Where to start... what to do...

Before I get too far into this... I thought that this should be posted here because it is related to skiing, and I needed some way to get it out/express myself, granted, NS is probably not the best place and I haven't been here for very long but it's basically all I have left... From here I'm just going to type, and hope that it comes out right and makes sense.

I'm 16 years old and have a 9 year old and 20 year old brother. I live pretty much right at the mouth of Little Cottonwood canyon. I average about 95-110 days a season due to a ski release from school. Skiing basically is, or at least was, my life. I grew up skiing, my parents took me a little bit when I was younger (about 5-9), until they started substance abuse, which then lead to physical abuse on me and my little brother - my older brother is at college. Since then I sold lemonade and worked odd jobs for lift passes. After that, I was a junior ski instructor for a while. I loved skiing, when I was on the slopes I just felt... better, and more at peace with myself. Nothing compaired to stomping a park jump or making fresh tracks down the Bird's cirque.

I used to be very athletic, I played lacrosse for 8 years and made my high schools varsity team as a freshman, but that didn't last. I'll get to that in a minute. I had everything I wanted in life. I was decent at what I loved (skiing) and had quite a few friends. 3 or 4 of my closer friends went skiing every day pretty much. Last season, everything changed. December 24, 2012 I was skiing with my friends, because my parents want nothing to do with their children. I'm fine with that, there's nowhere I'd rather be than on my skis on Christmas Eve. We were skiing Wolverine Cirque, I was dropping about 28 feet, nothing new... I thought..... I was using demo bindings that day, and due to my lack of experience/skill, or an equipment failure I wen flying out of my skis, onto rocks. I hit the ground... and immediately knew that I was fucked. I have never felt pain like like that before. My friends came up to me, and I knew I had to get back to the resort - nobody could afford a rescue. About a half hour later I was hobbling back to a populated area... it was a long hike.

My parents told me that if I got hurt skiing I would have to pay the medical expenses, so I kept it a secret. Until it became so unbearable that I couldn't. 4 months later in March, I found out that I herniated 3 of my spinal discs and had smacked a vertebrae out of position on my spinal column.  I was lucky to still be walking. No surgery was needed, just massive amounts of physical therapy. I couldn't do sports. I was told I could never ski again, and on top of this I had switched high schools from where all my friends are to one in the middle of nowhere because my girlfriend at the time asked me to, and later cheated on me... 3 times. This I will also talk about later. I was heartbroken, I was under the impression that I was done skiing. Forever. As the months went on and summer break started, I got more and more depressed. To top it all off my back pain increased more and more and eventually got to the point where I was in bed the entire summer or at medical appointments. In September the doctors said they also found something that may be contributing to my back pain. They believe that I also have a hematoma in my lower back.

So, more physical therapy and no noticeable improvements. It's now about October, I'm at a high school where the only person I know is my girlfriend. She was the only one I talked to about my injury. I told her everything at me. Skip ahead two months. I find out everything that she has told me the last couple months was utter bullshit, for lack of a better word. We have been dating for about 7 months at this point. People might just laugh and say it's a high school relationship, move on. But it wasn't that easy for me. I don't know if it was because of my injury, because I was reaching out after I got hurt, or because I told her everything about me - but it hurt worse than my back. She told this slug everything about me, and cheated on me with him over and over again. Add this to my injury. I was crushed. My mind immediately went to suicide. I had been considering it for a while, basically since I hurt my back. I could do nothing. I could hardly walk. A failed suicide attempt followed. That just made things worse. It proved I had no control over anything, I wasn't strong enough to even kill myself. I hated, an to a certain extent still do hate myself. I had nothing left to live for.

Then one day, I decided fuck the doctors. They aren't helping. I went to the one thing that had always brought me happiness. I grabbed my boots, picked up my CRJs and hitched a ride up Little Cottonwood. Immediately, I went to the tram deck at Snowbird. Into the tram car. It was all second nature to me. At Hidden peak I stepped out of the car, and clipped into my skis. I remember everything from that moment. I took a deep breath and let the cold air fill my crippled body. I felt alive for the first time in over a year. Pointing my skis, I just went down the mountain. Whatever felt right. I'm sure it wasn't the prettiest run of my life, but I finally was happy again. Since then I've skied 4-5 times a week. It's what makes me happy... how can I not ski. Now, 14 months after my original injury they think I may have hurt my kidney as well. It's one massive shitstorm - nobody has any clue what's actually wrong. I stopped talking to all my friends when I switched high schools. I have nobody to talk to, but I needed to get this out... somehow. I have nobody to talk to, I'm not looking for sympathy... you'd have to be crazy to do so on Newschoolers. I just don't know what else to do. All my feelings have been compounding on each other for over a year now. I'm empty. I feel like I'm broken physically, mentally, and emotionally. Thanks for reading it, or part of it at least. I know it was long and I tried to summarize as much as I could. Skiing changed my life and without that I'm nothing. I don't know what to do anymore. My grades are falling, I don't sleep, I don't eat, every inch of my body is in pain. I feel... nothing, I guess. But skiing can still change my life. Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing by skiing but I don't know what else to do. Again, I guess I just needed a way to express this. Everyone has their own challenges and plenty of people probably have some like mine. I considered not posting this, but since I already have it typed I may as well. I guess it'd be good for me to start getting more comfortable talking about my injury.