“Lord (or any other high power you believe in) … grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Good evening ladies!

This afternoon I must have walked back and forth from my apartment to the mail room at least half a dozen times. But every time I’d look inside that lonely mailbox, there would be nothing. Well that’s not entirely true, there was a bill from Canada Revenue – fun.  So I swallowed my disappointment and wondered what time the mailman will be coming tomorrow. Since I have promised myself to be humble, I will admit it…I’m sad because I haven’t received a single Christmas card from anyone back East. It’s not the physical card that I want, but the thought. But what can I really expect? I cut myself off from everyone who used to be in my life.  I threw away all my friends and ceased contact with most of my family as well.  There’s only one or two people who actually know my address. How ridiculous of me to expect them to send me good wishes when they don’t even know where I am!

I’m always aware of it, but it’s especially painful this time of year. Everywhere I look, I’m surrounded by Christmas. To me, it’s just a constant reminder of the people I will not be spending it with. Worst of all, I did this to myself. Don’t get me wrong, I will be spending it with my significant other, and I’m grateful for that, but there is still a big something that’s missing , actually a big someone ( Who on the contrary is quite small in size but larger than life in importance.) It’s pretty depressing and I try not to think about it, but it’s hard. But then again, no one said life was easy.

It’s times like this when I really need to remember something. I am a woman and thus capable of doing anything I set my mind to. If there’s something I want changed, and if it’s within my power and I want it badly enough, I can do it!!! The only person standing in my way of a lot of things that I want is me.

But overall, I am fortunate. There are so many other people out there who have absolutely nobody, and some of those people don’t even have a warm bed to go home to at night. So not to minimize my problems or yours, but there is always someone out there who has it worse. Now, I don’t say that to make myself feel better, but it really does make me appreciate what I do have even more.  I feel blessed that although I am finding this holiday season to be the most painful yet, I still find it inside myself to smile and say “Merry Christmas” to someone who I think needs to hear it.

In conclusion, if I tell myself that I am going to have an absolutely horrible Christmas, long story made short – I will. So you know what? Yeah, things aren’t exactly the way I’d like them to be but I am going to get through it. Not only will I get through it, but I’m going to make the most out of it.  Why? Because I can!  *Smiles*

I wish all you girls a Merry Christmas as well and just know that you’re never truly alone unless you let yourself be.

- ♥ Butterfly♥

“You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s a lot of money. Imagine what I could buy with it.”
“Just get a job. Don’t do this to yourself. Please. It’s not too late to turn back. Listen to that hesitation. Please don’t do this.”
“My cab is here to take me to his house. Get on the skytrain and go.”

He rolled it around in my mouth, it tasted awful. I gagged, but I disregarded it seeing as it was my first time and after all, there was a lot of money involved. I continued onwards, imagining the money. Oh, the money. But I also continued to gag. My friend’s words rang through my head “Please don’t do this. Don’t do this to yourself”. I felt awful for letting my friend down, but no one else had to know. Keep going, I told myself. Kneeling on the ground as he sat on his bed watching tv, I sold myself. I sold my body, I sold my soul, I sold my pride and dignity. I had to keep my eyes shut, it seemed that when I opened them I’d see the disappointment and sadness in my friend’s eyes as she turned to go on the skytrain, knowing that there was no stopping me. The guilt kept building up inside me as I carried on, pausing to gag. He yelled to me, “keep going, slut!” So I did. I went on for what seemed an eternity until finally the gag was effective and all of a sudden the remnants of my dinner are all over his floor. He yelled a bit, bent my face into the floor and threw my clothes at me along with a few tissues to clean it up.

What I did made me feel so low, lower than anyone could ever imagine. I felt like I didn’t deserve the people I surround myself with, I felt like I didn’t deserve the life I have. What would happen if my mother found out what her daughter was doing? She thought I was downtown watching a movie with my friends. Instead I was who-knows-where in Burnaby at some random guy’s house all alone. He pushed me onto the street and went inside and I looked at my reflection in a puddle and cried. I found a bus stop and let it take me where ever it went, eventually I ended up at a skytrain station and found my way to another friend’s house where I sat on my bed and cried.

