The Fear of Opportunity

So my last post I talked about the amazing opportunity that #140conf is going to be for me. I am vibrating with excitement, fear, amazement and nerves. Getting to see and talk to Jeff this week was even more uplifting. Knowing what is coming in the future settled my brain a bit. Plus Jeff radiates magic and I can't help but learn from him and be in awe when he is around.

Now here is my fear.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing. For 8 months my life has been focused on 140 in NYC, now it's here and then what? What do I do next? This is supposed to be my big break but I don't know how to grab it. I don't know who to talk to, who to work with, who to grab by the arm and hold on to.

What do I do?

Like I've said, in a perfect world I would be singing. This would actually support my family and allow me to finance projects to help end the stigma of mental illness. But that's a perfect world. Right now I'm scared my life will never move beyond a minimum wage. That I won't be able to support my daughter like she deserves. That I won't be able to reach the people who need me to be their voice when they can't be. What if I have built this up so much in my head that I have made the pedestal too high.

The last few weeks my confidence has been super high. I know what I have to offer and I know that I can and will be an asset to this world. Right now though, I'm like a toddler. I see blocks, I see a tower, but I have no idea how to make those blocks into a tower. I am missing that crucial middle piece that tells me how to take the raw potential I have and turn it into something great.

How do I do it?

Do you know? Can you help me? What do I do at the starting line to get me to the finish?

I have seen miracles. I have worked hard. I am ready to be the person I dream of being. I just need to know how.

BULLIED

I've been thinking about this a lot. Watching the news there seems to be a young person committing suicide every other week because of some kind of bullying. These are just the ones that we hear about, I'm sure the numbers are much higher.

We hear people saying "It gets better" or "hang in there" and I have to put in my two cents on why telling people it will get better simply is not enough.

I have attempted suicide.

I have harmed myself.

I have been deeply impacted by bullying.

From the time I was young I was bullied. I was never the popular kid. I was loud and dramatic and sang all the time. I was also "the fat girl". Funny enough I wasn't that big in school but thats another story. Kids have an uncanny ability to feel out insecurities and play on them. Being the biggest girl in the class as a kid made me different and insecure. I knew it, my classmates knew it, my bullies knew it.

I had numerous people that were unkind or mean. Baby bullies, they wern't as direct or harsh but they had words that cut me none the less. My bullys name was David, I can still hear his voice and picture his face 20 years later. A time I should have been playing and having fun, I was begging to spend recesses indoors or walking around with the teacher on recess duty.

"You're fat"

"You're ugly"

"No one likes you"

I was terrified to sit on the school benches, I had been convinced I would break them.

I hated gym class, I swore I could feel eyes watching me jiggle.

I refused to eat at school, afraid I was being watched and judged.

As the years passed I lost friends, I avoided the usual life lessons of young love and friendship. Group projects were done solo and I spent all my spare time hiding in my basement.

The Basement. My personal prison.

During junior high I gave up. I lived in my basement, coming up for food and very little else. My mother tried to push me to go to school and I would leave the house and then return as soon as everyone was gone. The thought of going to school made me physically ill. I slowly retreated more and more until full fledged agoraphobia kicked in. I would hide in the dark basement away from people and sunlight and the world and scrape at my skin. I would get an itch and scratch it until it bled. My arms and legs held scars hidden by long sleeves and pants. My family tried everything to get me out of the house. Threats, demands, the police were at our house numerous times as we fought tooth and nail.

All because I didn't want to go to school.

Because I hated myself.

Because I was being bullied.

I tried everything I could to stop the bullying. I told my teachers, I stood up for myself, I stole from family and stores so I would have the coolest new thing or so I would have money to buy things for other people and look popular. It didn't work. Nothing worked. The insults would continue to fly and I would lash out verbally at my bullies and end up in trouble myself. This just aggravated the problems. No one was on my side. In trouble at home, in trouble at school and hated on the playground. I had no where to turn.

