You Give Me Hope, The Story of How Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch Saved My Life.
Warning/Introduction; To anyone who gets triggered, anxious, or overwhelmed by talking about eating disorders, depression, hospitals, self harm, suicide, and/or anything remotaley related to those mentioned. This piece will include numbers, such as my lowest weight, BMI, and exercise. Pictures will be posted during the time I was battling anorexia and orthorexia.
This article endeavors some, not all, of my stories while staying in 24-hour care facilities and I plead with anybody who is reading this; please DO NOT go past this paragraph if it will cause any negative mental state. It is not, in any way what I am trying to do and would feel remorse if any triggered or negative feelings result.
It is lengthy and at times can feel like it is all about the disorder, but this post was written about how I overcame this illness and the symbolic meaning of why I wear a certain piece of jewelry everyday and the everlasting gratitude for a rock and roll band. Before going any further, I would also like to just leave the number for the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) for anyone who is struggling or if you know somebody who is struggling and need help coping yourself; 1-800-931-2237 .
I would also like to make it known that I am truly appreciative of all of those who helped me on my journey. From doctors, nurses, friends, family, and the wonderful staff and Walden for taking care of me. This story however, as naive as it may seem, is when it all clicked for me. Something that therapy and psychiatry, no matter how many doctors and specialist I saw, no matter how many hours I spent in therapy, nobody ever helped me the way these men did - plus it's a music blog, let's stick to what we know.
May 2015. I was lying alone in my basement, my back was arched, knees were bent as the palm of my ankles pushed against the rugged carpet beneath them. Fingers sprawled across the loose fabric that rested on my abdomen, as everything inside of me felt like they were caving in and being set ablaze. The room felt as if it was spinning, but I wasn't sure of it. Maybe it was. I would never have known because my eyes were shut tight, and I was too weak and in too much pain to even open them. It was the only time I saw what I presumed to be a white beam come towards me, which to this day I still can't wrap my head around and has those disbelievers going, "Wow, she did belong on a psych-ward".
Next thing I knew it was morning. I had passed out in my basement from pain and exhaustion, but miraculously this morning I felt fine. Well, fine by my definition at that stage of my illness. See, I was already two years into my eating disorder, yet I had never been seen by a doctor for it. That night however, was the first and only time I had ever felt that kind of numbing pain and unconsciousness, so I brushed it off and went on a run.
It wasn't kept a secret, my disorder. I sat my family down on the bed a year prior to my hospitalization in 2015, with a handwritten note telling them that I had been searching online at sites and had a list of foods I wouldn't eat. However, nothing happened from that discussion. I can't blame them, my parents and twin sister, for they were just as clueless, naive and scared about the situation as I was. None of us had ever been around an eating disorder before, nobody knew what it was or how to handle it. I was also running everyday, maybe they thought I was just so skinny because I was a determined runner, out there no matter what the weather was saying- heat, snow, rain.
It wasn't just running, though. It was, "You HAVE to run thirteen miles today, Lindsey". So I did. Everyday, thirteen miles, and everyday 1,000 crunches three times throughout that 24 hour period. Followed by endless planks, and very little food, until the day I was hospitalized.
I was hospitalized after a few doctors had run tests on me to find out I was allergic to gluten. We all thought that was going to solve my issue; "She'll gain all the weight back now that she won't be getting sick after everything she eats". I never gained a pound back. Once I was told I would be able to gain weight, I was already twenty pounds underweight and my mind seemed like miles away from my actual head. I went on to loose twenty three more.
87 pounds at 5 foot 9 inches; for those health engaged and medical people, that's a BMI of 12.8. Everything I assumed to be a six pack and a desirable body was my organs poking through my skin. That one night laying on the floor feeling like flames where licking the insides of my intestines, arms, essentially everywhere was just my body looking for food and turning to the only source it could get nutrients; itself. Slowly my body began gnawing at its own organs, muscles and skeleton.
