Christy Carlson Romano Recalls Drug Abuse and Eating Disorder After Childhood Stardom — Read an Excerpt (Exclusive)

The ‘Even Stevens’ and ‘Kim Possible’ recalls the first time she tried cocaine in an exclusive excerpt from new memoir ‘Once Upon a Trainwreck’

NEED TO KNOW

• Christy Carlson Romano is opening up about childhood stardom on Disney Channel and how it prohibited her from having a normal childhood
• As the drama in her dating life intensified and her acting career slowed down, Romano began abusing alcohol and drugs
• He new memoir, Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Fall and Rise of a Child Star is out on Oct. 6 from Simon & Schuster

In the early 2000s, Christy Carlson Romano ruled the Disney Channel, starring in hit shows and films like Even Stevens, Kim Possible and Cadet Kelly. But breaking into the industry meant missing out on a normal childhood.

“During Even Stevens I was 16, 17. My schedule was 12 hours a day, and I would record for Kim Possible on the weekends,” Romano tells PEOPLE. “I just didn’t have a work-life balance.”

She later attended Barnard College, where she studied film, and became involved in toxic romantic relationships — “I thought that was what love looked like” — including two failed engagements. As the drama in her dating life intensified and her acting career slowed, she began abusing alcohol and drugs.

She first tried cocaine after a guest at Paris Hilton’s Halloween party offered her some. “Oh no! I got the Disney girl to do blow for the first time!” she remembers a friend exclaiming. Romano also began purging “just to feel something” and developed a struggle with bulimia, she says. “I wasn’t giving my self-worth credit.”

Now she’s opening up about what that period was really like in her new memoir, Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Fall and Rise of a Child Star, out Oct. 6 from Simon & Schuster. The book chronicles the pressures she endured as a child actor, the substance abuse and eating disorder that followed, and how she eventually found peace. Read an exclusive excerpt below.

Most days I sleep until 3 in the afternoon, get ready for the night, and stay out almost until the sun comes up. I’m depressed and starting to feel a little untethered, and it scares me. I’ve become so numb, I’ve tried being bulimic just to feel something. I’m already a 00 in my pants size, and I love eating when my appetite isn’t suppressed from anxiety. The drinking doesn’t help, and I feel like if I sleep all day, I’ll spend less money on food.

It’s f—ed up, I know. I try scraping my nails against the insides of my arms to see if I can become a cutter. No such luck. I feel like a dumbass. How was I ever someone’s role model? What would those little girls waiting for an autograph from Belle think if they could see the real me? I’m not even sure I know who that is anymore.

Since Edie knows everyone, she gets invited to a Halloween party at Paris Hilton’s house, and she’s bringing me and Hope. Edie is gorgeous and works as an assistant at a marketing firm. She’s not even in the industry, and the girl knows how to network better than I do. There are six of us dressing as Roller Derby girls from Whip It. It was such a big thing this year and Drew Barrymore directed it, which got me thinking about directing. I’ve had 10,000 hours behind the scenes watching how directors work, right? 

I’m not saying it’s an easy job at all, but I am curious, I guess. Plus Kathryn Bigelow was the first female to win a Best Director Oscar recently, and when I watched her speech after The Hurt Locker won, I was so f—ing inspired. Not only did she win and then get an entire industry to start seeking out women directors, but she beat her ex James Cameron, who directed Avatar. I mean, if I say I have not fantasized about one day beating Caleb for a directing award, I’d be lying. Revenge would be sweet.

Need your next page-turner? See which books our editors can’t put down with our People Who Read newsletter — plus get PEOPLE News.

I’ve never been part of a group Halloween costume, so I’m loving it when Edie and Hope and I head to Paris’s massive house with its killer view. There’s security of course, but there are also, like, a hundred random people wandering around by her pool and all over her house. One of the rooms has been converted into an actual nightclub with a DJ booth and dance floor, and there are beefcake guys in tiny Chippendales costumes serving drinks. Paris is flitting around outside, but I don’t really speak to her. I’m doing shots, and at some point, I look around the dance floor and realize Edie and Hope aren’t there anymore, so I go look for them.

I’m pretty wasted as I weave through the crowded dance floor, calling their names. There’s a half-open door with a light on inside, so I push the door open to find Edie, Hope, and a few other people hunched over a table in what looks like a music studio.

“Guys! I’ve been looking all over!” I yell, maybe a little too loudly. The music is ringing in my ears. “What’re you doing in here?”

I walk toward them, and Edie turns around. Even though I’ve been to a million clubs, I’ve never seen cocaine before, never done it, but I know what the white lines on the table are. I’ve always sworn I’d never try it.

“It’s coke! Come try!” Edie holds her hand out for me to join them.

“How does that even work?” I ask, feeling lame for even questioning it.

I promised myself for years I’d never do hard drugs, but what if I just try a little? I need to experience life, right? I have nothing to lose, quite frankly. I take the key loaded up with a bump from Edie’s hands and inhale. There, it’s done.

“Oh no! I got the Disney girl to do blow for the first time!” Edie and the small group around us laugh loudly.

After six months back in LA, I have that familiar feeling: I need to go. I’m spiraling there, my career is less than nothing, and I can’t keep sleeping all day and partying all night. After getting a taste for it the first time at Paris’s party, I’ve been partying too much and trying coke more, and honestly, it’s a way to try to make Caleb worry about me, which he is — but not enough.

He and I have been on a rollercoaster, and not a fun one, for over two years now. I can’t take the shallowness of Hollywood and clubs anymore. It’s going to kill me.

Excerpted from ONCE UPON A TRAINWRECK: THE FALL AND RISE OF A CHILD STAR by Christy Carlson Romano. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, LLC.

Once Upon a Trainwreck: The Fall and Rise of a Child Star will be published on Oct. 6.

We independently evaluate all recommended products and services. If you click on links we provide, we may receive compensation.

Read the full article here