ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, June 6, 1996 TAG: 9606060022
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-38 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JON CAWLEY STAFF WRITER
Marcella Archuleta has been through more in 17 years than many people experience in a lifetime.
Archuleta, whose friends call her Marcie, has dealt with abuse, eating disorders, drug addiction and cancer, among other things, but has got her life in order. She's dealt with her difficulties so successfully, in fact, that she's a role model for her peers in the graduating class of 380 at Cave Spring High School.
Archuleta moved to the Roanoke Valley from Los Angeles when she was 11, after her parents divorced. From the beginning, she had trouble. Some say Marcie has been through more in her life than many could in two.
Marcella "Marcie" Archuleta, 17, moved to Roanoke from Los Angeles, Ca. when she was 11; following her parents divorce and several instances of sexual abuse by baby-sitters and a friend's father when she was 4-, 6- and 11-years-old.
"It was culture shock. When I started seventh grade at Hidden Valley, I didn't talk right, dress right. I was overweight. I just didn't fit in," she said.
"I remember being very angry inside. I wore combat boots and morbid, black, baggy clothes."
Archuleta also began to drink and use drugs.
The summer before ninth grade, she lost 40 pounds.
"I would starve myself. I didn't realize," she said.
During her freshman year at Cave Spring, she was a whole new person. Guys started paying attention, and she became popular. Everything was going well in her eyes, although she had a counseling session at St. Albans hospital for eating disorders.
"My eating disorders progressed and I got really into the drug scene, dropping good friends because they didn't use and picking friends with drugs. My grades dropped, family life became really bad. I was pushing everyone away. I really hated myself."
Archuleta would manipulate and con people. She even shoplifted.
"I was on a roller coaster going full speed downhill. I couldn't see it because I thought I was having fun," she said.
But the fun didn't last.
By her sophomore year in high school, "I had contemplated suicide many times and came close once. I knew I had to do something," she said.
She stopped drinking, got off drugs, and stopped hanging out with the drug crowd.
Her grades started to improve, and she will graduate with a 3.2 grade point average. She has attended summer school for the past two years, enabling her to graduate a year early with an advanced studies diploma.During her sophomore year, she began to turn her life around.
so I got off the drugs, including alcohol. I stopped hanging with the drug crowd and tried to move forward. I was still going through the feelings that I had numbed while getting high, so I had to deal with the things I was running from."
She began working at the Salon Du Ta hairsalon and met friends who didn't get high.
After she was off drugs for a while, Archuleta started speaking to students and teachers about drug abuse.
She has visited Cave Spring Junior and High schools and Hidden Valley Junior High to speak to the teachers about drug use among their students. She has also spoken to behavioral adjustment classes at Hidden Valley, and once a month she speaks at the Arnold R. Burton Vocational School's Assistance Program for children who have had problems at school or with police involving drugs or alcohol.
"Several people have thanked me because they were going through the same things," she said. "I'm sure I've planted a lot of seeds. If they don't think about it while I'm speaking, they do when they leave and start to see the same things I spoke about happen to them."
Archuleta's father died last Dec. 23. As she was getting ready to fly to San Diego for the funeral, she discovered a lump in her neck.
A specialist told her it might be cancer, and tests confirmed it: She had Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes.
Archuleta finished five months of chemotherapy, and recently began radiation treatments. Her last cancer treatment will be two days before Cave Spring's graduation ceremony, which is June 12 at 7:30 p.m. at Roanoke Civic Center.
"I was lucky. Hodgkin's is one of the most treatable cancers," she said, "but I did lose my hair. That was a major thing for me. Until I looked at myself with a shaved head I was in denial of cancer."
Archuleta has benefited from the experience.
"Over the last five months I've become a stronger person," she said. "Life means a lot more to me today."
Archuleta plans to attend the Virginia Western Community College/Radford University program in sociology. She then plans to seek certification as a counselor.
She has received a $500 scholarship from the Mental Health Association of the Roanoke Valley, which she hopes will cover most of her tuition for the first semester of the four-year program.
"I don't regret anything in the past," she said. "It took me all of that to get where I am today, as far as experience and strength. Some people are twice as old and can't say that.
"I live life the best I can and learn from my mistakes."
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Archuleta (headshot)by CNB