A True Story From The Model You Should Know

   

Let's be honest...it's the 1st such post in my blog. A while ago I had an interview with an amazing young MODEL. It's actually became one of the most popular post among all of them I've ever made during blogging. So recommend you to read it))) And I got the email from this gooorgeous girl (Liv) and she wrote that have some story to tell and there is sooo much drama in her private life and profession. Honestly...I felt myself as Oprah! I couldn't say no as there is a thing that everyone should read and have lessons for themselves. So please read...

 

"I moved to LA in October 2012, this was my very first experience modeling and the very beginning of my career. Within the first 2 weeks I was already shooting, working, and thought I met the guy of my dreams at a small fashion show for a Melrose Ave boutique. I was living the absoloute dream. By December I had grown closer to my boyfriend than I had ever been to anyone, honestly. We had moved in together, spent every second we weren't working (he is also a model) together. It had pretty much become just us againt the world. We didn't care about anything else. I visited my family at home in the small town of Greenville, SC for Christmas for a short week and a half. Then I urgently headed back to LA to return to my boyfriend. I sorta noticed trust issues/ separation axiety a bit in that short week and a half away from each other but I was just head over heels and thought it was sweet we were so inseparable. 

By February we were saying "I love you" and we had it all completely figured out. Maybe it was being isolated and togther all the time that made us grow so close or maybe we were really just that much alike. I'm really not sure. I had basically put a pause on my career.. I was originally supposed to be developing and going to NY to sign within the first 2/3 months of being in LA. Finally in March I had signed with a top agency without even visiting NY. Then in April I went home to visit make my way to NY finally. But first I was going to spend 2 weeks with my family.

Randomly one day my boyfriend texts me this whole idea about 2 girls (a maxim/nude model & waitress that I had met but didnt really know) moving into the extra room in the apartment where a photographer would come and go and pay rent. He had already pretty much agreed to it before he even said a word about it to me. I did not think it was okay, I was hurt and confused. I was not ignoring him, but I did take the next day to go to an amusement park with my brother and sister.. Not keeping my phone on me. Next thing I know, he's already spoke to my mom and is getting on a plane to come and see me before I take off to NY. This meant completely letting each other in.. We went away for the weekend to mend what was going on and spend time together. I knew he wasn't a bad guy.. how could he be? He flew across the world to make sure we were okay, right? Or was it just to make surer I wasn't going to leave him?

At home there was my middle/highschool boyfriend that I had left behind the second i set eyes on my current boyfriend (at the time) I had been home for a few days and I guess he had found out through mutual friends that I was home visiting. I had outgrown him and honestly wanted nothing to do with him. He was calling/texting and then ended up basically just being so upset by my non-response that he showed up to my house. I talked him down with some friends of ours that night. He was very upset and talking about drugs and suicide. No one should ever get to the point where they feel they should take their own life (is what I was thinking at the time) He went home that night (still upset).

I told my boyfriend what happened that night and he seemed very trusting about the whole situation. The next day was convienently my upset ex highschool boyfriends birthday.. I agreed to grab food with him and made sure we went to a sports bar.. Not an actual dinner or date-like place. I didn't tell my boyfriend or ask permission. I guess I was still upset about the whole 2 girls situation and didn't feel the need to, just like he didn't. We left dinner.. he dropped me off, I ended up being locked out and seeing as I didn't live there anymore.. I did not have a key. So my ex ended up having to come back and help me break in to the back door. Invited himself in to see my brothers kittens (him and my brother were and still are very close friends) He tried to kiss me.. I denied him, he got upset. I knew I didn't want to kiss him but for some reason the second time he tried.. I just went with it. He tried to take it further but i got really upset. I started crying and telling him to leave, to get out of my house and never talk to me again. Once he realized he could not console me... he left and continued trying to convince me it was okay through text. I texted him back telling him how I was going to tell my boyfriend everything and to never talk to me again.

