Filed under: Friendships, Pictures, Relationships | Tags: animals, birthday, codename Gael, Mouse
I have 2 things to share with you today. One good thing and one bad thing.
I’ll start with the bad thing since I’d rather end this post on a happy note…
Yesterday at 3.30pm EST my mother took my dog, Bear to a vet to have him put to sleep. Apparently he had really bad arthritis in his back legs, had almost no bladder control, and was in a lot of pain and kept my parents up all night howling. My mom said it was a really tough decision and it took her a few months to finally make it. I’m really, really sad about it, but the last thing I want is for him to be living in pain. I’d rather him not be with me but not in pain anymore. (Oh jeeze, I’m crying now 
) My mom asked if I wanted to keep him but again, I didn’t want him to be in pain and unhappy. I had to say no.
Rest in peace, Beary- boo. You were the best dog anyone could ask for. You always listened to me when I ranted, came to me and sat with me when I cried, and were there for me 100%. I’ll forever miss you and be choking back tears each time I think of you.
(sorry for how bad I took in the picture. totally not my “angle” at alll. 
)
Now for some good news…
Filed under: Friendships, Relationships, Spiritual | Tags: Boys, Christanity, Family, Medications, Religion
I seriously don’t feel like doing anything today. I’m tired, moody and the weather is seriously getting me down. Luckily, I don’t have much to write about today…
While living in Salt Lake from early August 2002 to late December 2002, I didn’t have anything to do with Christianity. I learned quickly in SLC that if you’re not Mormon or gay, it’s going to be rather hard to find a place to fit in (and a job!). Unless you’ve grown up there, of course. Since I am none of the above, I had a rather hard time coping and dropped out at the end of my first semester.
In January of 2003 I got a job and started going to shows- mostly in DC and Baltimore, Maryland. In August after not seeing an old friend for several years, she randomly called me. This started my partying days. During this time I was really broke. RooneyRoo’s mom started inviting me to church- she said she wasn’t below bribery so if I went she’d buy me lunch. I went. I was usually still drunk from the night before, hung over, or kind of high. I spent a lot of time outside smoking cigarettes. By this point I had become a regular smoker (smoking around a pack a week). In November of that year I smoked pot for the first time.
I continued this pattern of working crappy jobs, partying 3- 6 days a week, church, and shows until September of 2004. (During this time I got kicked out/ left my parents’ house again and moved in with my grandma where I am still living today. During the summer of 2004 I was also couch surfing & sleeping in my car at rest stops a lot as well.) This end to my endless partying wasn’t because of God or anything like that, though. In fact, I still highly resented Christianity- especially churches where people shouted and jumped and rock bands played. I constantly felt like it was a charade. Just like the one I had witnessed growing up. So, I went to church but tuned it all out. It’s rather easy to when you’re still messed up…
As I stated above, the partying died down by about 90% not because of anything religious but because I met a boy. We were best friends and it eventually led to something more serious. Getting involved with this boy was probably the most naive and ludicrous thing I have ever done. He had gotten another girl pregnant and was still living with her when I met him. He constantly told me that he was going to leave her but he never did. I think in my heart I always knew he’d leave me in the end but still I held on to hope. I had never been loved before. I had never loved before.
This relationship, of course, crashed and burned. I don’t feel any anger towards The Ex, though. In fact, I’m thankful for the relationship because I learned a lot of valuable life- lessons. But, just because I didn’t feel any anger doesn’t mean I didn’t completely fall apart.
We broke up (ok, ok- he dumped me) for the first time in early December of 2004. A few days later we got back together. A couple weeks later he dumped me again. A week later we got back together. A few weeks later he dumped me again. It went like this until sometime in May of 2005. In December something else traumatic happened to me and I started crashing harder and faster. I started getting panic attacks so bad I would black out and/ or start vomiting. I got on sedatives. All my friends left me (this includes those who like/d to call themselves my “best friend”) and I was completely alone to deal with this. It got to be too much so I left Virginia to go out to Los Angeles for a while to decompress. I stayed in a studio apartment with a friend, her boyfriend and the boyfriend’s roommate. I had a lot of fun. I met a friend from the internet that I’d been talking to since I was 17 and went on tour with my friend and her boyfriend’s band along the coast of California (mostly up north- San Francisco was my favourite area up there). I also hung around UCLA a bit since the apartment was near there.
When I get depressed I don’t eat. During this time, I went from 135 pounds to about 95 in the span of a month. My skin turned a pasty white. My eyes had dark circles and were sunken in. My hair started falling out in chunks. I hardly slept and cried a lot. I was constantly stoned off my sedatives. I generally had a blank look on my face. Being out in LA probably helped save my life. Another thing that I give credit to is a new spiritual path I had found. Well, it was something I had always been curious about. I started practicing it more and more. I started learning about it more and more. Slowly but surely, I pulled myself up from the pit of despair I had fallen so deeply into…
Celtic on AOL radio.
Filed under: Friendships, Relationships, Spiritual | Tags: Christanity, Family, Religion
I suppose being behind on my plans for writing these series of blogs isn’t such a bad thing, huh? At least it’s a deviation from my norm diary- like writings. 
