thatsecretlife

I’ve been thinking about this since the other day when my sister said something to me while the look on her face said “wtf you’re high!” I 110% was not high. My first though was I was kind of offended, I mean I’ve put in about 26 months of sobriety. Then I though, my family will never know that for sure because in the past I have lied to them about being sober.. So I have officially come to terms with the fact that everyday of this new life of mine will not only be a struggle to keep my sobriety, but I will also have to constantly convince and prove to my family that I am strong in my recovery.

Now, back to habits. When using meth, especially for long periods of time, your body develops different movements, sounds, ticks, facial movements, etc.

I used for the most part of 8 years so I obviously developed a few things. The first thing I noticed was I would constantly be
wiggling my toes. There was one time I was doing this so uncontrollably all of my toes were blistered and raw at the end of my high.

Something else I did was smack my lips or make smacking sounds. I can only assume this happened because my body was thirsty and I was failing to stay hydrated. This was the one thing my sister ALWAYS pointed out when I was using.

The third thing I noticed about my self definitely developed toward the end of my using days, which is when I was using the heaviest. I would make these weird movements with my mouth. The kind of thing that when I see someone doing I think to myself, “they are either high or have used sometime in their past”

To this day, even with more than 2 years sober, I’ll catch myself doing these and sometimes I really have to think about not doing them. Every time my husband watches me while I’m doing the dishes he says “Sarah, stop with the tweaker face” and I get all butt hurt bc it’s something I can’t really control unless I’m thinking about it. I don’t really know if these habits/ticks will ever go away completely.. I’m really hoping that the longer I’m sober the less and less these things will be effecting my life.

Lots of love,
Sarah

On Sunday, December 9th 2007, my days started out normal. I was at *Joes house hanging out for a bit bc he had to work the next day and he was going to be using my car to get there. Around 4-4:30 ish he had to drive me home to my parents bc at 5:30 we were going to go to church. I remember the drive (40 minutest) felt longer than normal, and I just wasn’t feeling right. However, I ignored it because, helloooo I was 39 weeks pregnant!!

When we pulled up to my parents he was just going to drop me off and leave. I got out of my low mustang, which was a struggle and BAM!! I felt like I was peeing my pants and couldn’t stop! My water broke! All over the sidewalk in front of my parents house.

I freaked out!! This was it! The moment I was scared of! My exact words to *Joe were “go get my mom! Either I can’t stop peeing or my water just broke!” So he franticly went to get my mom who grabbed a towel and ran out to me. When she wrapped the towel around me I instantly started to take my pants off, right there in front of the whole neighborhood. I didn’t care though, I wanted those nasty things off! At first my mom thought I was faking so I didn’t have to go to church, but that didn’t last longer than a few seconds.

I went inside to change into other pants but I was leaking so much that it didn’t really matter. I remember my mom put some towels down on her seat in her car, and off we went. I was going to become a mommy, ready or not!

I was admitted into the hospital around 5-5:30 ish. I wasn’t having any contractions so they checked for dilation and I think (if I’m remembering correctly) I was only about a 2. That’s when we knew… We were in for a looooonnnggg night!

They hooked me up to an iv and started pitocin right away. At first my contractions were a piece of cake. I just would get real quiet and breathe. I had a LOT of people come see me during my labor. My mom dad and sister were there the whole time. Along with *Joe, his grandparents, brothers and sisters.

I was able to breathe threw my contractions all the way until I was 7cm dilated. That’s when they became UNBEARABLE!! I asked for an epidural. My mom tells me that that was probably the hardest part to watch. (Oh yeah, at this point only my mom and *Joe were in the room) after my epidural I was a happy camper again. My dad and sister came back into the room until it was go time. I think it was about 3 am when they told me I was complete and ready to start pushing. My mom and *Joe were in there with me for my support. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I did a few “practice pushes” and then really started pushing at about 3:30. I remember concentrating sooooo hard. I wanted this baby OUT!

At 3:52am December 10, 2007 my perfect 7 lb 2 oz, 19 3/4″ baby boy was born.
My life, my love.

Lots of love,
Sarah

Scared? … Yes!
Nervous? … Yes!
Excited? … Yes!

