breaking up with the past
By: Mackie Arbaugh
Tags: Healing, Mental Health, Regret, Wellbeing

Reflecting on the transformations which have transpired inside of me as well as the ways I have grown as a human in general this past year or so makes me indescribably proud. Life is a constant work in progress, a never-ending project, a continuous lesson, and so on with other metaphorical comparisons which, admittedly, ring true. There are still so many things that I plan to continue to work and improve on, and while some are more simple, other things are unquestionably easier said than done. Something I have been struggling with trying to improve is living without regret; living without wondering about the “what if?”- what if I had chosen to live differently than I did in my past? What if I did (x) instead of (z)? I know I know, I wouldn’t be where I am nor who I am today if it weren’t for all of my glorious mistakes, my notoriously poor decision making, or my self-destructive way of living in the past. I tell myself to be thankful for all that I put myself through because I know how much stronger I am thanks to it and sometimes feel as though I have this emotional connection to life that some people aren’t capable of because they haven’t experienced the extremely high highs, as well as the excruciatingly low lows. But, it’s hard sometimes. There are periods of time where I feel like I have made so much progress on this specific conflict, and then times I feel like I’m regressing 10 steps. Times where I have accepted that what has happened has quite indeed happened and to take what I’ve learned and move on, as well as times where I drive myself crazy dwelling on what I should have done differently in various scenarios. Even though I am so beyond grateful for where I am now and the people I am so very fortunate enough to have in my life, it’d be a lie to say the past doesn’t pop up to haunt me every now and again.

As someone who has recently been on the quest to live as presently as possible, this obviously proves to be quite a road block in doing so and I have been navigating the best way to cope with it. I believe worrying about the future and dwelling on the past can really only serve a negative purpose and pull you out of the present moment, which is why I wanted to address this as well as admit to some my faults during recent years, and maybe serve as some sort of explanation as well as apology to those who knew me during this time. I also feel compelled to share this in hopes of the cathartic relief it may provide letting some of this out onto (digital) paper. Basically, I’m just getting a lot of shit off of my chest, and maybe somebody reading this will be able to relate on some degree…or maybe not and someone will just refer me to a therapist idk (looking for one anyways so hmu).

Before going on to discuss why I have such a difficult relationship with the period of time which is presumed to be “the best time of your life”, I do want to recognize that there are undoubtably so many positive outcomes from my time at Auburn; I did create some amazing friendships with people who I couldn’t imagine my life without, and also had opportunities that I don’t believe would have come my way if it weren’t for me being there. I also did have a *helluva* good time for a good portion of college, I don’t want this to come off as if I didn’t have any fun or that I didn’t make some amazing friends. It’s also not that I necessarily wish I went somewhere else, I just wish I did my time there, and in life, during those years so differently.

College was….a tumultuous time for me, to say the least. Personally speaking, I feel like I may be a minority in admitting that I am quite thankful that I am out of college. The majority of my friends miss college, which I totally understand, but I can’t fully say the same. I definitely miss certain aspects of college and specific times as well as my friends, but sometimes feel that the only reason I’d go back would be to redo pretty much everything I did while there.

I was- at least what feels like to me as- a complete and utter disaster throughout my entire time there, and feel like I am a considerably different person now than I was during that time. I think a lot of people who knew me in college see me now and think that I’ve changed so much, but the thing is, I was never fully the person they knew. I didn’t even have any idea who the fuck I was. I think a major factor was that I began college with no true sense of self…I was the equivalent to a piece of play doh, willing to mold and form into whichever shape fit the people I surrounded myself with. I never ever felt fully like myself, and I believe a lot of the adversities I encountered during this time were inarguably self-inflicted, but nonetheless still valid. I still wish I could shake myself back then, I wish I could tell my college self so so many things.

