Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Texas
I am currently:  
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Trying to re-recover
Hi, I’m Aly. Here’s my introduction. I will try to include some things about me as a person, along with things relating to how I ended up here, so here goes…
I’ll be 24 next month, I’m a nurse for special needs children who require 24 hour specialized care. These kids have parents who: 1. Can not take care of them, 2. Do not want to take care of them, or 3. Have been forced to give up their parental rights due to their actions/choices causing the child harm. My job is my passion, the one thing that I know will always make me happy. I always feel needed, loved, and like my life has meaning when I’m there. I relate to the kids in many ways. It takes a certain kind of person to work where I do, which means most of us have our own issues, but we deal with them, by helping kids whose lives have been less than ideal for many reasons.
Well I guess I can officially say I suffer from self harm. I’ve been harm free for well over 72 hours, and that gives me hope that I can continue this road. I have quite a history; the abusive parents, alcoholic family members, divorces, remarriages, mental illnesses (family and myself), and traumatic events that should remain undisclosed for now. It seems like I was kind of predisposed to having some kind of issues. Well here’s a basic rundown of how I got here and why my title says “re-recover”.
I began cutting myself when I was 14. The first time I cut, I was not sad or depressed. I was talking on the phone, and I suppose out of boredom I carved a heart just above my right thumb, and the word LOVE to the side. Obviously I wasn’t thinking. My dad walked in when I had a washcloth wrapped around my hand. Living in the small town I was in, with a demographic of people unlikely to have this kind of issue, I had never heard of anyone cutting except for the “wrist” kind. Eventually this became a habit. Like smoking. One day I cut my wrist (not for suicidal purposes), and I ended up in a behavioral center. I guess that was the beginning of my downward spiral. Being in that place is definitely in the top 5 of the worst events of my life. So from ages 14-18, my cutting got worse, I was in and out of different treatment centers, on and off any and every med combo a doctor could come up with. I developed a pretty severe pill issue which only led to more of this “treatment” stuff. At 17 I moved to CA to live with my mom. Everyone else had given up. So I spent my senior year in and out treatment facilities in that area. My cutting got worse, drug use got worse, depression got worse. I finally decided to try to commit suicide. Nothing could make me better, actually I knew what I needed. I needed to not be abused physically and emotionally, and threatened and intentionally provoked or hurt by parents more unstable than I.
When I turned 18, I moved far away to where I am now. I am not less than 250 miles away from any relative. I got a min wage job, a good friend, and a college application. I took all my required classes, applied to nursing school, maintained a 4.0 gpa and was self harm free (well I had 2 or 3 single incident relapses) for 5 years. Immediately upon arriving to this area I never abused medications again, since I no longer needed a temporary escape. So what happened?
Well without getting into too much detail, ever since the day after Thanksgiving 2010, I feel like my life has been constantly falling apart. My grandma died that day so unexpectedly (Black Friday has an all new meaning to me now). Her funeral was on my sisters 18th birthday. (Yes bad for her, but me too. I have always been her protector and there was nothing I could do). One thing after another from then til now. I have also lost all support I previously had. My best friend/roommate of 5 years is gone, I’m alone. My friendships unraveled for different reasons. I had a gf who I loved who didn’t love me the way I loved her. Now it’s just me, and everything I have to do that is causing me so much stress and anxiety that I’m not getting it done, although I know I have deadlines. Well, I suppose I’m done writing my novel now. Thanks to everyone or anyone who made it to the end of this.
Oh, I kind of figured it was implied, but... I'm hoping this will make me feel like I have some support, or like I'm not alone. Even though physically I am alone in this empty apt, I think this is a good start.
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