Can I be honest?

 I am having a hard time trying to stay positive and I feel like a horrible person for it. I am so disappointed in myself.  I am so disappointment in myself for everything I did over the past four years. From the impressions I made at my high school to the people i mistakenly choose to give up. I didn't make the right choices. I made too many mistakes and now, I feel trapped, and I’m scared. I'm scared i won’t be able to pull it off and I'm scared i won’t be able to prove myself. I’m scared I will never be able to stand up tall and feel proud again. I’m scared that no four year university will take me seriously. I’m scared an admission's counselor will look at my transcript, throw it in the trash, and laugh. I’m scared i will let my mom down, I’m scared that all the money she spent and how hard she fought for me was all for nothing. I’m scared I will never be able to look at myself with pride. I’m scared I will always have to hide myself and be ashamed. I’m scared that no sorority will accept me because I am not good enough. I'm scared that my past will always be taunting me. I’m scared that I will spend the next ten years explaining the mistakes I made when I was seventeen. And I’m scared I just won’t be able to pull all this off.

Every day is an uphill battle, and every recovery is a battle not so easily won, especially when the war is waged against you. Today is just one of those days where i feel defeated. I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help but feel sorry for myself. We are all humans, genetically engineered to have feelings, As much as they suck, they don’t just go away with one little green pill, as much as i wish they did. That’s what i have to remember when I’m having a day like this, is that I am only human; and I can only handle so much.

And This is My Story.....

I grew up on a little island just to the right of the Cape. I moved around alot as a kid, divorced parents and all,you know the drill. So this little island became my home. No matter how far down the rabbit hole I slipped, I could always go back to this little island, off the coast, and feel at home again. My dad moved out when I was a kid and that left the three of us, Me, My sister,Cece, Our mom and our great big coonhound Piper. My mom, is the greatest women alive, she is my superhero. She never gave up on me and was always there when we needed her. That lady never missed one concert or recital of ours. To this day she goes to every single one of my sisters marching band performances. She is a rockstar. My sister Cece, is a musician, a well rounded gal. She has the greatest heart and strangest personality. You get use to it.Then there is me,I am the youngest, therefore the baby. My sister still thinks I'm 11. I am sassy as can be and could talk the ear of a cow. My lack of filter gets me in trouble sometimes. I love adventure and would rather be living on a farm with 12 dogs and my cat, peaches, then here. My best friends names is Kathy, she is a curly haired cutie from D.C. I met her on June 7th, the day I moved into my first place on Nantucket, and she has been my sister soulmate ever since.

But a little more about my more confusing story....

This past year was full of ups and downs. Between surviving rehab and balancing my shipwreck of a social life, I have managed to successfully survive. I am back on track and am working my way towards graduating high school (finally -_-) and getting into my dream school.

This blog is dedicated the adventure I call my life.

 Enjoy the ride 

:)

Summer 2014

The Summer of Dolly

January 2013

"Summer love; the person you meet just as the temperature starts to rise and the clothes start to get smaller and the heat of romance, heat’s up. But after that long summer of late nights and carefree attitude, everyone goes back to school and stress sets in. Priorities in relationships shift, and people start to change.  That thrill of a summer romance starts to die and it’s time to get down to the real stuff. Where you face reality and hope for the best. It’s time for me to face the Real world again; I have spent too much time with my head in the clouds. Now I am just floating among the stars."

-Journal of Audrey Barnes 

It's been a Long Day

5.14.2014

It was a Tuesday. I remember that because I was supposed to work on Tuesday because my boyfriend at the time Ryan had work. I had just gotten an amazing job working in a bridal store in Belmont. In my mind, I was leaving for Berklee in the fall and  I had to learn the guitar, master the piano, buys microphones and textbooks and pay fees and learn music and make recordings and forget everything else. That would be my life, and I was okay with that. Growing up, it was eat sleep breath music and chorus. I was so use to it; i never really gave any thought to anything else. Why did I have to, I was talented and loved it.

On November 23 2013, I was admitted into Children’s hospital in Boston for depression and anxiety. It was decided that on the following monday I would be admitted to an outside facility.

"Wait what... I’m not suicidal...I don't want to die...what are you talking about?" That’s what I kept saying to the doctors. That I was "fine." 

I wasn't fine. I was skipping classes, disappearing for hours at a time and i gave up my music. I quit everything. I quit jazz, chorus and I quit my amazing vocal teacher. I thought I had this amazing new life; This boyfriend and amazing new friends, it was a lot easier to start over somewhere else then to stay and face the consequences. I ran away. I abandon the four most special girls i have ever met and I destroyed my relationship with my family. I accepted that I was the family disappointment and did everything to keep that reputation. 