The more depressed I got the more I ate my emotions. The insecurity I was fighting so hard against was my one comfort. Food. I was ashamed. I would hide food, empty packages, dishes so no one would know I was eating. I wasn't fooling anyone. I was hiding in baggy clothes and behind long bushy hair. The weight I continued to put on did not go un-noticed. I was disgusted with myself, so I would stop eating for days and then binge. Cartons of ice cream, full packages of lunch meat, cookies, cheese, crackers, chips, hot dogs, kraft dinner... anything I could get my hands on. And then the shame, the self hatred, the hiding evidence and myself.

The emotions and mental distress of bullying was clearly visible in every aspect of my life.

The self hatred, the shame, the feeling that I had no one to turn to... I gave up.

Pills were my method of choice.

No one was home.

I didn't care what it was as long as there was a lot of them.

I swallowed handfuls of pills until there were none left.

Then I laid down and waited to die.

I'm fairly sure I left a note apologizing for being a horrible person but everything is a blur for awhile. I know someone found me. I know I ended up at the hospital. I know I was forced to drink charcoal until I threw up. I know I had my stomach pumped.

I know I didn't die.

I know nothing changed.

I know I tried again.

and again.

and again.

Until at 14 I was admitted to a juvenile psychiatric facility for suicidal tendencies. Such a nice way to say I wanted to be dead and wouldn't give up. Most people chase their dreams, I think I was chasing my mothers nightmare. I spent 6 months locked away. Group therapy, one on one therapy, art therapy, music therapy, medical tests, medications. I came home numb. Heavily medicated and numb. I no longer knew how to feel. I couldn't sing, I couldn't write and I couldn't think.

I knew one thing. School was where I was hated and ridiculed and terrorized. I knew I wouldn't go back. I wouldn't give my bullies more ammunition by having them find out that they broke me. That they had won.

I muddled through in independent learning until I was 16 and I dropped out. I was done. I felt exactly the same in independent learning that I did at school, I was an outcast. I was different and people were watching me and waiting for me to fail. I took a minimum wage job and moved out. My mother and I were at each others throats and I hated everyone and everything.

The years since then have been hard. I'm not going to lie, suicide has been an option many times. Luckily I have learned better coping, kind of. I've had problems with drugs, problems with alcohol, I am a hoarder, I have horrible anxiety, and some days, I still hate myself.

I have done a lot of work over the years to slowly improve and better my life. I still have to work very hard every day not to swirl into a black pit and just say "To Hell With It" to everyone and everything. I am a work in progress. I am bent but not broken.

Bullying did this to me.

Bullying destroyed my mental health.

If I close my eyes I can still see and hear my bully as clear as if they were standing beside me. The words they spewed still cut me inside. Their hatred so thick in front of me still that I can taste it.

If your child is being bullied or suddenly has a major personality change, please, I'm begging you, get them help. Be on their side. It will be the hardest thing you may ever do in your life, but it can save their life. Give them hugs. Give them understanding. Give them time. Give them love.

No one should ever grow up to be me. It is preventable. We can't change other peoples kids. We can't fix bullies. They will always exist in some form, what we can do is save our own children through educating them, empowering them and being open to giving them any help they may need. Therapy is not bad. Medications are not bad. Reaching out is not bad. We seem to think that we need to be super human and capable of dealing with everything on our own as parents. That to ask for help is a sign of weakness and a failure of parenting.

Asking for help will save your childs life.

5 Dollar Project Needs You

As you may or may not know, my other baby is my non-profit The 5 Dollar Project. We teamed up with Foodlove KW to bring 50 homeless teens a Christmas. We've hit some snags, some unexpected curves and some dips in the road. We need help. I hate begging and spamming and all that bullshit but this... THIS is whats important people. Supporting our fellow humans. Simply being kind. So here is the post that just went up at www.5dollarproject.org, please consider helping us.

I know I am behind on keeping you all updated on how things are going with 5 Dollar, and all the great things we've been up to. Well thats because we've been busy working hard to make things happen. Right now though, I'm personally asking for help.