I start this article off with this because this was a turning point for me, a low experience that I understand I am better off now having dealt with. I had experienced and overcome a lot worse since these days in the summer of 2015- which will briefly be covered in this article. It was that summer that I was first hospitalized at Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, Massachusetts, my "summer camp". Confined to their facilities until my parents signed me out in September, but there was a long battle, and another inpatient camp visit, still to come.
Prior to my first round of treatment and inpatient I had just seen my first Crosley Record player - a gift from my Aunt Lynda to my Mamie in 2014. My twin, Lauren and I would spend hours upon hours going through my aunts old records; from Carol King, The Wiz Soundtrack, Bob Seger. It wasn't unusual though to find us gathered around whatever technology was radiating the music. Personally, I got heavily influenced and almost addicted to The Beatles when I was ten years old and was swept away with the current from there on out ( a current I'm still riding today). These artists became a safe haven for me as often I never fully felt like I fit in with my peers or even those closest to me. We all had a passion for something, mine was a strong infatuation for music. Most of our ideas were a shared love for sounds, songs, visuals and wit that were in the same ballpark as those closest to me, we were just, however, on a different team.
Soon the
weather began heating up and on 90 degree days the family spent
time at my Mamie and Papa's pool. The eating disorder had already got me at this point and I began isolating myself upstairs,
avoiding the poolside snacks and wearing a bathing suit. I found comfort
and hope while spending this time studying albums. There were three that my Aunt, Lynda, had that were constantly spinning; Damn The Torpedoes, Long After Dark, and Hard Promises.
I remember staring at the picture that came with Damn The Torpedoes. The tinted shades, cigarette between those pale lips, and hair that glistened golden as the sun, but one could stare at this sun forever without ever getting burned or blind - all I wanted was to be near Tom Petty (not in the creepy way, just the "hey, maybe your spunk will rub off on me" kind of thing) or better yet be able to shake the world the way he did. To create that music and the madness that was brought to my soul when I discovered that he was more than just the well known, overplayed, in my opinion, "Free Fallin'" singer.
At this point in time I was just widening my range of Petty knowledge through the help of the beloved George Harrison. The Traveling Wilbury's became a band Lauren and I would mimic, her calling me Nelson and I nicknamed her Charlie. I was attached to these albums, sitting up stairs at the desk, writing down each song word for word as they came on. It wasn't long until my aunt called us to say she had just purchased three Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker's tickets for Fenway Park in August 2014.
The concert was quickly approaching, just months away when a text message came over from California from my Uncle Dan. Danny moved out there when he was younger and never came back. It's the madness of music that grabbed him, in a Grateful Dead fashion, and he found his way with it. My uncle was working with a church group out in the San Francisco area called Glide, when drummer Steve Ferrone sat down to join the band. It was in that moment that my overly charismatic uncle took the opportunity to tell Steve that he had two nieces out in New Hampshire who were seeing them in Boston. We had just got upgraded seats and backstage passes for the show. Unfortunately, the night of the show we never got backstage. There was a mix up, but it didn't matter -We were there and were so incredibly thankful for the generous offer of backstage, not to mention our seats. However, music has been the one thing that has always seemed to have worked out for me and I hope writing that doesn't jinx the rest of my life with it. To make a long story short, that night we met Mike Campbell and Steve Ferrone. Two gentle, humble souls who just took my twin sister and I as we were, awkward teenagers, and accepted us. Talked to us. Took interested in us. Living in Boston now I always look at the Ritz Carlton as "the happiest place on earth" (I'm available for advertisements and promotions, Mr. Ritz Carlton). A short few months later, I received a package in the mail from "Jason (Ferrone), Steve and the boys" with T shirts for Lauren and I.