What’s worse is I was planning to buy drugs with the money – a lot of drugs and a lot of bad drugs. I wanted crack, I wanted cocaine powder, I wanted cigarettes… I got the cigarettes but no drugs, because I didn’t last long I didn’t get much money. I have a history of addiction which matches my addictive personality. At one point I was abusing my asthma inhaler. It says to only inhale 1 or 2 puffs for every 4 hours – I was at 12 or 14. I wanted to feel something, I wanted to feel good and lightheaded and happy and like everything was funny. It felt almost like a high from speed, I couldn’t stop shaking and my heart would race. I also walked faster and took very quick notes in class.

Drugs are the most powerful influence. I never would have given a blowjob on account of having been sexually abused by a babysitter when I was 8. I never would have abused my inhaler if I didn’t need the high. I wouldn’t have lied to my friends, or started getting 35% in classes. I wouldn’t have sold myself.

When I got home I took a 45 minute shower, but I still felt dirty. I felt disgusting and repulsive and revolting, as if I’ve been swimming in an unsanitary sewer. I felt scared and alone. I felt like my world had just fallen apart. I felt like everything I believed in just left me. I wanted to continue to throw up.

Although I think to myself now… would I have carried on if I didn’t vomit?

“My mouth’s shooting blanks, this situations unbearable, I’m feeling vulnerable/Now anyone is free to waltz right in/my temple’s been invaded and there’s nobody guarding it/all over this lonely life”
Devotion and Desire – Bayside

This week we talked about the importance of effective leadership using Stephen Covey’s 8th Habit principles.

There was only 8 in the group this week as one of the team members was studying for an exam and another was sick. After using the Coaching Life Wheel a few weeks back with the girls they had a clearer understanding of balance when Covey talked about how a whole person is constructed of body, mind, heart, and spirit.

Working with young women we went over the four intellectual capacities: Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual and how all played a part in who we are. Not one was better than another but the idea was to find balance in the areas to gain a greater sense of life balance and happiness.

Referring back to their community fairies we then took a look at leaders they currently have in their lives and how Discpline, Vision, Passion, and Conscience are the attributes that makes a leader a success leader from start to finish. The group came up with some amazing suggestions of how discipline, vision, passion, and conscience offer strength to each of their lives.

Although I felt I could have done a bit of a better job at organizing the material (so it was more “user friendly” )this group is so quick to learn and absorb the information. When they moved on to the task of working in twos to come up with their vision for the group, their passion for being part of the team, and their conscience and discpline for staying commitment to the performance date they created some beautiful imaginary and put together some amazing words to describe their leadership abilities.

Every week I am continuously impressed by this group and their ability to move past their barriers and difference and move toward the common goal; reaching outside of themselves to support each other.

The last activity that we worked on was called “their gifts”. I had prepared 16 small squares of decorated paper with a dragonfly on them to symbol a journey and I shared with them the story as to why dragonflies play such an important part of my world. Then I had them write out one attribute/ characterstic that was important to them, to embrace and to grow. I collected their leadership characterstic and put it in a small box. I then had the team plant their feet on the floor, close their eyes, take some deep breaths and focus on the word that they wrote down on their piece of paper. I asked them to imagine what it would feel like to fully embrace and live that word. Then still in a little meditative state I asked them to visualize giving that characteristic to someone else in the room, as a gift to them; imagining them embrace the word. When they were ready I had them open their eyes and pick one piece of paper from the 8 in my hand, explaining that that was their gift for the week. To live out their gift and to report back next week how they were able to utilize that gift in their lives. I gave them each another piece of decorative paper to add another characteristic to their week for themselves.

A thought:

It is not what you have the ability to give yourself that makes you the most successful leader but what you have to give others and your commitment to that truth.

I wish I had more time to create action plans and deeper awareness with this group. I am planning on preparing them some outlines to do in their own time.