So, I don’t really have a clear plan of what ages I’m going to write about today, but I’m going to try to get through to the end of high school (2002).
During my 10th grade year (age 15; 1999- 2000) my parents enrolled me in some classes at people’s houses for home schoolers and kids that sucked in school and needed extra tutoring. I took an Algebra I class, a Biology class, and a beginning French class. My cousin, Genius Cousin was in my Algebra class along with her sister RooneyRoo (I believe that Genius Cousin was around 8 at the time). Things started looking up a bit for me. We moved out of the family friend’s house and in to our new one. That summer I had a surgery that involved my lips being sewn together for about a week and a nose job (mostly reconstructive but I did have some cosmetic work done). That summer my grandma also convinced my parents to let me attend public school. They agreed under the stipulation that I would attend a Christian club. I readily agreed. That fall in 2000 I started my first year (so to speak) of high school. I wasn’t required to take any standardized tests for some reason and they stuck me in some random classes.
If this were my autobiography, I would tell you all about being teased, dropped by my only friend at the time for the “popular crowd” and getting flashed by a stoner in my English class. This isn’t, though so I’m going to try to stick to my topic- my experience growing up in a Christian family and how it’s affected me and my view of Christianity now.
Now I’ve never had high self- esteem. In fact, it’s always been at an incredibly low level. As a kid I used to constantly tell myself I was worthless and hideous. My mom would always say to me, “Don’t believe those lies! That’s the devil speaking!” I’d roll my eyes because really? If there was a God like my family said there was, wouldn’t He not let me be born without my face fully formed? What’s the first thing you notice about someone? Their face! No one’s going to notice my impeccable sense of style first or my awesome haircut; they’re going to notice my face. The scars. Then my voice- it’s kind of high- pitched and lispy because of the cleft. I never went to speech therapy and (so I’m told) it’s amazing that anyone can understand anything I say. Still, I have to make a conscious effect to enunciate my words or I get people saying, “What? I have no idea what you’re saying.” Takes me back to my childhood and being teased. And that conversation I stated in the blog I wrote right before my surgery this summer:
“You’re trash.”
“No I’m not. God doesn’t make trash.”
“Ha, well then I dunno who made you!”
“If God didn’t make me then who did?” “If God did make me, why did He allow me to turn out so hideous?” These were the constant thoughts I had. Having surgeries always brings them to the forefront of my mind. As I’ve grown older I’ve come to, not necessarily be okay with the way that I am, but to just accept it. There isn’t anything I can do to change it. no matter how many surgeries I have I’ll never look “normal.”
But, I digress. Again.
Being in the Christian group at school- FCA- was an interesting experience. I got a crush on the group leader (who is now a pastor I believe with 2 kids and a really beautiful wife) who was amazingly nice to me. It was the first time someone had really been genuinely nice to me. Well, a boy at least. It was amazing and I had my first real friendship with a boy. Actually, in that group most of my friends were boys. A lot of them all went to the same church so I decided to start attending. I put my whole soul into Jesus and Christianity. Every time I talked, I couldn’t help but talk about Jesus. I felt a sense of happiness and peace. I really studied the Bible a lot. On my own. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. I constantly had debates with my friends about religion. People said my arguments were more convincing than any other they had ever heard.
Around the time of my senior year of high school, my family started falling apart. We always kind of were (which made life rather difficult and made it hard for me to see a “good side” of Christianity emulated in the adults) but it started getting worse and worse. I always felt drained by it and started resenting things again. Church suddenly felt like a chore. I started getting annoyed by the constant fire and brimstone preaching my new church was constantly pounding into us. I picked up smoking again and my best friend started bringing tequila and sometimes rum to school. We would be drunk by the end of our first block. The only time I ever felt peace that school year was when I wasn’t home. I started staying after school and taking the late buses home (I didn’t have my license or a car until a few months after I turned 18). I still went to youth group at my church but I’d hang outside skateboarding or smoking cigarettes. My parents stopped making me go to FCA so I stopped. Besides, the only boy who talked to me anymore was my stalker. He was really creepy so I would rather not attend anyways. At some point near the end of my senior year, my parents stopped making me go to church. Relief washed over me and I started to feel free. Or, “more free” I should say. Somehow my parents found out about the drinking. They threatened to take me out of school but didn’t. I started getting suspended (I had out of school suspension for one day at one point, but that’s as bad as it got) and I had detention pretty much every week. This was my first time really getting in trouble at school. I had always been afraid to but when I realised that the consequences weren’t that bad, I stopped caring. I pretty much stopped caring about everything. I applied to 3 colleges that year- 2 Christian ones (which I got accepted to but there’s no way I would’ve ever gone to them) and James Madison (which wait- listed me). I wanted to move to London and attend their year long program of the New York Film Academy. But that, obviously, didn’t work out. My home life worsened and I acted out more and more. Eventually my parents told me that once I graduated I had to leave. They couldn’t take it anymore and, frankly, neither could I. So, once school was out I packed my bags and moved to Salt Lake City to attend the community college there with the intention of getting an associates degree and then transferring to the University of Utah and getting my bachelors of arts (BA) in film. But, as you’ll see, not all plans work out.
Celtic on AOL radio.
