The Story of Channon Rose: Lessons between the Lines (7 page)

I had spent so much time in mental hospitals at this point that I was getting better at hiding my meds. But I will say this, no matter how many times you’ve been sent to an insane asylum it never gets easier. They suck just as much as the first time. Sometimes it would get so bad in there and I just couldn’t take being locked away another second that I would purposely act out to get “booty juice” so some of my stay was slept away with the help of the drugs. Then I would kick myself because it just made me have to stay there even longer. I would go so crazy in the hospital I would sit on the cold ground in the corner and rock myself back and forth to pass the time. I hadn’t realized it then but I had turned into one of the girls that I was scared of when I walked into my first mental hospital. My mind and soul had been stripped away from me by the amount of drugs that were being given to me on a daily basis by the doctors. When you are bad, or act out, they just sedate you enough so that you can’t really do anything.

A few days later, my mom came to visit with my Aunt Jen. I was so happy when my family would visit me and I looked forward to it more than anything. I started to get used to hospital life and it began to feel like my second home. My time at the UCLA ward just went by as usual I guess you could say. For some reason I don’t have as vivid of a memory of UCLA as I did at Pinegrove. Maybe it was the meds, or maybe I just was getting better at blocking stuff out of my memory.

I was released from the UCLA hospital just before turning 14 years old and just before I was about to go into 7
^th
grade. It was time for a new school, middle school. None of my friends were going to my middle school, so it was a clean slate in a new private school. Montclair College Prep was expensive and prestigious, and I was accepted there on a sports scholarship. I made some new friends there and I also made friends with now celebrity Khloe Kardashian. Khloe was super sweet to me. We were good friends and hung out all the time.

She wasn’t famous back then although her stepdad dad was a professional athlete and I remember her showing me a Wheaties box with his face on it in their kitchen one day when I went over to her house after school. I didn’t really think that much about it, and I knew where they lived there were other celebrities but it wasn’t of any importance to me. Almost every kid’s parents at that school were famous or rich for something. Khloe was cool, and all that I remember was that I wanted for her to teach me how she did her amazing make-up; she was so good at it.

There were a lot of celebrity kids at that school. I really enjoyed it but I often felt like the poor kid there on a scholarship, but it was a top-notch school and everyone was really nice so it didn’t matter.

I even got my first boyfriend at that school. His name was Danny; he was blonde with blue eyes, and had a great smile. We only kissed on the lips a few times, but back then of course it was a lot for me and a pretty grown up thing to do! There were a lot of boys that liked me and I thought it was really cool, especially since I thought I was hideous and fat. Another good friend I made at the time was Ashley. She was a total rebel and had very wealthy parents like most of the kids at that school. One day after school we went to her house and I realized that she also had a workaholic father who was absent from her life. It was a huge thing we could both relate to each other on. Ashley lived next door to a Playboy model and would go over there and hang out and get to try on all of her sexy clothes. I remember going over to the Playboy model’s house and seeing how cool it was. I was fascinated by her lifestyle. Her house was decorated so awesome and she had so many amazing things I had never seen before like a couch in the shape of lips! Everything was so modern and expensive looking. It was so much fun hanging out with her. The home itself was gorgeous, and I could tell she had a lot of money. The Playboy model was blonde, beautiful, and really cool. One day she told us she was going to Vegas and Ashley asked her if we could go with her. She laughed and said if it was okay with our parents, sure. I don’t think the model thought Ashley’s dad would actually say yes. We were only 14 years old! But we wanted to go so badly. We begged and eventually convinced Ashley’s dad to let us go. He had been drinking so it really could have gone either way, but to our surprise he let us go! Besides, rich kids always get what they want. We were so excited. Going to Vegas with a Playboy model at the age of 14, who get’s to do that? I had never been to Vegas before. I couldn’t believe how cool it was. I was in awe when we got there. We were staying at a really nice hotel. We even had our own room that was directly connected to the model’s room.

The Playboy model invited some friends over and then they all went out for the night, so we snuck into her room to check it out. There was cocaine on the tables and all kinds of party stuff I wasn’t used to seeing. There was also a pack of cigarettes. Ashley and I were too scared to get caught stealing from the model, so we left all of it alone. Instead, we hung around in the hallways of this fancy hotel and stole half smoked cigarettes from hall ashtrays by the elevators, which we brought back to our hotel room. We found some matches and both tried cigarettes for the first time. They were so nasty, but we thought we were so cool. After all, we were only 14 years old and in Vegas by ourselves practically. It was probably the coolest thing I had ever done in my life.