5 more Mondays of life skills and on January 26th we are meeting with the director and actresses to start the training for their monologue performances. So very exciting

She said to me, “I know you’ll always be there for me, but what happens if you die?”

Whoa. Reality check.

With my moods constantly fluctuating, it’s so hard to know what I want, when I want it, what I’m going to do… all those questions. Relating to the quote I posted below, it’s so unpredictable when this “enemy” will seize me and control my thoughts and feelings, when I’ll feel depressed and cry and scream.

I’ve felt serious about suicide only twice, and I’m seriously shaken up each time. The most recent one was last night. I was lying in bed and I was clutching onto the bars (my headboard isn’t solid it’s got bars) and crying and I was saying to myself “It wouldn’t be so bad, what if I ended it right here right now? Ended my misery? My parents misery? My burden to everyone? My mom would just find me in the morning and all would be okay.” The fact that I knew I was seriously contemplating my own demise made me cry harder and made me more angry with myself, and I felt so trapped and alone and helpless, it seemed like the bars were the only strong thing around me. Being clean for a month, I no longer had my drugs and cigarettes and alcohol to lean on. Although I may have self inflicted recently, I knew it was stupid and didn’t want to get back to leaning on that as well. All my friends had hung up on me saying “you’ll be okay” and then leaving, just like that.

It’s weird. I’m at a new school and I have new friends whom I’m so much happier with, yet I’m more depressed. People at my old school comment on how happy I seem but I can only smile and think of my most recent depression where I found myself on the floor of my room with the same story: collapsed, broken, and alone.

I’m tired of people saying “I’ll be okay”. Jackie says it. My friends say it. My councellor says it and everyone else around me says it. Affirmations work, but this one doesn’t. It’d be nice if it came true for once.

No one deserves to feel so shitty that they feel like they want to die. No one deserves to feel alone in those times.

And because I know what it’s like, I will do everything in my power to help other girls and will put all of my effort into this project to stop the collapsing.

There are only so many times something can be shattered before the pieces can’t be fixed.

Someone can only tread and keep their head above the water before drowning.

I’m safe for now, but who knows when I’ll get pulled under?

Got a secret can you keep it swear this one you’ll save? Better lock it in your pocket takin’ this one to the grave… – Secret by The Pierces

-Richler.

I’ve been reading the freedom writers diaries recently. The movie with Hilary Swank was inspired by it and there are a few excerpts that I thought might apply to some people.

“I Have a problem. For the past two years I’ve been tormented by an illness that runs in my family … Now this illness, our family’s enemy, has returned to claim yet another victim. Against my will, I have been taken prisoner, and feel like I’m being punished for a crime I did not commit. My worst nightmare is now becoming my reality. Suicide is something that’s alway on my mind, “24/7.” There isn’t a day that goes by without the enemy shooting suicidal thoughts through my mind. I am left injured and confused. Without notice the enemy takes control of my mind and body and I become its puppet. My thoughts, as well as my feelings, are re-created into my worst fears. I Start crying and screaming for no reason, raging with unexplainable anger stored deep inside of me. Then I am left feeling worthless, without any hope of living.”
- Diary 58

I thought I might share it because I know I can relate to some of it. And I’m sure someone else will be able to as well.

-Richler.

Community Fairies are like Fairy Godmother’s who go around to watch out for the world.. These fairies are hard working, law abiding magical entities who believe in the importance of the community involvement and presence in every day life. They support individuals, group projects, and show compassion and understanding to those in need…

Marissa, Verdann, and Ester's Community Pixie

Richler, purple V, and NC's community fairy

Tina, Maya, and Ashley's Fairy

Community Fairy characterstics

After creating these fairies, the group discussed how they realized they had some of these characterstics and how the ones that they didn’t yet share with others they could start to contribute to their communities.

By overcoming some of their barriers and limitations they can now start to spread their wings a little more in the communities that they are involved with at school, with friends, and families.