August 2015. Back in the hospital I had moved out of the locked unit, the unit where you couldn't even pee without having someone come in to check it and couldn't use the bathroom no matter what for after waiting an hour after anything entered your body -even if you'd never purged a day in your life. I had friends there, they understood part of what I was going through, though I could never understand half of what was going on in some of their minds; though I tried. I saw people cut themselves on heating grates because the confiscated everything from the little metal that holds an eraser on a pencil to our shoelaces and strings in our sweatpants; I had never even thought of cutting myself. Girls purging in their own laundry that they just cleaned; never done that either. Some residents screaming in the middle of the night from fear of some brutal demon and memories swirling in their non-lucid minds; I was fortunate to have never experienced that kind trauma. Sharing a unit with those detoxing from different kinds of highs, drugs, and booze, and the ball and chain that comes with that; nothing I had ever dealt with. That doesn't make me better than any of them, though some people tried to tell me that. It means we all suffer differently and have our own thoughts and challenges that we are fighting. I handled mine the way I knew how to, the way I could. They were handling theirs the way they thought was appropriate for them. In the end we both ended up in the same place with the same issue.
It's a disease that people often compare one another to each other, I heard one girl even describe it as,"She's skinner, so she's sicker. I want to be the sickest.". I was very thin, at one point deemed to look "the sickest" by some peers, but I know that I was a lot more controlled in my thought and in my head than some other's I was living with who's numbers may have been different than mine. If we all kept playing that comparison game, we all would have died, never knowing what it would be like to live outside of the chambers of our ED minds.
When I was in there though, I was actually happy. It's not easy for me to pass judgement and bias, I try to understand things from every perspective, key word being try. We had no makeup, no strings in our clothes and all had these awful hospital socks. Showering was just two or three stalls with a little spout that poured out and you'd stand in line in a robe or towel waiting your turn during morning weigh-ins and those, like me, who had an extreme meal plan and had to have a snack at 6:30 - Mine was a meal replacement Ensure drink and Cheerios before breakfast (which they gave me another Ensure on top of a heavy meal).We all were fighting for our lives which made us share a bond that could never be broken. It was a place that you could express yourself and nobody could judge you. Also, I wanted to go to treatment. I was relieved when my doctor came and said I needed to go away. Of course I cried, I was scared, but I remember being so beyond grateful that someone was finally listening after all this time and now over a year when I wrote that note telling my family I was in the grips of death and danger.
In August I was out of inpatient, out of residential (the next level of 24 hour care), and onto a five day week program where I was allowed to live at home and go to program on weekdays from 8 a.m to 3 p.m. During this time I lived with my best friends, my Mamie and Papa, and owner of that Crosley player, whom at the time rarely got played with the exception of every morning when I was getting ready. I would put on one 45 to get me started, usually a Fats Domino or their only Ringo Starr, "Devil Woman"- if it was Saturday you bet it was the Bay City Rollers.
In a five day a week program I was responsible for cooking my own meals. I was in control again. All this time I thought I could do it, I was longing for freedom and wanted recovery so bad but now I was out and man, I was out. My Mamie would grocery shop for me and I would go to the store with her. We'd cook dinner, my dad joining us every night. My dad was a big part of my recovery and I couldn't further this article without stopping to thank him for everything that he did. From visiting me at every single visiting hour, from 6-8 pm on weekdays after a long work day, 2-4 on weekends and again from 6-8 that night while I was in 24 hour care. During the five day program he would pick me up at my grandparents house every morning and drop me off at treatment before he headed into work and then meet us for dinner every night, as well as spend all weekend with me at my Mamie and Papa's.
Now back to the program, I screwed up on my meal plan. I started cutting out little things because I didn't think I needed them anymore. It was, "I don't need this extra starch at dinner", so I'd skip it and so forth. Then came the downfall. While living there my Papa was diagnosed with stage three bladder cancer and progressively getting worse. None of us could cope. My god, imagine my Mamie, dealing with her granddaughter with an eating disorder and having the responsibility to make sure she was eating and now her husband with this brutal, ugly disease. I tried my best to do what I needed but eating disorders have proven to be a very selfish disease and dealing with something that puts you in a depression that enforces a low appetite caused another spiral (not at all blaming this on the cancer). Next thing you know after treatment at 3 p.m. it wasn't my Papa who was picking me up, but I walked out the doors to my mom talking to my social worker with my bag all packed up to head back into 24 hour care. I remember unbuckling the seat belt on the highway and unlocking the car door in promise of pushing it open and jump out. Jumping out of the car, jumping out of this depression, this torture, this now disappointment my family must have, and jumping out of life. It was the lowest I got. I never contemplated with suicide and acted on it until that car ride back to Walden's facilities. Two weeks later, my parents signed me out of the hospital, never finishing treatment.