There were a ton of ups and downs during my pregnancy. More so ups than downs, thank God! But this blog will not be about the downs.

Being young, single and pregnant was the scariest time of my life, I mean, I was no where near ready to be a mother. However I knew from the very first pregnancy test that this little human was mine and I would love him/her unconditionally.

The first few months of my pregnancy I had severe morning (all day) sickness! Nothing, and I mean NOTHING would stay down. Once I got into my second trimester I knew it would go away, WRONG! I ended up having all day sickness my whole pregnancy all the way to the very end! The toilet became my best friend and I was no longer embarrassed to puke just about anywhere. I remember on thanksgiving I ate too much and my poor sisters bf at the time had to listen to me loose my dinner in the Carl’s jr parking lot.

My sister, was 16/17 while I was pregnant and a senior in hs. I’m pretty sure witnessing the “beauty” of pregnancy first hand scared her into not wanting babies for a very long time! She was very supportive of my choice to keep this precious baby and was my best friend again. She also got a major kick out of making fun of my growing belly

I was soooo ecstatic when I found out I was pregnant with a little boy! Growing up I has my sister, and I was really close to my girl cousins. So this new adventure was so exciting!

Now, to lightly touch base on the status of me and *Joe during my pregnancy, he wanted nothing to do with it. But we were trying to work things out for the sake of our baby. So things were slowly getting a little better. I think the distance between us helped. He was working and I was trying to just focus on my pregnancy.

The last few weeks of my pregnancy were miserable! Heart burn, sickness, and just being huge was really kicking my butt. But I sure did love feeling my little man wiggle inside my belly. It was our bond. Something no one else was going to have with him! I didn’t want that part to ever end.

But ready or not.. One week before my due date (which was supposed to be 12/15/07) my whole world was about to change. On December 9th 2007, I was 20 years old, my baby boy let me know I was about to become a mommy in the most unexpected way.

Lots of love,
Sarah

Since I had hid the fact that for the past year I was getting high almost daily so well, once me and *Joe split up I brushed it off like it never happened. I was able to stop smoking because I was no longer around him, and I was no longer around 24/7 access to dope.

Single for the first time in 2 years, and coming out of an abusive relationship, I took every opportunity to go out with the only 2(girl) friends I had left. My very best friend conveniently lived around the corner from me and we started hanging out everyday and going out quite often.

I don’t know how, because I was only 19, I started drinking every chance I could. HEAVILY. At the time I didn’t realize it, but I was replacing one addiction for another. I understand that now.

My friend met a guy where she was working and after 2 weeks of dating they decided they wanted to get married. Even though I was against this, I supported her decision. I think it was the end of March when I took her to Reno so she can marry this guy. The trip was a blast. I took a handle of vodka with us and we drank all night the first night, because her fiancé and his best friend were meeting us there the following day. The entire trip is pretty much a blur for me. I was so wasted the entire weekend. Here is where I had my first (almost) one night stand. I couldn’t go threw with it.

I couple weeks later my friend had told me she thought she was pregnant and was scared to take a test. So I volunteered to take one with her. I mean after all, it had been a couple months since I had last seen *Joe, I wasn’t pregnant. So we both took our tests…. And a couple minutes later…. Surprise!! I indeed was pregnant. My first thought was “Crap!! I almost had sex with this guy in Reno, what if the baby is his?!” Which duh, it couldn’t have been. My second thought was “CRAP!! I’ve been non stop drinking since me and *Joe split up!!”

I eventually got the courage up to ask my mom to lunch. We went to our favorite restaurant, El Rosel. She didn’t even really give me a chance to tell her, she guessed right away. I was prepared for her to yell and be really upset with me. But she calmly told me that we will get through this. Abortion was never an option for me, even though the baby daddy tried forcing me into it. So I was preparing to be a single Momma at the age of 19 (I turned 20 a month before he was born). My mom and dad were very supportive, and that gave me the strength to know I could do it on my own. Well, with their help at least.

So…my life was about to change, I was already a couple months off dope, and I quit drinking the minute I saw the positive test. I was very young, but I knew.. I could do this.

Lots of love,
Sarah

If I would have known that with meth there wasn’t a “try it once and be done” I would have never touched the drug. At first I was just doing it for fun, that quickly turned into needing more and more.

