AMANDA RABB'S STORY; HOW SCHIZOPHRENIA AND DRUG ADDICTION TOOK HER LIFE.

AMANDA RABB'S BEFORE AND AFTER

If you’ve ever fallen down the rabbit hole of YouTube’s Soft White Underbelly, then you’ve probably met Amanda Rabb. She wasn’t just another person on the street; she became the face of a crisis that most people choose to ignore.

At first glance, her videos were shocking, she was a young woman in the middle of a mental breakdown, with an addiction and a missing tooth, she was talking to people who weren't there and surviving the brutal environment of Los Angeles' Skid Row.

Before the addiction, Amanda was a girl with a big, bright future. She was a daughter, a student and a girl who had everything going for her. Her story is a terrifying look at how quickly a perfect life can be shattered.

The College Student from Zimbabwe

Amanda’s story didn’t start on a sidewalk. She was born in Zimbabwe and moved to America, where she lived a life full of potential. Her father, Larry, described her as a child who was eloquent and high-achieving.

She went to Cal State Northridge, was a talented writer and had a bright future ahead of her. She had a family that adored her, went on vacations and had all the support a child could need.

Schizophrenia, a mental health condition

In 2016, everything changed. While she was in college, Amanda began to show signs of schizophrenia, a mental health condition that affects how a person thinks, feels, behaves and understands reality. She started believing she was being watched and followed. When the brain starts playing tricks on you, the world becomes a terrifying place and to quiet the voices and the fear, Amanda turned to drugs, specifically crack cocaine.

How Crack Destroyed Her

The danger of drug abuse isn't just about "getting high." For someone like Amanda, drugs were a predator, they took her mental illness and turned it into a monster.

In just a few years, Amanda went from a healthy young woman to losing all her teeth after being hit by a car while high and confused. She became unrecognizable. Her dad, Larry, would go to Skid Row every single day just to look for her, sometimes she would talk to him; other times, she wouldn't even know who he was.

A System That Didn't Help

The saddest part of telling this story is how many times people tried to save her. Her dad tried, Mark Laita tried, a lady named Lima from a tech company tried.

But the system in America is complicated, because Amanda was an adult, they couldn't force her to stay in a hospital for long. She would be picked up by the police, kept in a mental ward for three days and then released right back to the same street corner where the drugs were.

The Heartbreaking Ending

In late 2020, there was a tiny moment of hope. Amanda was in jail, which meant she was sober, she looked like her old self again, clear-eyed and smart and she actually agreed to go to a long-term rehab center.

Everyone watching her story online was praying this was her big comeback but it wasn't. In May 2021, the news came out that Amanda had died. She was only 25 years old.

The Bitter Lesson

I'm telling you this because Amanda’s life is a warning about the danger of drugs and how it doesn’t care how smart you are or how good your family is, how it is a predator that takes everything and leaves nothing.

Amanda wasn't a bad person; she was a sick person who didn't get the right help in time. Amanda was a daughter, a scholar and a person who deserved a long life. Her journey is a reminder that drugs don’t solve problems, they create bigger ones and the cost is way higher than we expect while the damage can last a lifetime.

Lastly, most people don’t plan to get addicted, it started as curiosity or pressure. If you don’t start, you don’t have to struggle to stop and if you’re already using, ask for help early. Seeking help isn’t weakness, the earlier you ask, the e