Identifying with these characterstics changes they way we think we are and gives us a little more hope on what we can offer others…

So what is all this bloggin about lost friends, addiction, longing for love, and fighting to stay afloat?

The Passion Team are a group of young women working through life in their teen years. They have experience in so many areas of life and have so much to offer the world.

Over the last month the team and I have been working through self awareness workshops called the Elements of Success. Starting from Self Evaluating who they are to Understanding their self imposed limitations to taking the courage to dump the “bricks” that they have been carrying around.  Who would have thought that a group of completely diverse girls could get together for a common purpose (to help others and raise awareness on issues young women face) and discover they really have some much in common and so much to offer the world around them.

Tonight we talked about community and the importance it plays in our lives ;in present and in future. They were asked to create Community Fairies… Imaginary fairies that protect communities in the world. The results made me proud to say I was part of this group and confident in what they had to offer their upcoming endeavours.

We will continue to truck.. To look a little deeper, smile a little brighter, and reach out a little further.

The are the Passion Team… Diverse, beautiful, strong, giving, supportive, and above all REAL girls with REAL lives looking for a REAL Future…

As the Executive Director and Founder of the Passion Foundation Society and this team I could not be more proud of this group, their commitment and their willing to re-evaluate who they are, where they are going, and how they can work as a team to help others…

Stay tuned for more blogging, pictures, and their work….

A few of us from the Passion Team

-

PassionGirl… Loretta Cella

Our Stars

Community is about different people coming together

Cocaine is fresh in my system, and I take a long, hard sip from a bottle of unknown liquor. I sigh of relief, sit down against the wall, bring my knees to my chest and begin to cry. OUt of the corner of my eye I notice the razor blade, my best friend, my worst enemy: the sole object that represents what makes me happy and what makes me miserable. I use it for what I know best, and a mark joins the other 15. Life for me is just a bunch of highs and lows, ups and downs, happy moments and miserable hours. I didn’t get accepted into rehab, my life no longer has a purpse. I just sit here and get high to pass the time. I rink to have done something, and I cut to feel something, and to take the pain away. My parents kicked me out of the house, telling me I was a burden and I’m dead to them. They told me never to come back, never to speak to them, and never to show my face.

Don’t you see? I’m worthless. My boyfriend is my drug dealer who couldn’t care less if I were dead, I’m already dead to my parents and I’m barely another face in society. The razor is the only thing I can depend on; it lets me feel, it takes away the pain, and makes me smile. I live in a dump where I waste my life getting high and drunk to the point where everything is numb; I cut until I bleed and feel it; and I cry until it hurts. I’m stuck here for life, the rehab centre said I’m too much at risk of a seizure and I have to come back in a week having been sober. I can’t do a week! I don’t even know if I can live through tomorrow. My life is the same thing day after day, hour after hour, high after high, high after low.

What saddens me is that I know that there are other people just like me, people who live in dumps getting high and drunk to pass time and bring their death closer to them. Oh what I would give to meet someone who knows the pain I feel, who understands it, can show me love and friendship and kindess. I’ve forgotten those feelings, they’re all just words to me now, just faded memories. I don’t remember them, but I remember I was happy, trite, fulfilled, content… and innocent. Innocence is a word of no importance to me now. What innocence is there left? My boyfriend rapes me, I do drugs by the hour, drink by the bottle, and cut by the scar. Hour after hour, bottle after bottle, scar after scar, nothing changes. I’m still nothing, I have no one, I have no innocence, no life, no meaning. I am dead.

Some say it’s going to get better… But it won’t. I have to be clean for a week with no one to help me, guide me, save me. Hell seems like a paradise to me, and my death is coming faster and faster with every needle injection. I used to go to church, believing some angels would guide me and some man named God would keep me safe. Am I so safe now? What kind of guidance have I had? I’m 17 and I weigh 90 pounds, cocaine is my drug, vodka my poison, the razor my only friend. Angels have long left me and God has long since given up on me. I thought my parents were my angles until they lost hope, and now, so have I. I need treatment, I need a friend, I need out of here. I need forgiveness, a reason to live, a new chance. I need love.

