Back then, war was a card game, race issues were about who ran the fastest, and protection meant wearing knee pads,
and a timeout was the worst punishment we knew.
Back then, our parents were our heroes, the safest place was in mom’s arms, and the highest place on earth was dad’s shoulders.
Back then, we shared toys, not boys. Back then we said “thank you” more than “I’m sorry,” “yes” more than “no,” and “I love you” instead of “I hate you.”
Back then, guys played sports, not girls,
back then, we looked forward to every day instead of dreading it,
back then, we were scared of the dark, not the world,
Everyone on my mom’s side suffers from depression. Some members on my dad’s side are alcoholics and suicidal.
Addiction is 50% genetic and 50% due to poor coping skills.
Depression is 40% genetic and 60% environmental.
Due to this, I am 90% screwed.
Mental health is something that has affected my life for years and will continue to.
When I was thirteen I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and OCD.
By fourteen I was engulfed in an eating disorder that controlled and altered my life. My eating disorder was a blend of all evils, a coping skill for all my problems.
I hated my body, felt out of control in many aspects of my life, experienced great anxiety around food, and believed people would love me if I was skinny.
Starving myself fixed my problems, or at least I thought it did. I lost weight rapidly. I felt in control when I refused to eat. I got hooked in my ways.
But like for all things, the high only lasted so long… Even after losing sixty pounds, being underweight, and having every rib and bone in my spine visible, I still looked in the mirror and thought I was fat. My anxiety began to get worse, the panic attacks were hourly occurrences, and my heart began to fail due to the lack of calories and nutrients. I felt out of control once again, so I restricted even more.
It was a vicious cycle, and it continued… leaving me falling deeper into darkness, insanity, and sadness.
By the summer of that same school year, I was in the hospital. My struggles with mental health were close to taking my life.
Years have gone by now, and much has changed.
I no longer cope with anxiety and depression by restricting my food intake, I no longer weigh 80 pounds. I’m back in school, back in sports, and am much more emotionally stable.
But some things haven’t.
I still have anxiety attacks weekly, I still hate my body and worry about weight, and I am still extremely insecure and it affects how I act (making me seem full of myself when in reality I just need someone to reassure me that I’m not absolute shit). And lastly, I still feel out of control around food. I am unable to stop myself around certain types of food and it scares me. I feel like my previous ability to say no to food has disappeared, and it scares me. I feel like I have gone from starving my self to binging. It scares me a lot.
I need to find balance and balance is hard to find.
Due to statistics and my past, mental health is something I am going to have to deal with for the entirety of my life.
I don’t like this, but I can’t change this. So every day I strive to find healthy ways to cope with the way my brain thinks, the emotions I feel, and my general outlook on life because I believe, with effort and dedication, everyone has the opportunity to be happy, no matter how hard it may be.
Kindness is a virtue, but some people use it as a weakness.
I try to be kind to people.
Sometimes I stay up late doing work for others so then they’ll be happy.
Sometimes I do things for people that will get me in trouble, but I do it anyway because they asked me to and I don’t want to say no.
Sometimes I don’t say what I feel when I really should because I want to focus on them. People like talking about themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, being and kind and helping people is something I love. But sometimes people abuse it; I don’t know how to say no. It leaves me broke, busy, and feeling used.
Hey can you drive me to Ventura? sure
Could you run to Von’s and grab me some chips? sure
I’m not allowed to have him in my room if it’s just us two, want to come over and hang with us? sure
Could you grab me some water? sure
Could I borrow your shirt? I “swear” I’ll give it back. sure
Hey could you send me the Physics? sure
I like helping people a lot. But there’s a balance. I can usually tell when I’m being used, when someone is kind to me because they want me to help them with their homework or give them rides places. But I usually let that slide; I like it when people are nice to me, it feels nice to think someone cares. But I’m starting to draw a line, if you are going to be mean to me, don’t expect me do your shit. I don’t like being used and most definitely not abused.
If you abuse me, no way you’re using me anymore.
Think before you yell at me and accuse me of things, because I have to draw the line somewhere, so have fun doing things for yourself.
Every breath I take sitting and watching the teardrop water fall to the ground.
I am calm, grounded, grey.
I can’t describe the smell of rain in scents, only in feelings;
calm: an encompassing blanket wrapped around my shoulders and a companion sitting by my side. We are together, we are in love, we are safe, or at least we think we are in the moment.
brave: walking alone on an empty road. Only thoughts to accompany me. I am strong, I am powerful, I am one with the nature that surrounds me. Fuck the world, society, my responsibilities; I will walk until my legs give out. And when I collapse, my time has come. Like a wild rabbit in the jaws of a wolf.
sad: the sky is crying, so am I. But the sky’s tears feed the earth, maybe mine will too.
solitude: lonely, but lonely is not always bad. Today it’s peaceful, but yesterday it was harrowing . But today it’s peaceful
The smell of rain
One second it drizzles, the next it pours.