Started back at school in September, Senior year. My friends were glad to see me again but none of them, not one reached out to me when I was in the hospital, but I can't blame them. I told them I was at my grandparents for the summer, none of them knew I was in the hospital or battling this disease. Like everyone else, it was "She's just thin". October 23 Ringo Starr came to Boston, it was going to be Lauren and my third time seeing him. Exciting right? Well I was excited, until half way through the show this awful cloud of depression hit me and as my parents and twin were up swaying and dancing, I sunk low in my seat and cried for no reason.
In December my Papa took a stroke while driving. Three days later he had a second stroke and was taken off of life support where he lingered for a few days. On Christmas Day we watched as my Papa passed away in front of us. We buried him just before New Years. New Years, a new beginning and time to start over. Nine days into it our beloved dog, Molly, whom we've had for eleven years fell out of bed, released her bowels and died. They cremated her on January 13. January 16, Lauren and I were involved in a head on collision taken by ambulance to the Emergency Room, bed rest for two weeks. I gave up again.
April 25, 2016 I was in inpatient again, this time at 90 pounds. I remember it being the 25th because they wanted me to go in that Friday, April 22 but it was my father's birthday and then that also meant my first full day of treatment would of been on Roy Orbison's birthday and I didn't need to celebrate those two men in a hospital bed. This hospital round felt shorter than before but the days were still long. There were familiar faces in the halls and new ones whom would soon become friends I'd share my deepest secrets with through the poorly lit rooms. I remember this time around they allowed me to bring my guitar, which I couldn't play to save my life but it was there, and it was home.
Out of inpatient and onto the Residential unit, my ankles began to swell like a balloon at one point and I got a twinge in my back like never before. Palpitations was something I only heard others talk about but I had never experienced until now. I had what they told my mom was pitted edema. My kidney function was high, my CO2 levels were high, my heart was racing, my body was filling itself with fluid. The pain in my ankles wasn't unbearable but it was there. I was told to stay laying down whenever I could and elevate. However, High School graduation was 10 June and I wanted to go. I may not have been in school for a while but my record showed I was graduation pretty high in my class, despite not doing much work. I asked my social worker if I could be granted a pass to go to graduation and stay over night at my own home because I had a concert to go to after graduation, my fourth Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band show. I was declined. Too sick. The only way I could go to graduation, and I guess it was already discussed with my school because Lauren had told me she rehearsed it, was if my twin sister pushed me in a god damn wheel chair to get my diploma. No. I was eighteen now. I told my social worker I was signing myself out. The night before my graduation my mom came to visit me, thinking it was a normal visiting hour but instead of sitting on the couch she found herself helping me pack up my things. I WALKED graduation. I DANCED second row at Ringo Starr. However, It wasn't until two weeks later that my life changed forever.
