Student #5 Continued

an equestrian boarding school in Canada with my best friend. I agreed with my mom to go on the basis that she wouldn't be there and also the opportunity of living on my own. I moved on August 28th, 2003, to Vancouver Island.

Instead of attempting to live the safer life my mother had intended, I just continued in my sin and found myself digging a deeper and deeper pit of misery. My mom insisted that I stay in Canada for winter break, but of course I manipulated and convinced her to take me home, promising her that I would behave myself and not get in trouble. My mom always wants to see the best in people, so she believed me and brought me back-wanting so badly to see a change. While I was back in L.A., I was hardly home, always strung and high, and completely destroying my body physically. From all the drugs I was taking and never eating, my weight dropped to around 96 pounds. I never was really "there", and my mom says that she always wondered where her daughter was ... even at times when I was home.

She was so distressed and perplexed as to what I was doing to myself and why, and realized that I was past the point to where she could step in and help. My mother looked past my half-alive body and saw deep, down, in me, the daughter she used to know and love. On January 9, I flew back to Canada along with my friend. Both of us, wanting to go back home and continue our lives there, became so desperate that we