This site isn't full of textbook information by professionals, that's why I put the links in. This site is meant to be personal, it is meant to show personal struggle, and personal growth. To prove to all those doubting it will get better, that it does. Everyone has heard it thousands of times before; it will get better. But I'm here to show from personal experience, that I made it, and so can you.
I was born with unstoppable anxiety where you were the luckiest person if I said a word to you. I have an older brother with CHARGE Syndrome, getting all of attention that I selfishly wished was mine. I have a sister that was going through her own stuff, which meant that was a lot more attention that I didn't get. I felt like I was put on the back burner because from an outside perspective, it looked like I could take care of myself. That grew into depression, because I couldn't get attention from my friends either, which ultimately meant I didn't have any and that no one liked me, and no one ever will. This also meant that I knew why my family never gave me attention--because they hated me, too. I wouldn't talk, and they yelled at me, frustrated trying to get an answer that wasn't a shrug of my shoulders or me just silently crying with my hair in from of my face like Cousin It. I was a burden. I was an embarrassment. Self harm, suicide attempts, High Focus, bad boys, Partial, more bad boys, nothing really helped. I was one leg out the door to a Wilderness Program before I luckily broke that leg after falling three times while ice skating on January 31, 2015. (It's okay to laugh because I still do. Ice skating is harder than it looks!) After more months at Partial, making it a whopping seven months at a three week program, I was probably going to be kicked out if I didn't find another place to go, and public school, or a therapeutic day school was not an option.
I was so fortunate to have been able to go to a residential treatment center, because not everyone can. I went to La Europa Academy in Murray, Utah for fifteen months. I learned about myself, my anxiety, my depression, my eating patterns, my trauma, about DBT to cope with it all, ways to care for myself and reasons why I should. Though treatment doesn't work for everyone, and though some people can't get the treatment they need, it worked for me, and I am willing to share all the information I learned to help other people to the best of my ability.
I graduated high school, I got my driver's license, I'm going to college, I have a job. All the things I never thought I'd live to see. I am living proof that there is recovery, that there is hope. I just want everyone to be able to see the hope in themselves as I see it in you, though I don't know you. I know you can work through this, but don't do it alone. We can do this together!