Thursday, November 14, 2013
Friday, November 1, 2013
Why am I here?
So to kick off my blog, I should probably start with why I'm here and what I'm hoping to do with this blog. I'm sorry if this is long-winded (I know it is), but I figured I would get the whole back story out of the way. I've been through a lot this past year and a half, and I think that this story is helpful to show why I'm here. If you want to skip past the life story and just find out what the blog will consist of, scroll down until you see this: ******
The reason I'm here is simple: I want to help and inspire people. Up until a couple of years ago, I was one of those people who had pretty much everything handed to them. Sure, my home life wasn't always the greatest, and I had my share of breakdowns (I'm still a kid for goodness sake), but I lived comfortably. Most people belittle me or patronize me when they find out why my depression and anxiety started. To be honest, for a while, I thought they were right- I mean, it started because of a breakup. Who honestly gets that hurt from a breakup when they're my age? I had just turned 18, I had just started college- hell, most people would've been happy to be single to start out college! I still have my whole life ahead of me.
But I've always been a sensitive person. Growing up, like I said, I had a lot of things handed to me. But there was also a lot going on behind the scenes that no one knew about. Things that still only a few people outside of my immediate family know about. I never had loving parents to look up to- I had two parents who fought almost constantly. My mom has always been my best friend, but my dad was a completely different story. I always hated the situation- not even for myself a lot of the time- but for her. So I stayed in my room and I prayed for two things: the first being that I could never end up like them- I would find someone to treat me right. The second being that my mom would someday find someone better, or she would at least leave the situation at home.
So once I hit high school, I didn't trust many people. I had numerous acquaintances of course, but only a handful I really trusted. One of those people, come tenth grade, was a freshman girl that I had known in middle school, and then got in touch with again at the beginning of that year- we'll call her S. So throughout the beginning of that year, we became best friends. We were a walking cliche- told each other everything, had no sense of personal space, blah blah bah.
Around March, I realized that I was bisexual. It terrified me, because I knew that it would give my dad one more thing to yell about, but I decided there was no harm, since I wasn't actually interested in any specific girls at that moment. Until a few weeks later, when I realized that I really, really liked S.
So in mid-April, I worked up the nerve and told her how I felt- risky move, since I was pretty sure she was straight. But to my surprise, she liked me back. Long story short, we fell head over heels, but never told any parents- well, except for my mom. We were out at school, but as soon as we left school grounds, we kept it hidden. But I still thought that she was the one, without a doubt. S was my person. Towards the end of our relationship, things took a turn for the worst. We were both a little controlling throughout the whole thing, but then she got really bad. It got to a point where she actually hit me- numerous times- just for talking to my best friend. I knew that I was in a relationship like my parents at that point. The thing was, I was so disappointed in myself for letting it get that far that I didn't tell anyone. Then in the summer, we got better. We talked things through, and things were finally looking up. I was naive enough to believe it.
Then September came, and I went to college, 15 minutes away, living on campus. A week into being there, I got a phone call from my little sister, who was now a freshman (S was a senior at this point), asking if S and I had split up. When I answered with a negative, she told me that S was cheating on me- with my ex boyfriend. We'll call him J. Apparently, S and J had been together for a while behind my back- in the words of S: "longer than I'd ever find out about." We had been together for almost three years. So I was heartbroken. She was my person. I really thought that she was it for me. After we broke up, she took pretty much all of my friends from me, and I was left with my family and two other friends. That was all my world boiled down to at that point.
That all would've been fine. I could have gotten over that if it had all stopped there I think. But after that, the entire group of friends that she took- including two adults who I looked at like second parents- started toying with me. See originally, I had kept one friend from that group, who we'll call K. But it turns out that K was only still my friend so that she could find things to tell them so that the rest of the group could torture me. Sounds like the kind of crap that you hear about in middle school right? Well I'll just take a second to remind you that the people who I considered my second parents- ADULTS- were in on this. It just never stopped, and I couldn't get away from it.
I turned to self harm about a month into the situation. I tried cutting, but I'm a baby when it comes to blood, so that quickly turned into burning myself. When that got too painful, or someone noticed, it turned into me not eating. I was living on campus, where I hadn't made any friends, so there was no one to checkup on me.
I'll try to wrap this up here, since this story is getting a little too long winded even for me. I failed my entire first year of college. I would've flunked out if it hadn't been for a program called CRP- the College Restoration Program. I'm still not clean from self harm, although it happens less, but I do think I'm getting better. It's been a year since all of this started, and I wish I had had someone to show me that things get better.
*****
My hope is that if you stumble upon this blog and you've found yourself in a rut, it can help you. Whether it's seeing an inspirational story, or quote or picture- even if it just makes you smile for a second- I hope it helps. I'm going to be posting a whole bunch of different things- stories from my own life that I hope will inspire, pictures I find that inspire me, pretty much anything I can find.
I'm also happy to give my email to those who want to talk. I know what it's like to feel like you have no one. I know what it's like to feel like you're never going to get into this hole you've fallen into. But PLEASE know that you will. All you need is someone to talk to, something that can light that spark again. For me, that spark was realizing that I really, really want to work with the BBC in London. So I'm working toward that now. Having a goal will always help.
