Many people want someone to come and save them. We were raised listening to fairy tales of the prince saving the beautiful lady in the tower from the evil stepmother. Our cinemas offered stories of love with the rich guy rescuing the prostitute from the daily hustle. All of the stories were created because it is hard to make a story about a person that saved themselves because it is rarely is one person that saves themselves. The phrase - It takes a village applies here.

For a large swath of my life, I have waited for my prince or that person to come along and save me. This lead me into bad relationships, horrible one-sided friendships and being a target for getting taken advantage of. Ever person that came into my life, I had this unrealistic expectation that they were going to save me in someway. It started in college in 1998 when a group of friends confronted my mother about my drug use and how scary it had become.

I moved back home briefly and then moved into my first apartment, The Mertland Apartments. I had a tiny studio that overlooked city hall and a pony express statue. My neighbors were all crackheads. It wasn’t uncommon for people to be knocking on my door screaming to save them. I just pretended that I wasn’t home and ignored them. I would watch my neighbor across the hall load his crack pipe, light it and then stare off into the distance like he was an empty body.

This was just the beginning of rescues in my life. There was the time that I thought school would save me after living in Kansas City for a while and going through a horrible breakup with my first boyfriend. I thought getting away from it all would make it go away and that the pain would stop thus making the drug use stop. This way of thinking failed miserably failed miserably. I moved back to Maryville and starting taking prescription speed, Adderall. This ended in me having a mental breakdown.

I kept trying to fill the void that was missing in my life. The void was the self confidence knowing that I was enough and that I was worth it. It wasn’t until I lived in San Francisco that I started having this realization. I had amazing friends. I had a place to live and I was paying for my schooling while working three jobs and freelancing as a figure model. Looking back, my hero needed to be myself. I could have been completely swallowed up by the city but I always remained my head just above water. Now, I’m swimming and learning that the only hero that is responsible for rescuing me is myself.