16 June. House of Blues, Boston. My hair was different now than it was two years ago when we had seen The Heartbreakers perform and had met Mike and Steve. In 2014, I had long brown hair and now it was a short, blonde pixie. Lauren never changes though, she jokes that she's had the same hair cut since kindergarten, and it's true- keeps her young, I guess. We waited outside the venue for hours because it was general seating and we were going to be in the front. My dad and aunt went to a Red Sox game right across the street, it might have been the first concert Lauren and I went to alone, which I'm glad it was because the album Mudcrutch put out that year was special to us and always will be. I was in the hospital when the album came out and had really no way of listening to it. During visiting hours one night, despite an unsaid rule of no webcams, I asked for no visitors and I video chatted Lauren. It was our first time seeing each other in months. There was a stipulation I had that she wasn't allowed to visit me in the hospital. I didn't want her to see girls with tubes in their noses leading to their bellies. I didn't want her to see me in the state I was in. Part of it was also because were fighting a lot and I began to be triggered by some of her actions and taunting, which I was trying to work out in therapy. We saw each other and just lost it. Uncontrollable sobbing through an awful internet connection. Trying to keep quiet we streamed the album together online and it was in that moment that things were okay. I wasn't sick. I wasn't being treated. Lauren and I weren't fighting. Everything was okay. It was a "Beautiful World". Songs titles on the album were correlating with what I was going through; "Hungry No More", "Hope", even "Trailer" starting off with "Graduated high school..." as the close to my senior year was coming up, and as the laptop closed I looked around thinking "Welcome To Hell".
The night of the concert we pushed our way up to the front, crying, singing, screaming the whole time. I remember the audience screaming "BENMONT!" over and over again. I also remember staring down Mike Campbell, partially because it's hard not to be amazed by anything the man is doing, but to see if he recognized or remembered us. They came out and ended the show with Jerry Lee Lewis' "High School Confidentially", a song and a singer who's music Lauren always refers to as "Lindsey's music" so it was just hitting another level of nirvana. They walked up to the edge of the stage to bow, when Mike leaned over to us and said, "You're the twins right?", then bent down and gave me his guitar pick. Lauren threw a bouquet of flowers up on the stage that prior to the show we wrote little love letters in them, that I thanked them for being Lauren's salvage while I was away in the hospital and Lauren, I think asked them to leave their wives for her or something.
It was in that moment that I knew I didn't want to spend anymore of my time being locked in this cage that my eating disorder had put me in. It was the first time, in a while that I had truly smiled and felt it. Here I was months after 24 hour therapies, that I so beyond thankful for- don't get me wrong, realizing that I cannot be missing anymore opportunities like this. I wasn't going to spend another day in the hospital.
A pick holder and a chain was soon ordered off of Amazon.com that displays this pick now around my neck, as it slowly fades with each passing day. I often get asked, "That's a cool pick, where's it from." and I'll just tell them the concert, but I don't wear it as concert memorabilia. I wear it as a reminder to live, because I would have never of had that opportunity to see them if I had never accepted help the first time around. I wouldn't be writing this article right now if I hadn't overcome my thoughts. I wouldn't be here if I never allowed myself to be happy again, and Mudcrutch gave me that happiness back that night, that happiness I felt back in 2014 when I first saw The Heartbreakers. It's corny and all but I had gotten into The Heartbreakers right before I went into treatment and the music, the memories, even the T-shirt from the Ferrone's, was there through it all and every cry and triumph through my recovery and family passings. It was Mudcrutch that got me out and that's a debt that I can never repay.
This past summer, I was working down Cape Cod when I got a notification on my phone from a name I hadn't heard of in four years. We had been given a second chance at backstage when Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker's played back to back at the TD Boston Garden. Backstage just has never been meant to be for Lauren and I as the workers wouldn't let us by. Once again, forever, BEYOND grateful for the efforts and thoughts. We did save a decent amount of cash on waters and saw Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker's two nights in a row. I wrote a little review on this concert here (Read a short biography I did about Tom Petty here) .
I can proudly say, a month and a week after Mike Campbell gave me this pick I was medically claimed weight restored and have never dipped below it since. My blood work is phenomenally well compared to where it was two years ago. I go to concerts again. My guitars gets played, still not well but they're getting played. I'm in college and I work. We rescued a little dog who is the love of my life. Last month even, I had asked Benmont Tench to help me with an essay I was writing about Rock and Roll for an English class and the man came through!
