wasn't working with me living in the home at the time. So i moved into a hostel that my mother paid for until I was able to get an apartment and get onto independent living. during those few months in the hostel, I really fucked things up for myself. I got arrested again for assaulted a good friend of mine and someone else as well. I didnt care about anything. I wanted to die. I did not give a fuck. Finally i got my place and was feeling a little better for a little while.. Finally i moved in with my boyfriend at the time and we lived together for about two years..ALOT happened in those years. I drank alot, i partied I lost my rights to unsupervised visits with my kids, I fucked a lot of things up. I guess because I had my children so young the teenager that was dying to come out finally was. And i looked like a compete idiot because I was partying my life away while other people raised my children. Im grateful for my parents and my sons grandparents for letting me get that out of my system,. I no longer want to get drunk, or stay out all night partying or taking people home from the bar. I got to see what it was like and I don;t want that for my life. I want to be the mother for my kids, I want to be healthy and stable for my kids. That does no include drinking partying or doing drugs, Im so grateful that I am not where I was two years ago, on my face out side the bar piss drunk. That girls scares me, she scared me even more when she tried to end her own life. I gave myself a little wake up call before my roommate gave me the real one and told me to move to my daughter, Then another friend looked at me and told me she knew I was hurting and told me things no ones ever said to me before, things I really needed to hear. Thank you Brittany and Brittany. You both help me more than you will ever know, you both mean so much to me and hold such a dear spot in my heart. Thank you for being blunt, honest and truly serious with me. I really am the luckiest girl in the entire world to have such amazing friends looking out for me.
I wrote this blog in hopes that people can better understand that even I look back on my life and go "what the fuck was I thinking/doing? or I wouldn't have liked myself either" Im not perfect but I am honest. Im human, We all make mistakes, we all grow up and we all go through life differently.
If you want to know something about someones life. Don't go asking other people, Go talk to the person yourself. For example a few years back I asked someone if that was their boyfriend/baby daddy and she was like im tired of what people are saying and this is what I said " I came to you because I wanted to know the truth, I didnt want to hear rumors or what other people had to say" she respected me alot for coming to her and not going around talking about her. Just ask. Its much less offensive than asking around.
Wow. I am almost 55 and I can react with something as inane as "wow". Reading this post makes me feel really glad I decided to "friend" and follow you. I must confess, when I first heard your story on the news, I was asking myself a lot of questions...why are you such a young mother, what has your upbringing like, were you sexually abused (I used to get asked that a lot, I was not, but apparently it's quite often a part of an anorexic's past)...but I got over those things quickly - I know judging is bad...I knew you were 'for real"...asking for help and being so brave to make your story public. Thank you for sharing how you became a mother of two children at such a young age. It's none of my business, and I "shut down" the questions in my mind to focus on supporting you in your recovery. But it's nice to know and affirms me in supporting you. And KUDOS to doing your best to be as healthy as you could be once you knew you were pregnant.
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