Hannah’s Story

For as long as I can remember, I suffered from emotional and physical abuse from my oldest brother, and I suffered from feelings of abandonment from my father (who was not a positive part of my life, nor showed any love or affection towards me).  My father made me feel expensive and worthless. My brother, who was eight years older than me, would call me fat, make fun of how much I ate, call me a cow, make fun of me in front of large groups of his friends - he would lift my shirt, slap my belly and throw me on the floor yelling "Tip a cow," and the list goes on ... I eventually avoided eating in front of other people because of this torture.

In hindsight, I realize that I have disassociated from many of my childhood traumatic memories so that I can cope with life. My brother threatened to kill me when I was younger and threw something at my head; he was arrested and taken to jail, which he still holds against me to this day. I realize now, due to the trauma and neglect from the men in my life, (as well my lack of self-worth), I had low expectations for the men that I dated. In middle school, my self-esteem continued to deteriorate. As social media became popular, I started to encounter people bullying and talking very negatively about each other, including my friends, who would say very horrible things behind each other's backs. This experience further drove my self-esteem and trust in others into the grave. I always wanted to be a strong person, and I knew I had to fight for my survival, so I chose to be independent. 

I wanted to become a leader from a very young age. One day, I begged my dad to take me to McDonald's with him, and I asked if I could get an Oreo Mcflurry, but he would not buy it for me because it wasn't on the dollar menu. From that day on, I was committed to becoming financially independent and never having to rely on another human being, especially another man, in my life.

In High School, everything changed, and I continued to spiral downward into a world of loneliness and depression. I started comparing myself to other people, and I started seeking approval from men, which I never had before.  I started trying to be prettier, wanting to be wanted, wanting to be better. My struggle with anxiety and depression started to increase. I was unhappy with my body from the trauma with my brother and insecure about how I looked, so I started dieting at age 15, trying and lose weight. It started healthily - I switched to eating fruits, vegetables, and lean meats, I cut out processed foods, joined a gym, and started working out.  The weight started falling off. People noticed and commented on how great I looked. However, I was still not happy with myself, so I started to escalate my acting out behavior. People around me always told me that I have Attention Deficit Disorder, (ADD) because I could never sit still, I was very high energy and hyper-focused.  I  was always the leader of the group and always doing everybody else's tasks for them, always first to complete assignments, always top of my class, always ahead of the teacher's curriculum. I saw a doctor for an assessment, and she diagnosed me with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). She prescribed me Adderall. I was happy that weight loss is a side effect of Adderall, so I started taking it and weighing myself every day, becoming obsessed with the number dropping on the scale.  I started restricting calories severely, which wasn't hard because the Adderall suppressed my appetite.  Ultimately I was diagnosed as an "unintentional" anorexic. I still was insecure about myself, and I did not like to go to social events, I had severe social anxiety, at home I didn't feel safe because of my brother, so the loneliness set in. I would not tell anybody that I was suffering. I pretended that I was happy and made any excuses to avoid parties and school events. In addition to my social isolation and dysfunctional relationships, I lost my childhood best friend. She cut me off because I started hanging out with other people besides her. I started hanging out with an older group of senior kids who partook in drugs and drinking, mostly marijuana and alcohol.  My first boyfriend, who was a senior, influenced me into drinking and using drugs. He took my virginity on the floor in his house, high on weed, and mostly against my will. Of course, not knowing how I should be respected and not having any self-esteem, I had no issues with the familiar emptiness that I felt as this event occurred, and later started "dating" him. He once told me that he cheated on me with a friend of mine while he was on a snowboarding trip, that I did not attend because of my social anxiety and not being able to afford the expenses.

As my weight continued to drop, so did my self-esteem. There were times when I'd feel better about myself, and I would be convinced to go to a party, but I was quick to get drunk to hide my social anxiety. I always thought that I would be happy once I hit a certain number on the scale, and then I would hit that number, and I still wasn't happy, so I would aim for an even lower number. I never liked pictures taken of me, and still don't to this day. I had severe body dysmorphia and truly believed that I was fat when I was only 105 pounds. I was insecure about my body, my nose, my eyes, my smile, my cheeks, my hair, my arms, my stomach, my legs, and every single thing about me due to the abuse that I had encountered at a young age. Later I learned that my childhood best friend, who had stopped being my friend when we started high school, had told the school counselor that I had an eating disorder. Of course, I denied the diagnosis and blamed my weight loss on Adderall. Now I recognize that I did have an eating disorder and am finally able to admit the truth.

