From Fall to Fall

the aftermath and unraveling

o The first time I self-harmed as 7th or 8th grade and I can still pick out the scar on my arm. I don't remember where I got the blade, I had a friend Amber who cut, I may have gotten it from Amber if I took it from her. I walked into a bathroom stall in Wildwood Middle School and huffing sank the blade into the skin of my left forearm and tore it open. It's a sight I will never forget. Sat on a toilet while I stared into the white flesh of the cut and then the beads of blood that appeared in the skin and then flooded it. It barely stung – mostly due to the fact that I cut so deeply the wound split and left a gaping chasm in my arm. And I never stopped

o Throughout the majority of my middle school and freshmen year of high school I sliced open my skin. My body is riddled with scars from my ankles to my thighs to my stomach to my arms to my neck. And in middle school I had my first flirt with Anorexia Nervosa. I put myself on an 800 calorie diet. I was desperate for any semblance of control in my life and god it has affected me ever since

§ My freshmen year of high school was uneventful I became a typical punk emo kid who cut, and I remember when I was feeling suicidal my friend Elise telling me she would force food down my throat, air into my lungs, and she would keep me alive. I still have her poem about my dark eyes that looked like I was dead already. And I felt dead already

§ Then Sophomore year and I had entire group of friends but was still sad. I still cut. I still starved. I was still sad. I don't remember much from this year barring my friends Jacia and Megan who I met on a NYC trip who defined my junior year. And G. This was year the year that I joined Theatre and it led to the best year of my life

§ Junior year I was still sad, but my starving had paid off and my 5.5 ½ frame was terrifying and disgustingly thin. I weighed 120lbs at the last weigh in I remember, I fainted at work, I was shivering constantly, and barely allowed myself over 500 calories. But I was thin, I had friends, theatre, my aunt's old '99 Dodge Durango, and a job. I was content. And then Jacobi waltzed in and in a pick between my friend Mary and I he chose me. But I went to Mary and told her I couldn't because she was my best friend. A week and a half later she was with Jacobi. We faded after that along with our group of friends and by the end of Junior year I was alone

o The summer before Senior year my theatre teacher Steven Glendenning committed suicide in our high school's auditorium. I was never the same. I woke up to my sister facetiming me to tell me that G had committed suicide. And I have never cried more real tears than that moment. I ran out of my room and saw my mom on the steps and she saw the tears pouring down my face and she enveloped me in a hug I will never forget, I will never forget that moment.

§ From that day on I spiraled into drugs. I had experimented with smoking weed the New Years before he died. But after. I spiraled no, I hurricane into drug addiction. My senior year I came to school drunk nearly every day and if I ever had a water bottle with me people could rest assured it wasn't water just vodka that in time stopped burning my throat. G had been like substitute father to me. And he left. He chose to leave. And his loss tore something fundamental inside me. I haven't recovered still.

§ There is a list in my phone. On my notes app. I've moved it through iCloud to every iPhone I've owned. And it's on this app that there is an entry. A list. A paragraph full of pharmaceutical names – every drug that's entered my blood. It's long. Impressive for a nineteen-year-old. And growing. Always, always growing.

· Weed, LSD, LSA, Hydrocodone, Oxytocin, Percocet, Roxicodone, Lortabs, promethazine, whippets, Adderall, Vyvanse, Xanax, Seroquel, Neurontin, Codeine, amitriptyline, shrooms, Klonopin, Focalin, Alcohol, dabs, moon rocks.

· And below this list is another "next up" – cocaine, ecstasy, and molly.

§ This list of my demons began in senior year of high school and for the most part is in order. I should have written down the amount of times each passed through my lips. Some nights were vivid. Thirty hydrocodone coursing through my veins, blood dripping down my arms, and screaming into the raining thinking I cannot survive another year like this. Melting on acid into my carpet while my ego shattered around me. Vomiting from marijuana after smoking twelve bowl packs, taking two butter shots, eating an edible, and smoking three blunts. Feeling like my chest wall was weakening with every beat of my heart. Collapsing onto Mallory's apartment floor as I fought for every gasp of breath just to stay alive another second.