Everyday Life

A little girl started 3rd grade and she was happy for a second. One second of happiness dramatically changed to depression, suicide thoughts, anger, and heartbreak. It's when the girl learned what bullying meant when she saw she was experiencing it at school and at home. That little girl was me.

It was hard, it was my life and fortunately I became stronger. Mental illness comes in different ways. In my experience I always felt alone. No one to talk to, to understand me, to listen to me. People would come to me with their problems, which I didn't mind because I felt needed. Confusion starts clouding my judgement, my brain was flooded with thoughts analyzing my life. Why am I here? Why did my mom have me? What am I going to be doing in the future?

I fell in depression and became addicted to medications. Family never noticed because around them, it was easy to fake a smile. Met some people along the way, two other girls in particular became my best friends in middle school. They helped me through the years and I walked the stage for my 8th grade culmination. After, I chose a high school far away from where I lived to get away. Stage two was running away from my past, to start a new life where no one knew about me. High school was tough but I looked at it as a good challenge. A good exercise to better my strength, and there were some ups and downs. The part I was most grateful for was that I found people, people to listen to me, understand me, be there for me as much as I was there for them. Equal friendships. That saved me but at the same time it could've been my downfall if I would've chosen not to be so optimistic.

High school was when I would harm myself less, but got started to have problems with taking care of my health. Every now and then I would catch myself. Even though I was struggling I had to be there for myself because I knew enough that I couldn't trust people being there behind me to catch me. I was my person (a Greys Anatomy reference). It wasn't until after high school that I fell back into my dark space. Where I just wanted to go to sleep and I would hope to not wake up. Adults think that because we have school, we automatically know what we are in for when we enter into adulthood. However, they couldn't be more wrong.

Adulthood is a huge change and adjustment that could take a toll on a human's mind, body and soul. I learned from personal experience and hearing other people's stories that everyone has a common struggle which is fear. Fear is one of the factors that triggered my mental illness. Fear or growing up, growing up unloved, worrying about my future, worrying about my career path, disappointing my mother, and more importantly fear of disappointing myself. I became stronger and wiser because I am always there to catch myself. I fall into depression, have anxiety attacks, and sometimes feel like I'm going crazy. However, at the end of the day no matter how long it takes me to recover and feel better I've grown used to the fact of having to remind myself that I'm not alone. You are not alone. I admire other people's stories, and listening what they have gone through and some have gone through worse than I did. We became stronger because of it, and we are holding on.

My heroes are my niece and nephews. They give me strength as well and for them I want to better myself. I've finally accepted that fact that it's okay to have bad days. It's okay to cry until I feel better, watch shows/movies just so I won't forget how to laugh again, it's okay to take your time to get back up again. This is my story and it's not the end, it's just how my life started.