After the high school counselor fiasco, I felt abandoned and betrayed by my friends for telling on me, so we became estranged. (Plus - they also started doing cocaine and harder drugs).  I started having negative side effects from the Adderall, where I would sleepwalk and eat thousands of calories in my sleep. I would wake up feeling full, sick, and crying every day, feeling out of control and full of shame. After the betrayal of my friends, my mind immediately switched from anorexia to binge eating; then, I was made fun of for being too skinny. Looking back, it seems that all I ever wanted from anyone was validation. I never felt that I had it. I thought, "How could anyone else love me if I don't' even love myself?"

I eventually got off Adderall constantly yo-yo dieting and gaining weight, then returning to Adderall, rapidly losing weight – back and forth. My metabolism suffered from the years of starvation, so I could no longer eat the same amount as my peers without gaining weight. My anxiety was through the roof, and my depression became darker, I wished for death often. I wrote depressing poems and painted depressing artwork. In college, I completely isolated from my peers.  I would find guys via social media who made me feel good amidst my low self-esteem and "daddy issues" (typically older men or athletes that treated me terribly and took advantage of me). I pretended that it was okay because I didn't believe that I was worth anything or deserved anyone better. Now I have to say; I never told anyone about these issues that I battled within my life. I didn't want to believe something was wrong with me. I was in denial, so of course, I didn't admit my problems to anyone else. I completely retreated from the doctor, I stopped taking Adderall, and I just did my schoolwork isolating and crying myself to sleep every night.  I hated myself more and more every day. After 3 ½  years of hell in college, studying Engineering completely isolated and depressed, I eventually graduated and found a job.  I never attended my graduation.

Two weeks after I started my job, an older man who worked with me (who was 38 years old), asked me out. I said no, I was not attracted to him, and I was not into how old he was – (he was 16 years older than me). However, he did not give up, and he continued to pursue me more than any man ever had. I eventually found out that he had a child who was only a few years younger than me, but at that point, I already had feelings for him. I accepted this fact and tried to move past it. I moved in with him. He told me he was in love with me and wanted to spend his life with me, and I truly believed him. This experience was the first time I felt loved, so I gave him everything. He said that he wanted to have a child with me. I never wanted to have kids because I never wanted another human being to suffer the pain that I went through or have the mental battles that I experienced.  Plus, I was terrified of divorce.  Soon after moving in with him, I found out that he had a drug and alcohol addiction and abusive anger management challenges. He came from a drug-using and abusive family and had even more trauma and more issues than I did. The relationship got very bad, but due to the drugs, it was up and down, high highs and low lows.  Substance use gave me relief from my anxiety and depression. When sober, I felt so alone, and I didn't know where to go or who I could talk to, so I continued to try to make it work. I moved out eventually, but then he promised he would change, so I moved back in. However, nothing changed - he just began hiding things from me, lying to me and not telling me anything anymore. The relationship became abusive, manipulative, and threatening.  Luckily my other brother offered me a listening ear and support while I battled this relationship. I had to hide my conversations because my ex was always around, so I felt incredibly trapped. I finally made an appointment to speak to a Life Coach and counselor, Dejaye, who helped me drastically turn around my life. She was the first person in my life who I was able to open up to and share some of these truths that I had been hiding my entire life. She helped me to understand how emotionally detached and disassociated I had been from my emotions and from the series of traumas that had occurred throughout my years. She was real; she was raw, and she called it exactly how she saw it. She was the first person to open up my eyes to the internal battles I was fighting.  She encouraged me to leave the abusive relationship, and I listened to her without hesitation. It felt so relieving to have just ONE person in this world who saw me for who I am. After I moved out of my ex's house, I still had another battle to fight.  My workplace became hostile, seeing him in the office. He acted immaturely and would give me dirty looks, treating me like garbage. He wouldn't go to my meetings and caused a lot of added stress to my already immensely stressful job. I continued to see my therapist, and she asked me to share stories of when I have been happy and who makes me happy. I told her that my other brother had been a support in my life for many years and was my only true friend, but he had moved to Maui back when he graduated high school. I still remember when I told this to Dejaye, she said, "Well why don't you move to Maui and go be happy and be around your brother?"... and so I did!