Rewinding to the years 2014–2018, I basically was living in an extremely destructive manner, having fallen submissive to the pressure which can occur while attending a very large school where it seems to consist of a rather large pool of beautiful and wealthy 18–20something-year-olds. I cared way less about what I was studying than I am willing to admit and more so about my social status. It was definitely more about the quantity of friends I had versus the quality. I feel like I knew a pretty decent amount of people, but probably actually knew a very small chunk of them. I definitely found self-worth in attending/getting invited to the most social events I could, as well as the amount of people I knew when I would go out or even just run into on campus…I *smh* thinking about it. I genuinely sought validation through other people. I was an active participant in Auburn’s nightlife, and an aggressive participant at that. It was a rarity that I went out and didn’t black out at some point during the evening, which some may say is just modern college culture, but I was definitely doing it for the wrong reasons and I woke with regret the following morning time and time again. I was making decisions I am still too ashamed to admit to and doing things that I never would do sober, and it genuinely still hurts to think about them in detail. My anxiety was at its absolute peak, all the while dealing with an eating disorder which managed to stick with me like the nuisance of a little tic who wanted to run my life throughout my entire college existence. Everything was feeding onto one another, and I ended up caught in this whirlwind of destructiveness and didn’t know how to find my way out for way too long.

I kicked off college with the typical freshman year that many of us shamelessly partook in: going out four+ nights a week, blacking out on most of those nights, late-nighting at Little Italy’s Pizzeria, waking up in unfamiliar locations, etc. It was crazy, it was fun, it was reckless; it was all one hopes their freshman year of college would be. After my first semester of nights I didn’t remember more than ones I did paired with the famously inevitable freshman 15, I realized over that first winter break that I needed to get my shit together. I began to feel extremely lost and even applied to transfer to a different college (which I would later on decide against). Second semester was where, unbeknownst to me at the time, an extremely unhealthy relationship with myself would form its’ early stages. I became regularly acquainted with a little drug known as Adderall and realized not only does it help you learn a semesters’ worth of information in three nights, it also makes you not eat! What a discovery! What began as a little boost to study quickly became my fuel for energy and an addiction to a repressed appetite. Slowly but surely, I became to be reliant on the feeling that Adderall provided and it became a part of my daily life to the point where I felt like I could not take on the day unless I had the drug running through my blood, though I wasn’t prescribed it. This little cycle fed into the summer, where I hit an extremely low point due to many factors of that period of time, which I will refrain from going into too much detail about at the current moment. I gave up Adderall cold turkey, and felt that I had reached the light at the end of the tunnel.

Sophomore year began and before I knew it, I was sucked back into my old ways. I believe I was seeking some form of control in my life, which resulted in me resorting to welcoming an eating disorder back into my life. When I think about sophomore year, I feel empty. And dark. I became absolutely obsessed with this eating disorder, allowing it to consume every aspect of my life. Thinking about this year, I am reminded of all of the dinners I missed with friends because I couldn’t bear to put myself under the pressure that I did back then around food. I’m reminded of the multi-hour naps I was taking daily because of the lack of energy I had, as well as the 3–5 mile runs that I forced myself to go on every. single. day. no matter how tired or bad I felt. I’m reminded of the trips to the bathroom after every meal, thinking no one around me knew, but realizing now that, in fact, everyone knew. I’m reminded of the times I cried looking in the mirror because I wasn’t skinny enough, even though I was at my lowest weight. I’m reminded of how absurdly drunk I would get due to the lack of nutrition I obtained in my body over and over again. I didn’t realize at the time how little control I had allowed myself to have over my own life. I’m not sure how I made it out of that year, but I did. I have multiple people who deserve my never-ending gratitude for not giving up on me during that year.

The next two years were somewhat of a blur when I look back on them. I spent the summer after sophomore year interning in New York City which was an absolute DREAM. Things felt like they were going so well, so I ignored the many issues I was still facing due to the circumstances of life at the time. Unfortunately, but expectedly, my ED followed me to the Big Apple and had no intentions of departing anytime soon. With each period of time it stuck around and life evolved, it evolved with me. It took shape in many different forms- varying in severity, frequency, amount of space it took up in my brain, etc. There were times when it would seem like I was finally kicking it, and times where it was evident that it was kicking me. **Something you find out after trying to beat an eating disorder on your own: the majority of people battling an eating disorder cannot beat it on their own.

Throughout junior and senior year, I was still on my same bullshit. I was going out more nights than I wasn’t; I prioritized my social life so much more than my mental health and it took a massive toll. It wasn’t until the end of senior year when an incident (it shall be referred to as) occurred which forcefully ripped me out of the downward spiral I was heading down at an extremely rapid rate and forced me to confront everything I had been running away from for so long. The entirety of the past four years hit me like a fucking train. This period of time was without a doubt one of the hardest things I have ever had to go through, but thinking about what would have happened had I continued heading down the same path is honestly terrifying.

