Born To Be A Badass, Chapter Share

Back to the book and getting excited! My goal is to have it completed by December 2020. What a year this has been so far, and I'm grateful for the opportunity and time to write. 

I will start sharing excerpts from my book to keep myself accountable for the writing process. Here's a clip from Part 1, Chapter 1, called Breaking Point. I hope you guys enjoy it, and I would love your feedback!  

"Summer of 2014. 

Where am I? What is happening? How did I get here? 

I haven't moved from bed in days, and I've forgotten what it was like to eat or even be able to breathe for a moment without bursting into tears. Feeling empty and hopeless, I keep contemplating how to end my life: should I hang myself? Maybe take a bunch of pills? Or take enough cocaine to stop my heart from beating? My world around me was closing in, and all I wanted to do was find the quickest escape.

I reached the only person I knew who would repeatedly listen to what I was going through, my mother. I felt as if, in my mental breakdown, she wanted to jump through the phone, grab me, and shake me out of my misery. She couldn't understand or grasp the severity of how I felt since she had never felt that way before. 

My mother lived in upstate New York, approximately 45 mins outside the big New York City, where I was living. Always working to pay the bills, she could not be with me 24/7. Worried, she had me on suicide watch, making sure my friends would check on me.

She did her best and spent hours upon hours chatting with me. Even at work, she accommodated what felt like my unbearable neediness. Yet nothing she was saying to bring light and hope into my darkness was getting through to me. 

For an outsider looking in, it might have seemed like I had everything, and I was living the "Sex in The City" dream. I had a beautiful apartment in one of the trendiest neighborhoods in New York City. I was head bartender at one of the most infamous strip clubs, only needing to work three days a week to support my lavish lifestyle. I was traveling the world, taking off to exotic destinations. I was eating at the best restaurants and partying at the best clubs that city life had to offer. 

Truth be told, I was a fucking mess amid yet another failed relationship. My external world was eating away at how I felt internally, and I didn't have the energy to run from it anymore—drowning in a pity party and having no clue how to get out. Was this my rock bottom? Something needed to change; I needed help. 

First, let's start from the beginning of what led me to the downward spiral in the first place."

Sending love and light,

Lauren