That night, I called my boyfriend to tell him.. and I remember him telling me what an annoying long day he had. I was going to see him in NY in 2 weeks anyway so I figured this really isn't something you tell someone over the phone anyway.. So I waited, I couldn't sleep at night, I was constantly in a bad mood because I was so mad at myself for betraying the person I loved so much. He knew something was wrong with me so he started looking into things, ended up messaging several guys.. including my ex asking him weird questions.. Like "When was the last time you saw her and what did the 2 of you do?" Of course my ex was infuriated that I had cut him out and blocked him.. He took this as an oppurtunity to do what he had been trying to do since the day we got together.. He LIED and filled my boyfriends head with crazy things. Repeatedly I was trying to protect my boyfriend until he got to NY the next week (I was already there living in a models apt) Then I just couldn't stop crying and feeling like a terrible person, so I told him everything. But of course he kept digging when there was nothing left to dig for.. I don't blame him but he was asking for my phone records, calling my mom to ask questions, messaging my friends, it was out of control. Finally (it felt like forever later) he arrived to NY late at night.. I waited up knowing I had a shoot early the next day. I immiediatly walked to where he was staying and we fell right back to how we were before.

He forgave me (or so I thought) and we spent 5 days together falling asleep on the rooftops, making love in stairwells, and talking about our future together once again. I was still so hurt by my own actions that I was not even realizing his. Texting other girls he had hooked up with in college, talking down to me, and basically just getting revenge. But I would just let it slide because I thought I deserved it. Eventually a few days after he had left NY.. He was saying things like "No one else would ever put up with you unless they were average and had no other options" and "You're on thin ice" and I was fed up.. I was done with being talked to like that so I stood up for myself and he literally just threw me away in that moment.

Never said a word. I figured maybe he needed a few hours or a day but I didn't realize what was happening. 2 days had gone by and he wouldn't respond to anything. I tried buying a plane ticket to LA that night and told him I was coming.. I figured he would cave and be excited but instead.. He responded "no" and that was the last I ever heard. I lost it. I had also been going through stress with the NY modeling I was supposed to be losing 10-15 pounds and I was having 3-4 shoots a day.. developing. Along with the personal training I was going through to lose weight. Plus I was eating MAYBE 300 calories a day, just drinking lots of water. I was deperate to lose weight quickly. I guess so much had gathered up in my life from the way I was raised and all the tough things I went through as a child all the way up until I moved to LA.

I didn't even realize what a damaged person i was and how badly I blamed myself for every situation I went through. I had become so loyal to the point where my problems didn't even exist anymore. I didn't even think about them, much less face them. The night I last spoke to him.. 2 hours later I went to Walgreens and bought 2 packs of sleeping pills. At first I don't think I bought them to overdose on, I bought them to help me sleep until I left NY the following week because I had shoots. I took 2 and layed down.. Didn't work, my ody was literally fighting the sleep aid to stay awake. My mind wouldn't stop. At the time all i could think was that I had no reason to live, I lost my best friend and whole world. I didn't think I even should live for my career because I wasn't even "ready"..

I had way too much weight to lose and "wasn't good enough". I swallowed 24 sleeping pills in a matter of 4 hours of all these thoughts. I was blaming myself "if I wouldn't have kissed my ex", "if I could have just been skinnier before I came here".. It all was just tearing me down and I had cut out pretty much everyone except for the person who had just walked out on me. I had no friends in NY, No one to go and talk to.. Just the foreign models I lived with who didn't understand the concept of a boyfriend to begin with. In my mind I had ruined my whole perfect life that I created for myself and there was no going back. It was over. Once I had taken all of the pills.. I knew what was happening.. I felt it. I called my mom..

I guess that was a sign I didn't want to die. I was sitting in the staircase of the building I was living in.. My mom knew something was wrong, I couldn't even speak correctly I was hysterical. I was crying so hard I couldn't even breathe. I stumbled down the stairs and into the hallway to at least try and make it into the apartment.. My roommates ended up hearing all of the commotion and came out into the hall.. realized it was me and immediately called an ambulance while trying to stick their fingers in my mouth to help me throw up. I lost track of what was even going on. I blacked out and I had cried so much recently that tears weren't even coming out anymore and I was just screaming.

I remember kind of coming back awake on the ambulance but I couldn't stay awake. I woke up hooked to IV's and monitors in the Psychiatric part of the hospital. I was infuriated partly because i was still alive and partly because I thought I could not face what was going to happen next. I didn't want to speak to the doctors, I refused food, Therapy, All of it. I just shook my head. It took my family a day to drive there and since I was ONLY 17 my agent was required to stay as much as she could. She mainly waited in the waiting room but she would come in to speak to me and check on me. I was embarrassed because I had such a tough girl reputation... all of my friends and family were convinced I could pretty much deal with anything and then all of a sudden.. there I was the psycho girl who tried to take her life and ended up in the hospital having more problems than anyone else around her. Finally my parents showed up with my siblings and I wasn't even thinking about it but I was hateful. I wasn't glad they were there.. that I had a bat shit crazy family that still pulled it together to ride in a car all the way to New York to come get me. I didn't care. I was so focused on my loss that I didn't care what i was gaining.

