lost hope and a flip-phone
HAPPY SENIOR YEAR TO ME! Just kidding, I’m never graduating.
Today was mentally a tough day. Today I should be starting my senior year in college but alas, I am not. I got to watch all of my friends post their “last first day” pictures while I have genuinely no clue what my academic standing is. In the midst of all my sadness and, to some extent, grief, I decided to post a little bit about my story.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————-
I missed so much.
I left for my first round of treatment the day my last semester of high school started. I didn’t get out of treatment until a week before my graduation.
I missed my senior lacrosse season. I missed the senior class picture. I missed the second half of my AP classes and therefore missed my AP exams. I missed prom. I missed the senior assembly. The only thing I didn’t miss was actual graduation and I probably would have had more fun if I had missed it.
It was interesting going to treatment. I had never been anywhere similar but all the sudden I was locked in a building with most girls ranging from the ages of eight to sixteen. Being seventeen at the time of my admission, I was placed on an adolescent unit. I was the oldest as I had my eighteenth birthday in a room of all glass windows so therapeutic assistants could see if I was harming myself or openly vomiting in a communal area (you’d be surprised how many people actually do that). I didn’t have my smartphone, there was no internet access unless it was for school work or to look up motivational quotes and wow, that sounds a lot cringier than I remember it being. All I had with me was lost hope and a flip phone.
At the start of my treatment, a lot of people asked my mom for my flip-phone number. Girls from my lacrosse team wanting to reach out, childhood friends, boys I kept up with, it all sounded like it wouldn’t be that bad. I assumed I would keep in touch with everyone and it would feel like I hadn’t missed a beat when I got home. I would say maybe three people ever contacted me other than my family and my mom’s friends (WHO I AM ENDLESSLY GRATEFUL FOR). But it was tough to feel like the world forgot about me.
I think that’s why treatment doesn’t scare me as much anymore. The world keeps going on whether I’m with everyone or not. At the time it sucked but looking back it is hard to realize what my life could have been without my disorder.
I loved lacrosse. My team sucked and a lot of us didn’t get along but it was one place where I could work hard and see a result. In a year, I went from looking cute on the bench to starting every game. I mainly played midfield so I was in okay shape physically. Before my eating disorder really came into play, I had a ton of friends through lacrosse. I spent weekends at sleepovers with girls from the team, even getting locked into one girl’s house during a snowstorm for three days. Being a lacrosse girl was my identity in high school. But my eating disorder was too competitive and had to be the center of attention so quickly the friendships faded, I wasn’t in as great of shape, and I had to quit to go to treatment.
I think, at the time, missing prom felt like the worst part. My junior year of high school I didn’t go to prom because two different guys asked me and I couldn’t decide who to go with. Missing my second prom (senior year) made me really sad. But what made me more sad was that no one even thought to see if I could go. My parents tried(?) to make it better by telling me that when I wasn’t around people were so focused on themselves that they weren’t thinking about me or how I was doing. Not sure how much that helped but I guess it’s true. I spent that prom day in a full downward spiral. I begged my parents to let me get my nails done so it would feel like I was getting prom ready. They drove me around to at least five different nail salons only for me to cry hysterically in the parking lot, refusing to go in, because I was so embarrassed that I wasn’t actually going to the dance.
I went from having a ton of friends to none in a matter of days. So naturally, in pure Ashlyn fashion, I took it out on everyone around me. On the Brightleaf unit of my dreadful treatment center, I started to raise hell. I would make bets with my fellow inmates to see who could go the longest without eating. If my therapist made me upset, I would walk out of her office and ended the session. I would refuse to participate in groups and I would go to the bathroom whenever the hell I wanted (that’s a big no-no in the treatment world).
Once I moved to partial hospitalization, where I spent my days in treatment and my nights at home, I continued my shenanigans. I would show up late, refuse to cooperate, and again, raise hell. Some therapists thought I was getting healthier and “finding my rebellious side” but really, I was so emotionally distraught that it was coming out full force in everything I did. At night, I would go home and cry all night. There were nights when my mom would set blankets up on my floor and stay the night in my room to make sure I didn’t make any irreversible choices.
Life hasn’t gotten easier since then. I’ve missed four more semesters of college and have five more stents in treatment. Missing college, sorority life, socializing, and men (lol) has easily been a lot worse than missing prom but I’m so fucking stubborn. To this day I tell myself: “You’ve missed so much already, there’s not much more to lose.”
As horrible of a thought as it is, with each day it gets more and more true. Though I tried, you don’t get your freshman year in college experiences back. You don’t get to meet everyone your age and live together in the same massive building with little to no responsibilities ever again in life. I won’t ever be able to rush again, though I am glad that my sorority accepted me a month before I left college…again. I don’t get to have the first semester of sorority life with my pledge class ever. I missed it. It’s long gone. I can’t go back to all the football games I missed and I can’t make the relationship I lost better because life moves on and smart people do too.
This pity party of a blog you just read, to a normal person, might inspire them to go out and live to the fullest, make up for lost time even. But not to me. It solidifies my identity as a hopeless anorexic, sorry mom. The way I said being a lacrosse girl was my identity, being the sick girl is my identity now. I’m becoming a career treatment gal, though I've promised to never go back but instead let myself die if that’s what it comes to.
Anorexia has eaten away every part of my life. Not only has it taken my body away but it’s removed me from my friends and a regular teenage/twenty(twenties)-year old life. Time doesn’t come back. I’ll never dance at my senior prom. I’ll never sneak out with some boy that will make me cry the next week. I’ll never be drunk at my first frat party again. But I am and probably always will be anorexic.
Ain’t it funny how it all works out?
With that being said, I don’t want anyone to feel lost or forgotten. I want to be a source of light and comfort to others. I make it my goal to befriend those who feel lonely and check-in on people. I want to extend myself, through his blog, to anyone who needs me. Feel free to message me through this blog or through my blog Instagram @shetriedtorecover . No one has to do life alone.