 I quit my job and bought a one-way ticket to Maui for a fresh start and to be closer to my brother, who was the ONLY person in my life that knew even a glimpse of who I truly am and the struggles I was facing - and he loved me anyway. I arrived in Maui, feeling like I had a new start.  I was so happy and felt that everything was great, but soon enough, the isolation and anxiety attacks kicked back in, and the binge eating started again too. My brother's childhood best friend said that I could stay with him until I found a place. I thought he was nice, but little did I know, right when I moved in we got drunk, and then he quickly made moves to sleep with me (like every guy I've ever been alone and drinking with has done). Of course, I let it happen and convinced myself that it was okay, just like I have in the past, because I had still didn't know how to set healthy boundaries for myself. This experience brought back memories of being molested when I was 13 years old.  My brother's friend felt me up on the couch while we were watching a movie. At this tender age,  I had never been touched by a guy in my life, and this one was 17 or 18 years old! I froze, and let that happen too....

After the incident with my brother's friend, I started to feel intense shame again.  I also noticed my anxiety and depression was starting to come back.  I knew that I needed a healthy distraction and work has always been a way for me to cope with stressors.  I felt that if I wasn't working, then I wasn't succeeding. This self-loathing would lead me to a dark place and a desire to die.

I finally started a new job and experienced the stress of training.  Shortly after I started my new career, I met the love of my life, who changed everything for me. He showed me a love like no other, and I was so happy and felt so amazing and couldn't even believe that I was ever in such a depressed and anxious state in my past. I thought the worst was finally behind me. But I got nervous being so happy because what goes up must come down. Sure enough, the global pandemic corona-virus hit, and we both lost our jobs. I started self-medicating and binge eating again and rapidly gaining weight. I wouldn't go to the beach because I didn't want others to see me in a bikini.  I would smoke weed to cope with my poor self-image. I was still too afraid to share these realities and truths to myself, let alone in my new relationship with the man of my dreams. I had opened up to anyone, and I didn't know how to begin. Plus, speaking these truths would make me look and feel even more shameful about myself.

My boyfriend is the only person in my entire life who probes and persuades me to open up about all of my deep-rooted flaws and insecurities. He has helped me with being vulnerable.  I was always emotionally detached from all of my issues until I met him. My boyfriend and my therapist helped me recognize that I have been living with painful memories and it is okay to talk about them. I have never done anything to try to heal myself and my mind, I have only been suppressing my thoughts and feelings deeper into my soul.

Looking back, I realize that I have missed out on so much in my life because of my insecurities and social anxiety. The feeling of not being accepted by those around me or accepted by myself, not wanting pictures taken of me, not wanting people to talk about me, and just wanting to disappear from the face of the earth has been torture for me. I always told myself that "tomorrow I'll get better," and of course, tomorrow never came. So here I am, sharing my story for the first time.  I am 24 years old, and I've never really explained to anyone about these issues until now. These are just a few examples of the trauma that have experienced over 24 years. I could write a book about the hundreds more disturbing memories that replay in my head over and over again, holding me back from living life to the fullest.

Like most people, I want to be happy and to make amazing memories with the people that I love. People have suggested to me that anxiety and depressive feelings are a weakness.  I do not want to be a burden in anyone's lives, especially to the lives of the few people who love me. I suppressed my feelings to avoid looking weak and feeling shamed by others, but at the same time, I could never escape shaming myself.  I have embarked on a journey of self-love, health, and happiness. Life is hard, and some days are dark, but I finally believe that I am loved and worthy of being loved, and I make an effort to love MYSELF more and more each day. I have learned that it's okay not to be okay. It is okay to feel flawed, and it's okay to open up and be your raw self. I am so grateful for my brother and my mom, who have helped me get this far because I wouldn't have lived this long if they weren't in my life. And thank you to my boyfriend for loving me so much and for peeling back the many layers of my onion, breaking me down only to help me build back up stronger. Lastly, thank you to my therapist for listening to me, being there for me no matter what, teaching me, and helping me to understand the mind, the body, and ultimately myself and who I truly am. I am for once feeling excited to be alive and hopeful for my future and what is in store. I hope that I can help others every day along the way. I encourage everyone to get real, be raw, stay positive, and manifest your destiny!