The hospital wasn't letting me leave because of the angry, suicidal state that I was in. Finally we convinced them to let me go home to continue treatment as an impatient at a mental hospital. The drive home was the first and only time i would be able to use my phone for 3 weeks so of course I instantly looked to see what my now ex boyfriend was doing. I knew that he knew because we shared the same management and word travels quick, plus my mom said she had spoken to him. While I was hooked up to IV's in the hospital.. Not even properly breathing with bleeding in my stomach.. he was posting funny videos of him with his friends.. hiking.. eating.. shopping.. smiling. And of course that was the worst thing I could have possibly done because that threw me deeper into depression. I was checked in as soon as I reached my home. I went from a model making some pretty big moves in the industry to a scared, depressed, weak, completely lost 17 year old girl who was stuck in a tiny mental hospital in a small town.

I started to accept therapy, by my second week I would eat crackers and drink water without being forced. I was still angry and didn't want anything to do with anyone. My family would visit me when they were allowed.. My parents have never had anything figured out but I saw their attempts to help me try and see that I could get through this. I just couldn't believe he hadn't even reached out to say "I am glad you are alive" or "I'm here as a friend" He literally just did not care (Or so it seemed). I knew for a fact I was going to be dropped by my agency. I told the therapist that I didn't understand how everyone was just going to throw me away.. and she said something to me that not only made me want to live again but has stuck with me everyday since, she said "Honey, no one and I mean no one can throw you away. You can not be forgotten unless you want to be. He does not have the power to THROW YOU AWAY and neither does anyone else".

I could honestly tell that she meant that when she said it. She was some random lady that I had never met in my life and I could see that she believed in me. And I didn't care if anyone else did because that was enough. I was not instantly better. I would wake up in the middle of the night crying. I still have dreams that I died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I had eating problems and terrible thoughts for quite a while. Turned to alcohol to get me through every night for quite a while and that never even helped. But I stayed home and rebuilt myself.

It has been 8 months since I lost "my perfect world" and 7 months since I Stopped trying to end my life and 3 months since I started to rebuild my mind and my career. I continued therapy until 4 months ago and I still talk to the therapist who brought light to me occasionally. I turned to kickboxing and fitness for my anger problems. I Turned to rebuilding a relationship with my friends and family instead of continuing a relationship with excessive drinking. I can look back and say " Wow I was an idiot" and just ignore it like I had been ignoring everything else. Or I can say "I know more about myself now than I probably would have ever found out if I had not had everything fall down around me."

During the time I wanted someone, anyone to put their life on hold and save me.. but no one did. I picked myself up little by little. After a ruined reputation as a model considering The only sources that knew what happened My agents, my manager, my ex boyfriend.. told everyone that I once knew or once knew me what happened of course with their own twists that i was crazy. I heard terrible things about myself that were not even true that had come from the mouths of people I trusted. Yes, I had done some pretty bad things and I was not in a great state of mind, but I didn't deserve to be kicked while I was down like i was. It has taken me months of trying to get the facts straight from "Well he said he just broke up with you because he wasn't interested in you anymore and you went psycho" to "Oh, you were actually going through something really harsh." The break up and silent dumping had triggered me. But underneath it all, it was either going to be that or something further down the road that would make me finally snap. I am thankful for the people that encouraged me to start modeling again and believed in me. Of course I still hear things about it and I still get asked a lot of questions but only I know what I went through and only I was able to put myself back together. I still do not have an agency in NY and I am not embarrassed by that.

I was 17, I made a mistake. I have grown from a teenage girl with high expectations, a dream life, and a rocking career to A humble, thankful, happy, independent, hard-working 18 year old woman. My career is back on track and now my mind is as well. I wanted to share my story because I know that there are a lot of people out there who look at me and think "Wow I wish I had her life" but instead I would like people to look at me and be like "Wow, I am going to make it through this obstacle.. just like she did"."

 

This story can be helpful for everyone whose dreams and love meet each other becoming from a dream to nightmare. But there is always can be a solution and people who can help you...and the main person is YOU! Thanks a lot Liv for trusting me and my blog your story and sharing it. You know that I've always liked your photos and wishing you the best!!!