Friday 24 May 2013

A Message to my 16-year-old Self

Dear Michelle - this may be among the hardest truths to face. The summer when you were 15, you tell your mom you are going to a sleep-over at your best friend's house - but you know that is a lie. Instead you accompany her (she being your beautiful friend - who models in Vancouver from time to time) to the home of an older hockey player you are a wee bit in awe of, who's parents are away. You know you were invited only because you are bringing that friend with you and you are a raw bundle of self-hate and insecurity and so when you get there - you start drinking almost immediately. You are not a drinker and combined with the food that is not in your stomach (you starved yourself all day hoping to be stick-thin by the evening - it didn't work) you don't handle it well, not well at all. So when one of the boys marches you stumbling down the hall, where you pass out in someone's room - well you know what comes next. And in the early morning you wake up sick and sore, knowing what has happened and desperate to get out. You stumble home where you plaster a smile on your face and avoiding your mom's eyes tell her you had a nice time. The end of the story. You will speak of it to no one but you will decide in that moment it is time to disappear and by the next summer you will have launched that quest in earnest. You will not in any way fathom the consequences of that choice. How it split you in two...and how all of this truth would sink further and further into the abyss while your days of punishing yourself for that mistake...and so many others, would begin. Until at some point you will almost forget how it came to this - one bad choice after another - so many reasons to keep going until the reasons almost don't matter any more. It is so much a part of you that it has overtaken all of the reasons why. That weak, sorry girl who couldn't say no.

7 comments:

  1. Sending love and hugs to present day Michelle and 16-year-old Michelle.

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    1. Love back Carlene and with apologies for what may be uncomfortably too much truth.

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  2. No apologies necessary. Truth is cathartic.

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  3. shame is such a powerful force in so many of our decisions as we move through life... decisions that shape our present day selves. never more so than the hurts we attempt to bury deep inside that isolate and separate us from the people who love us. especially if we feel we are undeserving of their love.

    if only a care-free life was as simple as making the right choice. if only we could make one decision to change our path from one of self-loathing and shame to one of self-love and acceptance. if you figure this out, please let me know.

    what i do know is that i did not have to imagine what you felt as i read your story - nor will other women who read it. i do hope, by telling your story, it helps heal your inner 16-year old self.

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    1. Thanks Laura...I sadly suspect it will not be completely foreign territory

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  4. Michelle....my best friend growing up had this exact same thing happen to her. We were 15 or 16 too....partying a bit too hard. She never was able to get over it. She later developed some serious mental health problems and passed away at 37 from complications of medication for her mental disorder. She was never able to get a job or be a productive citizen in our society. This is good to put out there as you are totally right that these things that happen to us when we are young -- do play a role in shaping us somehow. You went from very private to totally open and that is great. I hope you are feeling a little better by letting it out. You are a true inspiration....keep the posts coming.
    No offense at all but I hope I will open your posts one day and you will be telling all of us you are going to take a kidney....that would be the best news ever.

    Becky H.

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    1. Oh Becky thank you for this...it breaks my heart to hear about your friend and I can't imagine how helpless you must have felt to watch your friend go through that. Most of us carry stories, big and small, that we carry with us as adult and it is true they can cause a lot of damage. The first step in letting it go is seeing it for what is was and not some personal flaw. Thank you for responding and sending you a hug :)

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