Sophomore to junior year

"Yay! Spinal immobilization!"

Things kept truckin' right on from there.

Chris and I became a serious couple, of course, and I stopped cutting and taking pills. Admittedly, I still smoked pot occasionally, but not nearly to the degree I once had, and I was no longer dependent on it.

I started seeing a psychiatrist who threw out all previous diagnoses and diagnosed me with ADHD. I'm really sick of this game of adding and subtracting diagnoses but the Adderall I've been prescribed has been the only the only thing that has helped me, although I do despise the idea of taking an amphetamine on a daily basis.

I transferred high schools to the one where most of my friends attended. I took biology with the most amazing teacher ever, Ms. Moore. She called all things microscopic and living "wee beasties" and took us for nature walks on a regular basis. I love her to bits.

I had earned a 3.5 + GPA by the end of my sophomore year and won a few awards. It felt great.

Things at home were as turbulent as ever. My mom was taking prescription pills so often that her normal state was complete incapcitation. My new step-dad Dicky had moved from California but was in complete denial of my mom's addiction. My dad was struggling to make ends meet and we even ended up living off a food bank for quite a while.

Chris provided an oasis for me. He treated me like a Princess and he was my best friend.

Junior year was much of the same. Chris and I started having a few tensions in our relationship, but that's to be expected; in general things between us were amazing. I started taking college courses like English and Anatomy and Phys. I loved being away from the superfluous, ridiculous, overly dramatic world of high school and actually learning at a purposeful pace.

I wrote for the school paper and became somewhat notorious for my out-there ideas and occasionally controversial opinions. I wrote news stories about the rise of meth labs in suburbia, the horribly inconsiderate attitude of the general student population towards one another, and the misuse of the term "African American."

I became aware of a local search and rescue team that was completely run by high school students. I became extremely interested and even wrote a newspaper article about the team, allowing me to interview a member of the team, Ashley, who turned out to be freakishly similar to me in goals, interests and attitude. She is now one of my best friends.

With plenty of enthusiasm I joined the team and prepared myself for Basic Training, AKA search and rescue boot camp. Little did I know the ass-whooping that would ensue. After hours and hours and hours of carrying out heavy people on litters and hiking over rough terrain with no rest, I was on the brink of collapse. No one thought I would last through the day, nevermind the rest of the weekend or the second weekend of basic training. I called my dad hysterically crying asking him to come pick me up. Fortunately, I soon changed my mind.

I barely eeked through the first weekend, but did better on the second. I realized that SAR is essentially back-breaking physical labor and a lot of hiking, and started getting in better shape. I was pretty low on everyone's list after I struggled so much through basics, but I would have my time to shine. When the emergency care class, a course with a curriculum somewhere between First Responder and EMT-B level, rolled around, I shocked everyone. I flew through the class, only missing 1 point on the final. I arranged study sessions, wrote study guides and worked my ass off to ensure everyone else passed too. I am proud to say that the emergency care class I was in had the highest pass rate in the history of the course.


I stopped smoking pot completely once I joined the team. SAR became my full-time job, and my friendships in it became increasingly more important. Because of all of these factors, I started drifting away from Vanna and my old group of friends.