I'd love to hear your feedback, I want to do this for others, so if there's something you'd like to see, comment below!
'Til next time,
Liz
xx
The reason I'm here is simple: I want to help and inspire people. Up until a couple of years ago, I was one of those people who had pretty much everything handed to them. Sure, my home life wasn't always the greatest, and I had my share of breakdowns (I'm still a kid for goodness sake), but I lived comfortably. Most people belittle me or patronize me when they find out why my depression and anxiety started. To be honest, for a while, I thought they were right- I mean, it started because of a breakup. Who honestly gets that hurt from a breakup when they're my age? I had just turned 18, I had just started college- hell, most people would've been happy to be single to start out college! I still have my whole life ahead of me.
But I've always been a sensitive person. Growing up, like I said, I had a lot of things handed to me. But there was also a lot going on behind the scenes that no one knew about. Things that still only a few people outside of my immediate family know about. I never had loving parents to look up to- I had two parents who fought almost constantly. My mom has always been my best friend, but my dad was a completely different story. I always hated the situation- not even for myself a lot of the time- but for her. So I stayed in my room and I prayed for two things: the first being that I could never end up like them- I would find someone to treat me right. The second being that my mom would someday find someone better, or she would at least leave the situation at home.
So once I hit high school, I didn't trust many people. I had numerous acquaintances of course, but only a handful I really trusted. One of those people, come tenth grade, was a freshman girl that I had known in middle school, and then got in touch with again at the beginning of that year- we'll call her S. So throughout the beginning of that year, we became best friends. We were a walking cliche- told each other everything, had no sense of personal space, blah blah bah.
Around March, I realized that I was bisexual. It terrified me, because I knew that it would give my dad one more thing to yell about, but I decided there was no harm, since I wasn't actually interested in any specific girls at that moment. Until a few weeks later, when I realized that I really, really liked S.
So in mid-April, I worked up the nerve and told her how I felt- risky move, since I was pretty sure she was straight. But to my surprise, she liked me back. Long story short, we fell head over heels, but never told any parents- well, except for my mom. We were out at school, but as soon as we left school grounds, we kept it hidden. But I still thought that she was the one, without a doubt. S was my person. Towards the end of our relationship, things took a turn for the worst. We were both a little controlling throughout the whole thing, but then she got really bad. It got to a point where she actually hit me- numerous times- just for talking to my best friend. I knew that I was in a relationship like my parents at that point. The thing was, I was so disappointed in myself for letting it get that far that I didn't tell anyone. Then in the summer, we got better. We talked things through, and things were finally looking up. I was naive enough to believe it.
Then September came, and I went to college, 15 minutes away, living on campus. A week into being there, I got a phone call from my little sister, who was now a freshman (S was a senior at this point), asking if S and I had split up. When I answered with a negative, she told me that S was cheating on me- with my ex boyfriend. We'll call him J. Apparently, S and J had been together for a while behind my back- in the words of S: "longer than I'd ever find out about." We had been together for almost three years. So I was heartbroken. She was my person. I really thought that she was it for me. After we broke up, she took pretty much all of my friends from me, and I was left with my family and two other friends. That was all my world boiled down to at that point.
That all would've been fine. I could have gotten over that if it had all stopped there I think. But after that, the entire group of friends that she took- including two adults who I looked at like second parents- started toying with me. See originally, I had kept one friend from that group, who we'll call K. But it turns out that K was only still my friend so that she could find things to tell them so that the rest of the group could torture me. Sounds like the kind of crap that you hear about in middle school right? Well I'll just take a second to remind you that the people who I considered my second parents- ADULTS- were in on this. It just never stopped, and I couldn't get away from it.
I turned to self harm about a month into the situation. I tried cutting, but I'm a baby when it comes to blood, so that quickly turned into burning myself. When that got too painful, or someone noticed, it turned into me not eating. I was living on campus, where I hadn't made any friends, so there was no one to checkup on me.
I'll try to wrap this up here, since this story is getting a little too long winded even for me. I failed my entire first year of college. I would've flunked out if it hadn't been for a program called CRP- the College Restoration Program. I'm still not clean from self harm, although it happens less, but I do think I'm getting better. It's been a year since all of this started, and I wish I had had someone to show me that things get better.
*****
My hope is that if you stumble upon this blog and you've found yourself in a rut, it can help you. Whether it's seeing an inspirational story, or quote or picture- even if it just makes you smile for a second- I hope it helps. I'm going to be posting a whole bunch of different things- stories from my own life that I hope will inspire, pictures I find that inspire me, pretty much anything I can find.
I'm also happy to give my email to those who want to talk. I know what it's like to feel like you have no one. I know what it's like to feel like you're never going to get into this hole you've fallen into. But PLEASE know that you will. All you need is someone to talk to, something that can light that spark again. For me, that spark was realizing that I really, really want to work with the BBC in London. So I'm working toward that now. Having a goal will always help.
I'd love to hear your feedback, I want to do this for others, so if there's something you'd like to see, comment below!
'Til next time,
Liz
xx
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