A little of how I became me.

Here comes the good stuff. All about me and my life. Are you excited? No? Okay, great. :) I've never been good at starting these things off... I'm really good at talking about myself but when it comes to keyboard and thoughts; nope. Let's start from the beginning. I'm Alyssa, I've been going by Aly for pretty much most of my life aside from the traumatizing nickname of "Lizzie" my mom had dubbed as "adorable' and called me briefly as a teen... It stopped quickly. I'm 26 years old and I live in Vancouver beautiful fricken BC. Yep we're the city of rain... It's great. I'm engaged to my best friend and we have two adorable little fur children. Two insanely energetic border collie babies, Bentley and Oakley. They light up my life.

Scott and I have been together for just over a year. Wild right? It's insane you never really think these things will happen to you and then they do and you're like shit, what do I do now? Oh I'm also a potty mouth. Sorry not sorry. I thoroughly enjoy swearing... probably too much but there's just something so satisfying about a solid "motherfucker" outburst. - Cue all angry moms and people who don't like swearing.-

Okay now the deep stuff, the stuff you really want to hear. Well my parents had me really young, 21 and 22 I believe. I was 12 weeks premature and I was the cutest little nugget you had ever seen. Because I was premature I had a hard time holding my head up and now I've got this weird little rhino hump on the top of my head. If you ever meet me in person ask to touch it, it's pretty cool. I was also born with a white scar like line over my left shoulder... My dad convinced me as a kid that the doctor had accidentally amputated my arm and had sewn it back on... He also told me my head hump was where my horns were removed. Thanks Dad. :) Speaking of my dad. He was my goddamn hero as a kid, I have never respected someone so much at such a young age as I did towards my mom and dad. Then when I was 8 years old my life turned upside down. Cancer. He was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and was told he had 9 months - 1 year to live. He made it 11 months before he passed away. He battled as hard as he could for those 11 months. I saw a side of my dad that no child should ever have to see. I watched him slowly die and man oh man, did that fuck me up later on in life. Fast forward a bit to like, 9/10 years old. Here's a fun fact I have ADHD and from what I've heard as a kid I was a cute little nightmare :) Now keep in mind my mom was now raising two daughters as a single, widowed mom. Not only was she grieving the loss of her husband and the love of her life but she was trying to help her young daughters through the loss of their dad. My sister was 3 when my dad died, I was 9, there was a lot we didn't understand. As a young child who had never really experienced loss in her life, this was a monumental hit. I'm pretty sure I repressed a lot of it going into my pre-teen years. Then I went into high school and that's where it all really went downhill. I was so angry for so many different reasons, pissed my dad died, pissed cause I was a hormonal teenage girl. Just pissed at everything. BUT, I was the most compassionate and loving person you'd ever meet. Because I had experienced such loss at such a young age I grew up very quickly and learned that life is precious and to treat everyone with kindness. As you can imagine my mom did absolutely everything for my sister and I growing up. We did everything and anything. Disneyland, toys, xbox, puppy you name it. My mom did what she could to help not only us, but herself to cope with the bs that life had thrown us.

To make a long story short let's fast forward to 18 because that's when I turned into a real asshole. I mean like, huge. I started working a part time hostess job to make some monies because I was raised to work for the things I wanted. I think my mom knew she spoiled us for a bit and so she did some damage control teaching us the life values of hard work, work ethic and personal growth. Thank god she did because I wouldn't be the woman I am today without her. I decided to hit my rebellious stages a little later in life than most of my friends. I met my first ever boyfriend right after I turned 18. I thought he was the love of my life and he changed my world. My mom hated him. Cue the first child battle with her mom. I was SO convinced that my mom was wrong and I was right. He's not the important part of this. I started drinking, that's the real kicker. So over the years not only did I become a hypochondriac but I also developed severe anxiety + depression. Throw that in with a bottle of vodka and an alcoholic was created. I didn't realize at the time that it was a coping mechanism for the emotions I had buried so deeply within my heart. I didn't even know I was feeling the feelings to make me want to drink. I also found that I really liked tequila so there was that. Anyways, moving on. It started off as the usual house party, the drinking in the park with friends. Two litres of growers with vodka was my shit. Then I turned 19 and could legally go out and drink.

My 19th birthday... Went out and partied my face off. Drank everything and anything. Why? Because I could and no one could tell me otherwise. Most girls have this vision in their head of being cute and taking pics and doing girly ass shots with their friends. Nope, not me. I got as fucked up as quickly as I could and the night took a dark turn. After I finished vomiting in the Mirage parking lot, lost a shoe and got taken home; I had my first mental break down while blackout drunk. From what I remember and what I was told, it was horrifying. Screaming at my mom and my two best friends that my dad was dead, over and over and again like it was this new thing and no one understood. My mom said I tried to fight her... Anyone that knows my mom knows how poor of a decision that would have been. That was one of my biggest obstacles throughout all of my life, was realizing that I was NOT the only person who lost someone. My dad was a husband, a son, a brother, a best friend and so many other amazing things. It took me a very long time to get to where I am now. Peace. I went through that one breakup that every one goes through in their life that changes who they are. I learned what I do and do not value in life and relationships. I got drunk, many many many more times. I lashed out many more times. I hurt a lot of people, caused irreparable damage in pretty much every aspect of my life. Throughout the years I grew to hate myself, who I was and what I had done and all I ever wanted was feel internally happy. I got there, eventually. After a lot of trial and error, tears and the unconditional support and love from my family and close friends.

So that's 1/3 of the heavy things out of the way. We'll save the other goodies for another day. Thanks for taking time out of your day to read my thought process on a screen, it means the world. All the love, just for you guys. A

#perspective #outlook #newlife