My family has dealt with a lot of pain sense my weight restoration, including that Christmas being not only the last with my Papa but also the last one we would have spent with my Grandma, whom passed away in September 2016 after her own long battles with health. My dad took a health scare this summer when he was placed in ICU due to congestive heart failure. Thankfully he is on the right side of the grass still and doing unbelievably better. In fact, while I spent as much time at the hospital by his side as he did with me, despite him never wanting me to visit him, I brought in my iPad and had him sit through Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker's Running Down A Dream documentary, because I had him sitting still and he now had no excuse not to watch it with me. Even in hard times the boys still come through for me.
Through all the other down falls that have happened since my hospitalization I've been okay and haven't slipped up which I am tremendously proud of. I am proud of us, my family as a whole for going through everything and still making it out on the other side and somehow still manage to make it through each day. Each moment I felt a little anxious or overwhelmed, I always hold onto this guitar pick as a reminder of what it means to me and it puts my mind at ease.
I am currently back and forth with Mass General as you screw up your body when you torture it, so love yourself. Be corny, be pathetic. Rest. You're human, make mistakes, just don't be an idiot.
The following video is "Hope" from Mudcrutch's second album via Youtube;
This article endeavors some, not all, of my stories while staying in 24-hour care facilities and I plead with anybody who is reading this; please DO NOT go past this paragraph if it will cause any negative mental state. It is not, in any way what I am trying to do and would feel remorse if any triggered or negative feelings result.
It is lengthy and at times can feel like it is all about the disorder, but this post was written about how I overcame this illness and the symbolic meaning of why I wear a certain piece of jewelry everyday and the everlasting gratitude for a rock and roll band. Before going any further, I would also like to just leave the number for the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) for anyone who is struggling or if you know somebody who is struggling and need help coping yourself; 1-800-931-2237 .
I would also like to make it known that I am truly appreciative of all of those who helped me on my journey. From doctors, nurses, friends, family, and the wonderful staff and Walden for taking care of me. This story however, as naive as it may seem, is when it all clicked for me. Something that therapy and psychiatry, no matter how many doctors and specialist I saw, no matter how many hours I spent in therapy, nobody ever helped me the way these men did - plus it's a music blog, let's stick to what we know.
Next thing I knew it was morning. I had passed out in my basement from pain and exhaustion, but miraculously this morning I felt fine. Well, fine by my definition at that stage of my illness. See, I was already two years into my eating disorder, yet I had never been seen by a doctor for it. That night however, was the first and only time I had ever felt that kind of numbing pain and unconsciousness, so I brushed it off and went on a run.
It wasn't kept a secret, my disorder. I sat my family down on the bed a year prior to my hospitalization in 2015, with a handwritten note telling them that I had been searching online at sites and had a list of foods I wouldn't eat. However, nothing happened from that discussion. I can't blame them, my parents and twin sister, for they were just as clueless, naive and scared about the situation as I was. None of us had ever been around an eating disorder before, nobody knew what it was or how to handle it. I was also running everyday, maybe they thought I was just so skinny because I was a determined runner, out there no matter what the weather was saying- heat, snow, rain.
It wasn't just running, though. It was, "You HAVE to run thirteen miles today, Lindsey". So I did. Everyday, thirteen miles, and everyday 1,000 crunches three times throughout that 24 hour period. Followed by endless planks, and very little food, until the day I was hospitalized.
I was hospitalized after a few doctors had run tests on me to find out I was allergic to gluten. We all thought that was going to solve my issue; "She'll gain all the weight back now that she won't be getting sick after everything she eats". I never gained a pound back. Once I was told I would be able to gain weight, I was already twenty pounds underweight and my mind seemed like miles away from my actual head. I went on to loose twenty three more.
87 pounds at 5 foot 9 inches; for those health engaged and medical people, that's a BMI of 12.8. Everything I assumed to be a six pack and a desirable body was my organs poking through my skin. That one night laying on the floor feeling like flames where licking the insides of my intestines, arms, essentially everywhere was just my body looking for food and turning to the only source it could get nutrients; itself. Slowly my body began gnawing at its own organs, muscles and skeleton.