Looking back, I see how I was using drinking and going out, among many other things, to run away from the internal struggles I was facing. I constantly surrounded myself with others because the second I was in a state of solitude was when I was reminded of all of the demons which were residing inside of my head whom I had no desire to face. I genuinely had zero healthy coping mechanisms whatsoever, and though I thought I was solving my problems by keeping myself occupied constantly, I was actually just adding fuel to the fire. I found myself lying constantly- whether about myself, my life at home, my eating disorder, where I came from, etc. Life never felt calm, I never felt at ease, and I never felt honest. So much time feels wasted from being in this state, all of these factors were consuming me daily. Days went by in a blur and I knew throughout this period how much I needed help, but was too scared to actually admit to myself the reality of my situation, so I left the whirlwind continue on and continue to swallow me until I was finally forced out of it.

Another part of this period of time which also haunts me is my awareness of the fact that I wasn’t only harming myself throughout this time. I was hurting so many people around me, people who cared endlessly for me, who I gave every reason possible to walk out on me, but who didn’t. This is the part I think that makes me regret everything the most, not only what I put myself through, but what I put others through. There are times when I truly do not know how they ever put up with me and stuck around for as long as they did as well as times where I wonder where I would be had it not been for them and their persistence with our friendship, knowing quite well it probably wouldn’t be in a good place.

When I think back to this time period, feelings of anger and resentment tend to arise. It sometimes feels like 4.5 years was taken from me, that they feel almost as though they were wasted. I blame the thievery of those years on my eating disorder and my anxiety, but mostly my lack of coping mechanisms and failure to reach for help. I feel angry I didn’t pay more attention to life and what actually mattered. I feel angry that I treated people the way that I did, that I selfishly continued harming myself, watching them suffer as well. I feel angry that I could have been gaining so much knowledge and experience, but instead chose to retreat to the surface level part of college. I get angry that I didn’t study something that ignited a fire inside of me and that I took advantage of the education that we paid for which I had at my fingertips. I wish I had sparked up conversations with random people in class outside of my stereotypical group, studied way more, attended class way more, played around to figure out what made me feel passionate, took random classes on things I was interested in. I wish I cared more about what was going on in the world around me and so much less about what people thought about me. Four and a half years is a lot of time, and while it’s happening it feels so fast, but then you look back and realize how much you could’ve done with your life in that amount of time, and that’s where a lot my regret stems from.

In retrospect, this period of time is such a small speck of life. While it feels like those years are where you figure out who you are and who you want to be, I will not let them define me. I have changed and grown more in the past year and a half than I did within the entirety of those four years. Instead of beating myself up for not being able to conquer this mental battle with regret, I want to remind myself that it’s okay to not be okay with my past. To sometimes be vulnerable with myself, allow myself to genuinely wonder what the fuck was going through my head during that period of time. I think if I just allowed myself to simply just accept my past and move on, I’d end up compartmentalizing it and not dealing with it, thus allowing this dark ball of regret marinate inside my head popping back in every now and again to taunt me. Emilee mentioned something which really resonated with me. Instead of moving on, move forward. The more I contemplated these words, I understood what they meant. Moving on means you just try to forget about something and continue on with life expecting everything to be okay after whatever you have experienced, while moving forward is more about the acknowledgment of what has happened, making amends with it, and to keep the past as the past and keep moving, which is exactly what I plan to do. This is not an overnight nor linear process, it is something I am going to have to continue to work on for many years to come.

I believe an important part in the process of healing overall is to close your eyes, let yourself be angry, be sad, grieve over things you’ve done and said, but always remembering to open your eyes back up and look around. Look at where you are, appreciate the fact you’re still alive, you’re still breathing, and you made it out of whatever dark hole which felt like the end of the world without too many bruises. Let all of the regret that you feel from your past manifest into the fuel for your future, for what you’re going to do and how you’re going to live differently. This testing time period of my life will serve as a reminder as well as motivation constantly; a reminder of how far I have come and motivation to never let myself regress to that place again.

I’m eternally grateful for the people who stuck around, for those who were introduced to me during this time thanks to the sequence of life’s events which happen with their own perfect timing, for (somehow) always being given a second chance, and for simply just wanting better for myself. There is no choice but to move forward, you can’t change where you’ve been but you can sure as hell change where you’re going.