——————————————————————-

This piece is completely fictional. I shared it at a school coffee house but was later told that it was too honest and brutal. The coffee house was 13+, at 13 they’re mature enough to hear this if they’re not already being dragged into this lifestyle. Maybe not immediately at this stage, but on the way. It outraged me. Schools have countless speakers come in to talk about stress but no one talks honestly about what happens with drugs. If miraculously someone brings up drugs, it’s saying DON’T DO DRUGS, DRUGS ARE BAD. Correct me if I’m wrong but the majority of people in the lower mainland are extremely aware of that. Not really inspired by anything, this is just something I wrote one night.

Title is from Stranger Than Fiction.

-Richler.

Recently what we’ve been discussing is change, so I think I’ll jump the bandwagon.

Along with the previous author, I am not the same person that I was back in grade 8 and the beginning of grade 9. I was a lot happier, certainly more naïve, and I laughed a lot more. In the winter of grade 9, exactly around the time of my birthday, my 2 best friends ditched me. They stopped talking to me, they stopped looking at me, they moved away in the classes we had together. One of them started being really nasty, posting notes about me on Facebook saying how horrible of a person I am and how they were waiting for my birthday to leave me and how everyone’s just nice to me out of sympathy. She then tagged the few friends I had at the time in the note, making sure they’d read it. I was able to read it so I said commented on the note saying “if you have something to say, say it to my face”. She then started a message thread tagging more of my friends in it saying “ohhh I bet she’ll go slitslit now”. So I did. I didn’t do it for her, and I CERTAINLY didn’t do it for the attention, but I did it for self healing. A lot of people look at those who cut and go “Oh, it’s just some loser looking for attention”. No, they’re not. I’m going to use the analogy that has to do with cooking, I just had lunch. It’s like putting water in a pot. Imagine that you’re the pot and the water is your feelings and what you can handle. As you turn the heat up the water starts to boil and get hotter and hotter. Put a lid on the boiling water and you’ll boil over and become a mess. Cutting for me was like taking the lid off and bringing the water back down. I started getting into the habit of just taking off the lid and I’m sorry to say that I’ve done it almost 10 times; I have almost 10 scars on my arm.

This is where I changed. I no longer trusted anyone and I was so “boiled” that I was a mess and became hard for people to handle; everything was just a disaster. So I changed myself. I was a self centered annoying girl who loved her friends but couldn’t understand that they had their own lives away from her. Today I have so many more friends and I am now best friends and even closer with one of the girls (the really nasty one believe it or not), and made up with the other one.

Unfortunately, the story isn’t a “and she lived happily ever after”. I’m not living happily to be honest. I am now battling some form of depression that psychatrists are unable to diagnose; I’ve heard clinical depression and I’ve heard manic depression. I started feeling those lows after I lost my friends, and it kills my best friend for her to know that she might have started it all.

The lows that I feel, I’m not sure how anyone else’s is, but I know mine vary. But I’ve had some horrible lows. I’ve sat and cried for hours. I’ve had outbursts at friends shouting horrible profanities. I’ve punched walls until I bruised my knuckles. I’ve scratched at my arm with a twig when I was on a canoe trip because I was so upset and I didn’t have anything. I’ve had to be held back from traffic as I screamed to cars, “HIT ME”. I’ve wished for death. I’ve thought about how I would commit suicide, several times I’ve thought about overdosing. I used to not only take the lid off by cutting, but I started getting high as well. People can tell me that it’s going to be okay, but being high was the only way that I felt sure of it. It was a break from everything, where I could feel happy and laugh and I felt like everything was good again. I was able to laugh and smile. Even though I knew it was just the high, I felt like it brought out all the good back in me. It was a pick-up from my lows, hence I started to depend on it. Before camp I did it every day, sometimes twice a day. My mother has no clue. I even brought drugs to camp. If you go back to the first post not including the “About”, you can read about Jackie. That’s when I tried to go clean. I still got high at camp, and I drank. After camp I was clean for about 2 months before starting up again. I did some horrible things then. I started desperately texting people for crack, I agreed to sell myself for money, I lied to a lot of people including Jackie… I let a lot of people down. In a way I went back to the person I used to be, the horrible lying self centered person I was. I was smoking a LOT, I’d go out of class to smoke. I was drinking a lot too, school not excluded.