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| Low, but not "low enough" |
I start this article off with this because this was a turning point for me, a low experience that I understand I am better off now having dealt with. I had experienced and overcome a lot worse since these days in the summer of 2015- which will briefly be covered in this article. It was that summer that I was first hospitalized at Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, Massachusetts, my "summer camp". Confined to their facilities until my parents signed me out in September, but there was a long battle, and another inpatient camp visit, still to come.
Prior to my first round of treatment and inpatient I had just seen my first Crosley Record player - a gift from my Aunt Lynda to my Mamie in 2014. My twin, Lauren and I would spend hours upon hours going through my aunts old records; from Carol King, The Wiz Soundtrack, Bob Seger. It wasn't unusual though to find us gathered around whatever technology was radiating the music. Personally, I got heavily influenced and almost addicted to The Beatles when I was ten years old and was swept away with the current from there on out ( a current I'm still riding today). These artists became a safe haven for me as often I never fully felt like I fit in with my peers or even those closest to me. We all had a passion for something, mine was a strong infatuation for music. Most of our ideas were a shared love for sounds, songs, visuals and wit that were in the same ballpark as those closest to me, we were just, however, on a different team.
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| Damn The Torpedoes. via highfidelityla.com |
I remember staring at the picture that came with Damn The Torpedoes. The tinted shades, cigarette between those pale lips, and hair that glistened golden as the sun, but one could stare at this sun forever without ever getting burned or blind - all I wanted was to be near Tom Petty (not in the creepy way, just the "hey, maybe your spunk will rub off on me" kind of thing) or better yet be able to shake the world the way he did. To create that music and the madness that was brought to my soul when I discovered that he was more than just the well known, overplayed, in my opinion, "Free Fallin'" singer.
At this point in time I was just widening my range of Petty knowledge through the help of the beloved George Harrison. The Traveling Wilbury's became a band Lauren and I would mimic, her calling me Nelson and I nicknamed her Charlie. I was attached to these albums, sitting up stairs at the desk, writing down each song word for word as they came on. It wasn't long until my aunt called us to say she had just purchased three Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker's tickets for Fenway Park in August 2014.
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| Steve Ferrone. Fenway Park, 2014. |
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| L-R; Me, Mike Campbell, Lauren |
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| Molly and I |
It's a disease that people often compare one another to each other, I heard one girl even describe it as,"She's skinner, so she's sicker. I want to be the sickest.". I was very thin, at one point deemed to look "the sickest" by some peers, but I know that I was a lot more controlled in my thought and in my head than some other's I was living with who's numbers may have been different than mine. If we all kept playing that comparison game, we all would have died, never knowing what it would be like to live outside of the chambers of our ED minds.
When I was in there though, I was actually happy. It's not easy for me to pass judgement and bias, I try to understand things from every perspective, key word being try. We had no makeup, no strings in our clothes and all had these awful hospital socks. Showering was just two or three stalls with a little spout that poured out and you'd stand in line in a robe or towel waiting your turn during morning weigh-ins and those, like me, who had an extreme meal plan and had to have a snack at 6:30 - Mine was a meal replacement Ensure drink and Cheerios before breakfast (which they gave me another Ensure on top of a heavy meal).We all were fighting for our lives which made us share a bond that could never be broken. It was a place that you could express yourself and nobody could judge you. Also, I wanted to go to treatment. I was relieved when my doctor came and said I needed to go away. Of course I cried, I was scared, but I remember being so beyond grateful that someone was finally listening after all this time and now over a year when I wrote that note telling my family I was in the grips of death and danger.
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| Mamie and Papa |
In a five day a week program I was responsible for cooking my own meals. I was in control again. All this time I thought I could do it, I was longing for freedom and wanted recovery so bad but now I was out and man, I was out. My Mamie would grocery shop for me and I would go to the store with her. We'd cook dinner, my dad joining us every night. My dad was a big part of my recovery and I couldn't further this article without stopping to thank him for everything that he did. From visiting me at every single visiting hour, from 6-8 pm on weekdays after a long work day, 2-4 on weekends and again from 6-8 that night while I was in 24 hour care. During the five day program he would pick me up at my grandparents house every morning and drop me off at treatment before he headed into work and then meet us for dinner every night, as well as spend all weekend with me at my Mamie and Papa's.
