Trigger warning: This article discusses eating disorders, drug addiction, and self-harm. If you need immediate help, please contact a hotline:
- Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-TALK
- Substance Abuse and Addiction Hotline: 1-844-289-0879
- Eating Disorder Hotline: +1 (866) 662-1235
There is a saying that goes, “Be who you are because everyone else is already taken.” I’m sure many people said it, but I remember hearing it from the one person I looked up to growing up — Demi Lovato.
Like her, I struggled with bullying, eating disorders, drug addictions, and self-harm.
As a teenager, I used to want to look like those beautiful girls in the magazines–nice skin, thin thin bodies, not disabled and had many boyfriends. Looking at those girls’ pictures triggered my eating disorder, convincing me that I would never be one of them.
But I remember one day when my friend held one of those magazines up to me. Going through the pages, she told me how they photoshopped the girls’ looks. At the time, I didn’t believe it. It didn’t help that my doctor always told me to lose weight whenever I went to see him. The things we see in magazines and the media greatly affect us growing up, and we need to be mindful of that.
Bullying was another issue I dealt with as a kid.
In my case, I think people bullied me because I always started my rumors. I wanted to fit in, so I said all sorts of things: that I lost my virginity with made-up guys, had sex with a college guy, and other falsehoods. It got to the point where I even got mad about my rumors.
People were also bullied because of my disability. I could not do many PE activities, like running down the stairs. All the doctors were so afraid that they limited what I could and couldn’t do. They said I was lucky, but I don’t call that luck.
I also struggled with self-harm.
I’ll be honest: I started self-harming after seeing a friend doing it and thinking that was what I needed to do, too. I was a follower, not a leader. That year I was in 9th grade, and it was the first time I went to a mental ward. At the time, I thought my mom and dad abandoned me because of their drug addiction, so I continued to self-harm.
But I started to recover in my early twenties, working through a relapse. Now I’m happy to say that it’s been 7 years since I self-harmed. If a friend didn’t come early when she did, I wouldn’t have survived. She showed me that I wasn’t alone and could reach out for support.
In many ways, my self-harm coincided with my drug addiction.
When I say drug abuse, I am not talking about cocaine, but pills. I used them all the time; if I didn’t have them, I didn’t think I’d be happy. And, in many ways, drug use goes along with self-harm.
At the time, I did it for attention. But when I became an adult, showing off to others lost its appeal. Seeking attention is not what it is cracked up to be. Now, I’m at a place where I’m okay with who I am. I wouldn’t want to be anyone else but me.
All these struggles taught me something important: we’re not alone.
Someone will always be there to listen and support you. During my struggles, I didn’t believe that there was someone there to listen to me; I always felt alone. But some people do care, and you deserve to have them in your life.
Remember: we’re not alone. We all struggle, and we all need support; that’s what makes us human.
Photo by Nick Owuor (astro.nic.portraits) on Unsplash