But yesterday I celebrated change. Not only was it my friends birthday, but it was 3 weeks of being clean. It’s been 3 weeks since I’ve touched a cigarette, any sort of drug, a guy I wasn’t comfortable with, or alcohol. And soon I can celebrate 2 months, I’ll celebrate a change in myself where I can completely forgive my best friend and myself. I’ve been picking up my failing grades, I was failing 5 out of 8 classes. I’ve started working out and playing squash. Already I feel such a difference in my body. At the last passion meeting we were told to stand in front of a mirror and look at our selves and smile. Only months ago I would have seen a tired, still boiling over 15 year old with no self confidence who would have avoided her own eyes. But I was able to look at myself and see what I’ve overcome. I’m trying to go clean again, I’ve gone 3 weeks without smoking on my own, I have stayed sober, I have surrounded myself with guys who are around my age ad I’m comfortable with, and I have learned to fully forgive my friend.

I have successfully been able to swing the focus from all my faults to my accomplishments around them. I have been able to change and I will continue to make those changes and only for the positive.

“And now I do recall we were just getting to the part where the shock sets in and the stomach acid finds a new way to make you get sick” – Lying is the Most Fun a Girl can Have Without Taking her Clothes Off by Panic! At the Disco

I have a newfound respect for myself in which I know I no longer have to make those decisions and feel sick about what I was doing for what I thought I wanted.

Richler.

Here I am now, a grade 11 student, 16 years old, and trying to change.

The past two years with pain, health issues, and depression have been very tough.

Two weeks ago, I had 5 people in a time frame of seven days give me the same motivating message but in different ways.

Angelina, Loretta, my boyfriend, my mom, and my sister all made an impact on me in one week.

I’ve always had the really wanted to change and get healthier and happier, but I never took responsibility into doing anything.

Angelina and Loretta spoke to the Passion Team and both shared how important it is for you to get rid of your limitations and really step out and do something about it. Get out there and make the change.

My boyfriend and mom are always telling me that they want me to get better and they always make clear to me that I’m the only one in control of my life.

It was my sister’s comment that really shook me up. I was crying in my room and not cooperating with my family. I was hungry, yet I didn’t have taste for anything in our fridge & cabinets. I was so ignorant and I expected my mom to make something for me. Christine (my 19 year old sister) entered in my room and talked to me (well at the time, she seemed super fed up so it felt like she was shouting.) She told me she didn’t understand the way I acted. Christine has dyslexia (a writing and reading disability) & ADHD and she went through a tough time learning in high school. I even remember looking at my sister when I was in elementary school, and I saw her struggle and cry with her frustration towards homework. But how she came through has really made her the strong person she is today.

She shared with me her experience of when she went to New York for one weekend in grade eleven. My mom and Christine left to New York City to go visit a doctor about her dyslexia & ADHD. She was so disappointed and irritated when she arrived back to Vancouver with only a prescribed drug. Of course, there was no cure in one day for her to be able to get through school work better. That was when it really hit her and she started to change. (of course her dyslexia never went away, but she learned how to live with it)

She sat down and said to me, “Your chiropractor, psychologist, and massage therapist are only there to get you up on your feet. The treatments and support you get are only going to do about 20% of your healing. It’s your attitude and effort to change is what makes up the rest of the 80% to get you back on track.”

I had five amazing people talk to me in seven days. Five people that cared about others and that knew that I could do it.

Loretta has really helped me self-evaluate and look at myself in different ways and points of views.

It’s about time I make the change.

- – purple V

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