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| (Not the official); Senior Picture, I got to leave treatment to take. |
In December my Papa took a stroke while driving. Three days later he had a second stroke and was taken off of life support where he lingered for a few days. On Christmas Day we watched as my Papa passed away in front of us. We buried him just before New Years. New Years, a new beginning and time to start over. Nine days into it our beloved dog, Molly, whom we've had for eleven years fell out of bed, released her bowels and died. They cremated her on January 13. January 16, Lauren and I were involved in a head on collision taken by ambulance to the Emergency Room, bed rest for two weeks. I gave up again.
April 25, 2016 I was in inpatient again, this time at 90 pounds. I remember it being the 25th because they wanted me to go in that Friday, April 22 but it was my father's birthday and then that also meant my first full day of treatment would of been on Roy Orbison's birthday and I didn't need to celebrate those two men in a hospital bed. This hospital round felt shorter than before but the days were still long. There were familiar faces in the halls and new ones whom would soon become friends I'd share my deepest secrets with through the poorly lit rooms. I remember this time around they allowed me to bring my guitar, which I couldn't play to save my life but it was there, and it was home.
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| Graduation |
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| 16 June, 2016. Lauren and I. |
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| Photo taken by Lauren |
A pick holder and a chain was soon ordered off of Amazon.com that displays this pick now around my neck, as it slowly fades with each passing day. I often get asked, "That's a cool pick, where's it from." and I'll just tell them the concert, but I don't wear it as concert memorabilia. I wear it as a reminder to live, because I would have never of had that opportunity to see them if I had never accepted help the first time around. I wouldn't be writing this article right now if I hadn't overcome my thoughts. I wouldn't be here if I never allowed myself to be happy again, and Mudcrutch gave me that happiness back that night, that happiness I felt back in 2014 when I first saw The Heartbreakers. It's corny and all but I had gotten into The Heartbreakers right before I went into treatment and the music, the memories, even the T-shirt from the Ferrone's, was there through it all and every cry and triumph through my recovery and family passings. It was Mudcrutch that got me out and that's a debt that I can never repay.
This past summer, I was working down Cape Cod when I got a notification on my phone from a name I hadn't heard of in four years. We had been given a second chance at backstage when Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker's played back to back at the TD Boston Garden. Backstage just has never been meant to be for Lauren and I as the workers wouldn't let us by. Once again, forever, BEYOND grateful for the efforts and thoughts. We did save a decent amount of cash on waters and saw Tom Petty and The Heartbreaker's two nights in a row. I wrote a little review on this concert here (Read a short biography I did about Tom Petty here) .
I can proudly say, a month and a week after Mike Campbell gave me this pick I was medically claimed weight restored and have never dipped below it since. My blood work is phenomenally well compared to where it was two years ago. I go to concerts again. My guitars gets played, still not well but they're getting played. I'm in college and I work. We rescued a little dog who is the love of my life. Last month even, I had asked Benmont Tench to help me with an essay I was writing about Rock and Roll for an English class and the man came through!
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| The current, healthy Lindsey |
Through all the other down falls that have happened since my hospitalization I've been okay and haven't slipped up which I am tremendously proud of. I am proud of us, my family as a whole for going through everything and still making it out on the other side and somehow still manage to make it through each day. Each moment I felt a little anxious or overwhelmed, I always hold onto this guitar pick as a reminder of what it means to me and it puts my mind at ease.
I am currently back and forth with Mass General as you screw up your body when you torture it, so love yourself. Be corny, be pathetic. Rest. You're human, make mistakes, just don't be an idiot.
The following video is "Hope" from Mudcrutch's second album via Youtube;