Looking back at my 18/19 year old self scares me. I was so sheltered growing up. I had more than I could have ever asked for. A nice car, I was still dancing, and most importantly, my family trusted me. Boy did I screw that up in a quick minute.

I soon found my self in situations that I had only seen in movies. Drug dealers, guns, people who have killed and would probably kill again, theft, the list goes on and on. My innocent self was in situations that I was not raised to even know existed. Not only was I around some pretty scary, eye opening things.. My relationship with *Joe began to take a turn for the worse. We seemed to get along well as long as we were high, or had enough dope. But when that ran out he turned into someone I would have never thought he would become. His verbal abuse led to emotional/mental abuse, which eventually turned into physical abuse. The really sick part was when he would hit me he hit me in places that were easily covered. My stomach and back became targets for his fists, and my legs have been numerously burned by cigarettes. A few times he let hisself get completely out of hand. He head butt me so hard once I had a golf ball sized knot on my forehead for weeks. When this happened, I left… I walked over to his parents house to call my mom to pick me up. Their response was “you don’t need to do that, sleep here and he’ll feel better tomorrow”

After a year of using, abuse and pretending to be happy.. We both had had enough. We finally split up. For good!!

……..or so I thought

Lots of love,
Sarah

When I was 16 years old I was very self conscience about my weight. I would every so often make myself throw up after eating bigger meals. In my mind I thought by throwing up what I had just eaten would keep me at a weight I was comfortable with. No one in my family knew I was doing this to myself and not even my closest friends. Some family members and other people I knew would make little remarks about having a little pooch on my belly. They were probably just teasing me and joking around. But one summer day I was wearing a bikini and someone in my family asked me while laughing “Are you pregnant?” Obviously I know now that they were just joking and didn’t realize how badly that affected me. I wanted to have a perfect body, and perfect stomach. I clearly was going about achieving that the wrong way. My bulimia only lasted less than a year because I got so tired of trying to hide what I was doing.

10 years later.. I look back at my past self and wonder ” what the heck was I thinking?!” I was clearly NOT fat or even a little overweight.

I know a lot of girls out there are self conscious about their weight. They want to look how they think boys want them to look. I have come to learn to love my self and realize the man I ended up marrying didn’t fall in love with me because I was super skinny. He loves me for me and that includes the extra weight I have since put on after having children.

If you are struggling with weight issues, don’t take the “easy” way out. You are harming your body that someone out there will fall in love with. Every so often I say a prayer for the girls and women who can’t find happiness in their own skin. It took me a long time to finally be happy in my skin. And it’s the best feeling ever.

Lots of love,
Sarah

This was exact day I was told I looked pregnant. Causing my eating disorder.

I’m Sarah! And though I am only 26, I have gone through more than anyone could imagine in the past 10 years. I wanted to quickly write this post explaining what my blog is going to be about. Every week I will be going back and reflecting on my life in the last decade. I will start with the year 2004, as a senior in high school, and tell you about my struggles with addiction, an abusive relationship, having kids at a young age, and finally get to where I am at now in my life and recovery.

But before I start spilling my guts out about all of the bad things, let’s start from the beginning.

I born and raised in a city in the Central Valley of California. I have a mom, a dad and a sister who is 3 years younger than I. I was never abused, molested, or even really exposed to anything that would typically lead to addiction. I danced from the age of 3-19, I was a cheerleader in middle school, and was also in acrobatics. My parents are nowhere near rich, but we always had plenty of great memories growing up going to Disneyland, the beach, camping, ect. I was never exposed to hardships.. And I was HIGHLY AGAINST smoking, drinking, and drugs.

But some how my life took a turn in the wrong direction. And I kept it all a secret for about 5 years..and then when I was caught in a mess and my truth came out.. I proceeded to lie about being completely sober. And honestly, the only real chunks of clean time I had (before October 10, 2012) was when I was pregnant with my 2 boys. And that’s the honest truth.

Like I said I will be going back and reflecting on my life and exposing the real hardships I have faced and continue to face to this very day. If you would like to know my story, please feel free to check back on Mondays and I will be posting some things I’ve gone through and how I have learned from my many mistakes.

Lots of love,
Sarah