After the Vegas trip, another girl from school invited me to a slumber party, just the two of us. Her name was Brogan. We stole a whole pack of cigarettes from her mom’s carton in the freezer and each smoked four cigarettes in the attic that night. She let me keep a few and I hid some cigarettes in my eyeglasses case, and at the age of 14 I started smoking consistently. Brogan also did something weird that night—she asked me if I wanted to watch her make out with her dog. I told her I didn’t really want to see that but she did it anyway. It was one of the weirdest things I had seen. One thing I learned at that school is rich kids do some weird sh*t, and by rich I mean filthy rich. The next day at school I was in the locker room changing for basketball practice and she came in screaming and yelling asking me if I had told people that she made out with her dog. I said yes and then she instantly punched me in the face. I was kind of shocked but there were a bunch of other girls in the locker room and I didn’t want to look like a little b*tch so I hit her back and then a huge fight broke out in the locker room. I kicked her a$$. She got detention, and I was expelled from school. I wasn’t even the one that started the fight, but I was on a scholarship so the blame was put on me. Besides, money buys everything and my parents didn’t have enough money to pay off the principle to keep me there. Once I was expelled, my parents were pissed and decided to put me into a public school for the first time. I was used to private schools and smaller classrooms. We were already three months into the school year so I was really scared to start a new school, and a public school instead of a private one. No more private schools for me after that incident. My parents were so upset with me and I had let them down.

My new public school was overcrowded and dirty and I did not want to be there. I hated having to be the new girl at school all the time and not knowing anyone, it is very awkward. The medication I had been taking made me gain a few pounds, so I was overweight for the first time in my life.

My eating disorder started to become worse because of it. I wouldn’t eat in front of anyone. It made me feel bad to eat, and I would throw up all of my food at school and at home. The girls in that school were pretty and skinny, and I was ugly and fat. Misty was also a great reminder of my weight and looks. I got in trouble at school a lot, and my mom wasn’t around much because she was always working. Sometimes I didn’t go to school at all. It felt good to be bad. I hated my new school, I think mostly because I hated myself and because I didn’t really fit in there. All the girls had there own groups they were in and I was the outcast and the new girl.

My mother had no idea that I was skipping school or that I was getting into trouble at school. She came home so late that I was able to delete the messages on our home phone from the school before she ever got to hear them. My eating disorder spun out of control too. I lost a lot of weight, and my mom began to notice. After a few weeks of noticing, she sat me down and I told her what had been happening. She said I had to go to see our primary care doctor. The doctor said I was very thin and if I didn’t start eating that I could die. My mother was very upset. She started crying in the office and said she would do anything if I started eating again. I told her that I wanted to get my belly button pierced, and that if she took me to get it pierced, I would eat a cheeseburger from McDonald’s. So we went straight from the doctor’s office to the tattoo parlor. I got my belly button pierced, and I felt so cool. I would be the only girl at my school with a pierced belly button and having my belly button pierced would make me a lot more popular at my new school. After my piercing, we headed to McDonald’s and I ate my cheeseburger, but anyone with an eating disorder will tell you that it does not just go away. I just became better at hiding it from my mother. I hated the guilt I would get from eating, and I tried to drink as little water as possible to prevent any water weight. This went on for awhile until one morning I felt so ill and I couldn’t get out of bed. When I tried, I collapsed onto the floor. Starvation had taken its toll, and I was nothing but skin and bones. I was dizzy and had depleted myself of food, water, and nutrients for too long. My mom could not miss work, so she called my therapist to deal with me. Once again, I was admitted to UCLA, but I was admitted to a section of the hospital for people with eating disorders. I wish my mother had been there more often and spent more time with me instead of always sending me off to a professional to deal with my teenage problems. I think we could have worked on my different problems together if she would have made the time. I know she loves me, and it was difficult for both of us, but I guess I would have felt more loved if I wasn’t passed along to the next doctor all the time. I don’t know if I was doing some things for attention or if I was just truly unhappy. Either way, I know it wasn’t right of me, but at the time the only way I received attention was by doing something drastic. The eating disorder unit was a very depressing place. The bathrooms at the hospital remained locked, it smelled awful in there like a rotting smell and you could only use them a few hours after eating. That way your food had enough time to digest and you would not be able to throw it up. The staff would watch you eat, and basically force you to eat. I hated that place with a passion. There was no adolescent ward in the ED rehab facility and it was mainly older women so it was weird for me being the youngest patient. I finally made it out of there and I was so happy when I left that place that smelled like rotting people. After I left it was a struggle and I tried hard to get better and slowly but surely I did.

I got back into the swing of school as I was away for awhile. All the kids at school thought I was crazy, and it was true, I was. As soon as I thought everything was going well another problem arose. I couldn’t stand one of my teachers at my new school and I mouthed off to her one day in class. I started to leave her class in the middle of a lecture to go have a cigarette, and the teacher stopped talking and tried to stop me from leaving class. She asked, “Where are you going?” I responded, “I am leaving, I can’t understand a word you say and I am not learning anything in your class, so I am leaving to go smoke a cigarette outside.” My honesty has always gotten me in trouble and it still does. My teacher was pissed and basically told me in a very firm voice to sit down and that I wasn’t allowed to leave. I had serious problems with authority figures telling me what to do so I told her to go f^$@ herself and I walked out. It ended up causing a huge ordeal and the principal was called. To be honest, I really didn’t care if I was going to get in trouble, in fact it didn’t feel normal for me to not be in trouble. The principal found me 15 minutes later and told me that I was not allowed to smoke on campus so I told her I would leave campus and go home, which is exactly what I did. I walked home and the next day I was expelled.