As you know, we teamed up with FoodLove KW for #50teens4Christmas and we have been working our butts off. Unfortunately we've run into a few snags along the way and despite wishing, praying and 70 hour weeks, we can't overcome them alone. We need help.

First off, we need to get our information out there to people. We are tweeting and facebooking and emailing and talking ourselves blue but we need more. We need some media attention, we need some big corporations spreading the word within their companies, WE NEED YOU telling people how they can help by donating to #50teens4Christmas.

Secondly, we need money. As crass and abrupt as that may be to say, its truth. Due to some unforeseen sponsor drop outs, venue changes and exorbitant Christmas price mark ups we straight to the point need cash. Now were not asking you to just throw money at us for nothing. We have the amazing donation give-a-way set up with prizes that certainly hold their own. Concert tickets, electronics, gift certificates, toys, one of a kind memorabilia - thousands of dollars worth of prizes and all people need to do is donate... ANYTHING. Were poor, we know money is tight, seriously 5 bucks - 2 bucks - the quarters in the bottom of your purse, we will take it and we will enter you in the draw!

No Paypal? No problem! Cash, cheque, email money transfer - we will take it any way you want to give it to us. We will come to you!

We are personally putting our blood, sweat, tears, man hours and money in to this. We WILL be giving these teens a Christmas. But my god we need help.

WE NEED HELP!

So please, I am begging you. Help us help some kids that have nothing. You can Spread Smiles so easily this year. So easily. Tis the season. Donate HERE

or HERE >

Falling Apart

*Sigh*

I have spent so much time thinking the past week that I think I've made up for not having graduated high school. I wish this was a happy go lucky post about the joy I got from Blissdom, and that will come, I promise. This is just more important right now.

This is the post wear I'm going to put my soul on the line. The post where I'm not going to hide what I'm going through. The post where I will potentially alienate people. Fuck.

Let's start at the beginning. I am a fraud a huge fraud. I spend my days making people smile and helping people, I come home and cry. I come home and fall apart. I am horribly horribly depressed, fairly heavily medicated and the exact opposite of what most people see.

I give away money every day, I fund raise and fight for people who can't fight for themselves. I wake up every morning not knowing if my lights will turn on or if my phone is still working. It's so ridiculous, its laughable. Laughable if I wasn't so busy bawling my face off. I sit in my car every day when I get home and cry. I avoid going into my home as long as possible. my home is the reality of the sadness of my life.

So many people spend time telling me I have such a light and such potential and they see such great things for me. I have no idea how to get those great things. People are trying to help me but I don't comprehend shit. I don't get it. And everything takes so much time.

I broke down at Blissdom so many times. In the Social Media for Social Good panel I asked how I can live my dream, not sacrifice my happiness and still feed my family and cried. I curled up in my bed and questioned what I was thinking spending money on a conference when I should have been paying bills. I listened to panels talk, knowing many of these people believed in me and wanted the best for me but I honestly had no idea why.

No. Idea. Why.

I'm just a poor girl with a big fucking dream and nothing else. Nothing. Else.

I've done everything people say to do. I try hard, I work hard, I take opportunities, I ask for help and yet I'm not moving forward. I can't keep doing this. It's killing me. I'm falling apart. Losing my mind. Ready to give up completely.

I've gotten so behind that I don't know where to start. I try to function and fail. I only feel human when Im surrounded by people, yet ironically have severe social anxiety issues. People like to inject themselves into my life and make comments about my going out when I "claim" broke. I go out because if I stayed home I would die. My soul would die. I need to be inspired and feel the light of other people in order to even bother making myself get out of bed in the morning.

I need a miracle that isn't coming.

I would rather be happy and poor then have money and hate myself. Not following my dreams feels like slow suicide. Not being able to pay my bills feels like slow suicide. My whole life feels like slow suicide right now. A disease with no cure and no matter which path I take the end result is the same.