What if they hate me? What if they see the real me and don’t like what they see? What if who I am is not good enough for them? Should I change? A tiger can’t change its stripes, but a chameleon certainly can. There is not a single person with blood in their veins and air in their lungs who can say that they have never asked themselves these sorts of questions. The road to authenticity is paved with discarded masks. At the end of that winding road, showing us all how to unapologetically be ourselves, is Mia C.Y.
Let’s go back to before being herself was so easy—back to a time when she didn’t even know who Mia was: childhood. Born and raised in Sherman Oaks, Mia attended an all-girls private school for most of her life. She excelled at school. Straight As. Front of the class. Every teacher’s favorite student and every student’s favorite teacher. She was wealthy with friends and in every conceivable way, seemed like she loved being there. Her home life, on the other hand, was not as joyous.
When Mia was two, her parents split up. So, her only memories of them are apart. Her mom married her stepdad, Howard, when Mia was seven, and suddenly, just like that, Mia had a sister as well. “To this day, I am incredibly close with my stepdad and my step-sister.” On the other side of that, Mia’s mom was a free-spirited, warm, and loving mother—through and through. She worked as a professional chef and later took classes in art. Tragically, in September of 2013, when Mia was only 15, her mom’s health suddenly started to worsen. Within a few months, the doctors told her family that she was suffering from a rare neurological disease and had only weeks to live. “She just deteriorated before my eyes. It was really tough. When she passed away, things really shifted for me. Up until that point, and I still kind of am, I was a goodie-two-shoes kind of kid…when she died I said, ‘Oh, okay, bad things can happen to good people. Why am I even trying?’”
Here comes the storm.
Mia started hanging out with “the party kids” and began dipping her toes in the drug water—the substance sea. “Because my mom died, I got a lot of leeway with people.” Combine that with her naturally cherubic face (which at first glance certainly does not scream troublemaker) and you have the recipe for a teenager who could get away with murder. Mia used this power to have parties, drink, and live a much different life than she had before. “I was really the mom of the friend group. I was the one that made sure everyone got home in one piece.” Somehow, all the while, maintaining her 4.0 GPA. Her one goal: get into Brown University…and that is exactly what she did, thanks to her perfect grades and her (I am not exaggerating here) PERFECT SAT AND ACT SCORES. If I got a perfect score on the SATs or ACTs, I would have that tattooed on my forehead, but when she told me, she said it with a casual humility—like it was nothing.
The summer before college started, once she had achieved her goal of getting into Brown, she had nothing left to do but sit with herself. This sent her into a deep depression. She wasn’t quite suicidal, but if death found her, she wouldn’t slam the door. Ultimately, she knew, after losing her mom, she could never do that to her family
Once college started, that happy, fun-loving girl had become a shell of herself. No friends. No life. Nothing. When she did spend time with other people, she would become whatever Mia the situation called for. “For every single person, I would have to put on a mask. It was to the point where when someone would ask me, ‘What movie do you want to watch tonight?’ I would look at them and think, ‘Hmmm I know they like horror movies. Are there any horror movies I can recommend?’ If you asked me, ‘What’s your favorite movie?’ I couldn’t tell you. When people walked into the room, the mask went on. “My whole thing was, I loved people but I hated myself.”
Smoking weed had become a daily practice. That stayed her main vice, that is, until sophomore year. One weekend, when her roommate went out of town, she left a few bottles of alcohol around. This sparked a moment of divine inspiration in Mia. A lightbulb went off that illuminated the fact that she could just drink whenever she wanted to. Anyone who has even the slightest bit of knowledge about addiction can probably sense that this is where things really start to snowball. She started drinking at night to sleep. Then earlier in the night. Then the evening. Then the day. But then, it became difficult for her to wake up in the morning. So, obviously, she had to start acting rationally…by snorting lines of coke and Adderall to start her day…but then wait—now she can’t sleep! Xanax should help with that! This cycle lasted for over a year.
Part of this routine included long walks. But, these were not the long walks on the beach with a piña colada you may be imagining. Mia would leave her off-campus apartment (so her roommate would think she had gone out), sneak back in the house, do drugs and drink in her closet until her roommate left, and then walk in any which way down the block…for hours. Wandering. Alone. “I didn’t drink or do drugs with other people, for the most part. It was a solitary experience because I recognized it was unhinged and I didn’t want anyone else knowing that. So, I just imploded.”
None of this was a sign to her that she was an addict. That came from a class she took. “I’m a high achiever at everything I do, even lying to myself.” Mia was an anthropology major and took a class called “The Anthropology of Addiction and Recovery.” They had to read from the big book and take questionnaires. She started to think to herself, “This is getting too close to home.” So, she threw out all the drugs and alcohol she had and said, “If I can just go 24 hours without anything then I wasn’t an addict.” She made it four hours before she started to shake, vomit, and sprint to the liquor store. “Okay. False start. We’re going to try it again. That wasn’t proof enough. The second time I didn’t even throw anything away because I knew it wasn’t going to work.” She made it two hours this time. At this point, she knew.
Mia stopped going to class and when she did, she would show up nodding off with a joint behind her ear. Her anxiety had reached an all-time high and those passive suicidal thoughts started to become more active. In a moment of desperation, she called her stepdad, Howard, for help. Howard talked to her therapist, who knew Beit T’Shuvah’s very own Doug Rosen. After a few attempts at sobriety, Mia realized I.O.P wasn’t going to be enough for her. So, on the anniversary of her mother’s passing, she gave in and told Doug she would do anything for help.
Here comes the sun.
Mia checked into a no-nonsense treatment center in Arizona, looking for the most militant “lock me away in a dark corner and don’t let me leave even if I beg” treatment possible. Immediately upon getting out of rehab, the pandemic hit. That year was tough for most of us, for Mia on the other hand it was quite beneficial. She got to finish her degree at Brown, while never having to step foot on campus. She spent three months there before transferring to a sober living in LA. At this same sober living, she met her partner, who asked her out the day she was discharged from the house. Mia is now over five and a half years sober, with a more beautiful life than she ever imagined. On the 14th of every month, Howard still texts her to mark another month of sobriety and congratulate her. If that isn’t the sweetest thing in the world, I don’t know what is.
“[My mom] wrote a note that said, ‘Whatever you do with your life, do something you love, do something you’re good at, and do something that helps other people.’ Besides a brief foray into madness and addiction, that’s how I’ve lived my life…which is partially why I chose to be a therapist and especially why I chose to work with people in recovery.” After graduating from a master’s program, Mia now works at Beit T’Shuvah as a therapist, gathering the hours she needs to get her license.
If you have had the pleasure of being in the same room as Mia, then you know that she is undoubtedly a loving, luminescent, and larger-than-life spirit around here. That little girl, who wanted nothing more than to please others. That girl who said, “I wore so many masks that when I finally got sober and tried to look myself in the mirror, there was nothing looking back at me because I didn’t know who I was.” That girl is now a strong woman who has overcome adversity with a straight back and believes in herself, in her clients, and in her community.
So, take a page from Mia’s book and be unapologetically yourself. Stop asking, “What if they hate me?” and start asking, “What if they love me?” Because if you are anything like Mia, they will.