I did it all, getting arrested, drinking, staying out all night, pretending to not give a shit. Yeah, I’m the queen of pretending not to give a shit; I’ve gotten pretty good at it. It’s kind of scary how little I really care about anything. I felt untouchable to everybody and everything. To me, I was on top of the world. 

I told three people what had happen to me, my boyfriend, my best friend and my "gay" best friend* i.e. guy whose secretly in love with you but you have friend zoned* Their reactions were enough to know to keep this secret to myself. By the time this had all happened, I had been to probably been to one full day of classes all year, not including the first day.And going back to regular school seemed like the scariest thing in the world.Trust me, you don't want to be that kid who just randomly shows up one day. There were a lot of questions i wasnt ready to answer and a lot of people wanting to know what was up. Everyday i would validate in my head why it was okay to skip school. It wasn't just like one day here and there; it was full weeks at a time. It was just bad I can’t even put it into words. 

The Monday after I was in Children’s, I was sent to Bournewood facility in Brighton Massachusetts. I was there for two weeks.My first mistake was thinking i didn’t belong there, in my mind, I wasn’t really sick... yea i sometimes couldn't leave my house for a few days but it was fine. I wasn’t cutting like the other girls, just purging, and i could stop whenever i wanted to. I was normal.

"Like fuck you telling me that there’s something wrong with me. I'm fine." 

I left Bourne wood after two weeks and  only took 14 days for me to slip back into my own patterns. Just as long as I had been in Bourne wood. 

I wasn't fixed after Bourne wood; I was quite far from it actually. I didn't care what had happened. I didn't have time to deal with that. I had a boyfriend and friends’ in another town i had to worry about. I seriously didn’t have time to deal with all this bullshit. I was completely over it and didn't really want to acknowledge what was going on. So I did what I had always done and just started going through the motions.

"Yes mom, i have been eating"

"Yes mom, I did go to class today"

I was a liar and a cheater, I didn’t really care who I hurt.

And trust me.... I hurt everybody.

I was diagnosed with an Bulimia nervosa  in January 2014.I don’t really remember the date because I don’t really remember much of anything. Let me put it this way, it feel like i fell asleep when i was 12 and woke up when i was 18.The past five years, to me, are a blur.

It wasn’t until February that I actually started to take my recovery seriously. On February 7th 2014 I was rushed to the hospital for having such low potassium levels I was at risk of having a heart attack at any moment. Imagine that phone call, 17 years old being told you could have a heart attack, on top of that my boyfriend of almost a year had just broken up with me hours earlier.It was a fantastic day.

At this point I felt like I kind of deserved it though. I was mean; I held all this hate in my heart for no reason. My eating disorder will never be an excuse for the way I have acted in the past year. I deserved to lose friends and to not graduate on time. I chose to do all those things. No one forced me to stop eating, no one forced me to stick my finger down my throat, no one forced me to stay home from school, but i also didn’t ask for all the rest of it. But those stories are for a different day.

I didn’t explain why or how my ED was developed, just when, how’s not really important.  

To most people, saying you have an eating disorder has become this "social trend." 1 in 10 men and women in the United States suffer or have suffered from an eating disorder. Only 35% get treatment.  Bulimia nervosa is a serious disease and should not be taken lightley. If you or anyone have had any premature signs of an eating disorder please tell a loved one, its better to get help now then think you can fix it on your own. Its an addiction and should be treated as such. 

I fell in love, got my heartbroken, got arrested, almost failed out of high school and single handily drove my mother to insanity.

I’m not saying I’m 100% again because I really couldn’t tell you what that feels like. But I’m doing okay. I really am. It been the hardest year of my life and now that it’s coming to a close I can’t wait to start fresh on Nantucket and leave all this recovery nonsense behind me once and for all. 

I take Zoloft everyday now for my depression and anxiety and I have an amazing team of doctors and (obviously) the best mom to help me balance out and get me through my recovery. 

You can choose to believe my stories or you cannot.

 But let me just ask you.....

How would you feel if you were me?

My eating disorder has been a secret that I have held onto for the past 5 years to protect myself against other people opinions. Having an eating disorder didn't make me strong. My eating disorder destroyed my life. What made me "strong" was my support team of doctors and friends. They made me want to be strong. Without these amazing people in my life I doubt I would be alive today.Especially my mom. She saved my life.

 I don’t know where I’m going to be in 6 months or even a year from now, but I’m alive and I'm working on it and that’s good enough for me.

So hey cut me some slack okay,

I just woke up.