Leah Messer - Hope, Grace, & Faith

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-64293-244-7

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-245-4

Hope, Grace & Faith

2020 by Leah Messer

All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Cody Corcoran

Interior design and layout by Sarah Heneghan,

sarah-heneghan.com

All people, locations, events, and situations are portrayed to the best of the authors memory. While all of the events described are based on the authors life, many names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

New York Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

To my daughters Aliannah, Aleeah, and Adalynn:
When I was lost you helped me find my way.
You are my reason for everything in life.

To Lindsay Rielly, Larry Musnik, and my MTV family:
Thank you for supporting me when I needed it most.

To all those who have endured
childhood abuse of any kind:
Youre one decision away from a different life.
I believe in you.

God grant me courage and hope for everyday
faith to guide me along my way...
and grace to accept what life gives me to do.

Helen Steiner Rice

Table of Contents

Waking Up from a
Long Nightmare

I keep having the same dream over and over. Im at the bottom of a deep dark pool of water. I feel a heavy pressure weighing down on my ribs. I need to breathe, but I know instinctively that I cant give in to the urge to gasp for air. Way above me in the distance, I can see a single ray of light piercing through the blackness. I know I need to swim to that light if I want to breathe againif I want to see my babies again. I kick my legs and pump my arms with all the strength I have in my body. Im a strong swimmer, but no matter how hard I push against the water, the light above me keeps getting dimmer and farther away. SomethingI cant see whatis holding onto me, pulling me down deeper and deeper. I panic and open my mouth to scream for help. I feel my lungs spasm as they fill with water. I realize with terrifying clarity that I am drowning. I reach out into the darkness, searching for something to grab onto that will keep me from falling into the abyss. Theres nothing out there but darkness...

I start to realize something is really wrong with me when one of the executive producers tells me that I couldnt keep my eyes open on camera. The crazy thing is, I didnt even know I was that out of it when they were filming. Ive been taking a lot of medications, but Im not a drug addict. After they botched my spinal tap when I was giving birth to my youngest daughter, the hospital discharged me with refill prescriptions for Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, and Tylenol 3, but what really knocked me out was the Diazepam. My doctor prescribed it to calm the free-falling anxiety I experience every time I try to wrap my mind around the stack of medical bills piling up on my kitchen counter. With all the doctor appointments Ive been juggling for Ali, my oldest, I never had time to schedule a follow-up appointment to figure out why Im still in so much pain, so my dad has been hooking me up with the same medications.

Some mornings the spinal headaches are so intense its a struggle just to get out of bed, but I have three little girls I need to take care of. I keep taking the pills so I can get up, get the twins ready for school, look after my youngest, and face the daily reality of my oldest daughters diagnosis with a rare form of muscular dystrophywithout completely falling apart. At first, the medications helped dull the pain in my body and my mind, but at some point, they stopped helping. Now, Im starting to think they might be part of the problem. I just want to feel normal, but Im either in so much physical pain that I can barely stand, or so foggy from the pills that I look like a junkie. I try taking half the dose, and then a quarter. My doctor keeps telling me that my body will regulate. Ill adjust to the medication and not feel so groggy. The puncture thats leaking spinal fluid into my body will eventually heal and the headaches will go away. Deep down, though, I wonder if Im so broken theres no medication in the world that can fix me.

I dont know how I got to this place. Sometimes I look around and I dont even recognize my life. It feels like one minute I was a sixteen-year-old cheerleader with dreams of going to college, and then someone pressed fast forward on my life. Now, Im a twenty-two-year-old single mother of three, sifting through the wreckage of two failed marriages and trying to figure out how I fucked up my life so badly. Ive made so many mistakes Ive lost count. They keep piling up, like pebbles in a jar, until theres no room left for the person I used to beor hoped I could become.

Ive almost forgotten (or maybe I just dont care anymore) that my life is being recorded for a reality television show and edited for maximum drama. The show has been a part of my life for so long now its hard to remember what it was like before I had a camera crew following me around, or producers dictating which parts of my life make it onto television and which parts end up on the cutting room floor. I dont really have a choice anyway. I agreed to live in this fishbowl. Between the mortgage on our house, Alis medical bills, and the money I naively kept lending my dad to help him get back up on his feet, I need the income.

I try to stop taking the medications, but my whole body aches like I have the flu and I feel like Im going to puke. I tell my mom that I dont feel right. I stay at her house for a few days. She and my stepdad, whos an RN, try to help me wean myself off of the medications. They give me Imodium for the nausea and Tylenol for the body aches. It helps, but I cant hide out at my moms forever. I go check on my dad, and as Im leaving, he presses a couple of pills into my hand. I dont want to take them, but Im in so much pain. I need to keep it together in front of the cameras. I have to pretend Im okay. If I slip up, even a little, it could give the twins dad ammunition he could use to get custody of them.

I know the Internet trolls and gossip sites are going to have a field day when this season airs, but I feel so depleted that Im beyond caring what I look like on camera or how it influences the way other people perceive me. I can already see the headline: Troubled Teen Mom Leah Messer on Drugs as Second Marriage Collapses! As cruel as the media and bloggers have been, the people who judge me the most harshly are the ones in my own hometown. But they have no idea what my life is really likethe humiliation of millions of people judging me for the stupid mistakes I made as a teenager, the heartache of failing at two marriages, the mind-splintering spinal headaches ever since my youngest was born, the loneliness of taking care of three little girls all on my own, the day-to-day reality of raising a child with special needs whose future is being eclipsed by a condition that I have no control over. They have no idea.

When I think about Ali, I just want to know why this is happening to her. She is so sweet and innocent. She deserves to have the same future as her sisters. I want to scream at the world that it isnt fair. I would never wish what Ali has on another child, but why her ? Why did she have to be born into a body that wont have the strength to run along the beach, do a cartwheel, or climb a tree? Im so sad and angry all the time I can barely eat...or sleep...or breathe. I feel like Im suffocating. When I close my eyes at night, the voice in my head gets stuck in an endless loop.