Ever changing.
Thunder follows lighting.
A bolt hits a tree, a fire starts
It is only natural.
Some days the rain makes me feel gloomy, somedays it makes me feel safe.
Today I feel thankful.
Thankful for the sun, thankful for the rain, thankful for the world, thankful to feel something.
Thankful for the memories.
The scent of Soaftsoap Milk and Golden Honey reminds me of kindergarten. The scent of petrichor reminds me of a time when things were different.
I can’t go back to kindergarten, but I’m starting to believe that I can go back to being happy.
Here I sit, watching the rain, breathing in the scent;
I feel gloomy like the sky, but I am grounded like the earth. my emotions are ever-changing just like the rain.
This is my last year in high school where my grades need to be A’s, where my extra curricular activities matter. This is my last year where cramming in PSAT prep will benefit me, and the last year where SAT prep is a dreaded ritual.
After this year, the hours on hours of work, sleepless nights, cramming for texts, student leadership applications, struggles I faced, fun memories I had, volunteer activities, extra curriculars, and sports achievements will all be put on to a single document… The last three years of my life will be put on a document; an application.
By the end of this year I’m supposed to have a general idea of my life plan, my career, and my identity.
By the end of the year I’m supposed to have perfect SAT scores, ACT scores, and 5’s on AP tests.
By the end of the year I’m supposed to be a person who will stand out amongst millions of other applicants.
This is my last year to become who colleges want me to be while still trying to stay true to the person I want to be.
In less than 365 days, I will need a paper explaining who I am, what I want to do, what I stand for, what sets me apart, and why I belong at the college receiving the paper. All of who I am, all of why I’m special, and all of why I belong in 650 words.
A transcript and 650 words which will determine my future, career and where I will be for the next four to eight years.
A lot to think about… a lot to do, a lot at stake. Welcome to junior year.
It still hurts, but it’s gotten to the point where I can look at the photos of us and smile instead of cry. I still love you and you still hurt me, but I’m slowly making steps towards letting it go.
The photo of us holding hands and the video of your precious laugh that made my eyes drown with tears just last week has changed now. Absentmindedly, today I found myself smiling at the good times we had.
Thank you for the good times, the giggles. Thank you for holding me and caring. Thank you for the caring gestures and kind words you said to me even if you didn’t mean them.
Everything you have done in the past month would lead any rational person to say that you never truly cared, but then again I am not your average rational person. I don’t think you ever meant it when you said you loved me, but I know that we had something special.
The fact that I tried to treat you with utmost kindness and care for you after how awful you were to me, proves that I’m not rational. Or maybe it proves that I was in love.
The fact that you have shut me out completely, made it impossible for any means of communication proves that you are not the person I thought you were, but it also proves that somewhere deep down you feel the pain of remorse for letting what we had go.
I know that part of the reason you broke up with me over text is because it would hurt you too badly to see the tears rolling down my cheeks that you once used to kiss and touch. I know that part of the reason you blocked me on every communication platform and got your friends to do it too is because you don’t want to face the fact that you hurt me.
The reasons behind your actions don’t make them okay. How you treated me in the end is not okay. Lying to me and blaming your personal issues on me because you knew that I cared for you enough to take your BS and believe that I was the bad guy is not okay. But this will never change the fact that for a point of time, you brightened my days, you filled me with a sense of love and joy I don’t think I’ve ever felt before, and for a point I believed, and I still believe, that you truly loved me.
I still wear the necklace you gave me and the matching ring we have still remains in my room.
You hurt me, but you also loved me and I’m finally making steps towards letting you go.
I used to think it was all behind me. I truly thought that, but something recently has been telling me that maybe it’s not.
I’m no longer skinny. I’m no longer underweight. I don’t weigh eighty-something pounds anymore. My heart isn’t in critical condition like it was. I no longer refuse to eat. I no longer have an eating disorder. The physical parts are gone, but some of the mental parts have stayed. No, I no longer cry before every meal, have multiple panic attacks daily, or slit my wrists. I no longer do any of those things, but sometimes I feel like I’m trapped in the days that I did.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m so much better than I was. So, so, so much better than I was. I guess what I’m trying to say is: yes I’m better, but no, I’m not perfect.
I’ve been stressed studying for finals lately, so I decided that skipping lunch would give me more time to study. There’s nothing wrong with this; its normal to skip meals time to time. What made me know something was up came later. I wasn’t skipping meals to lose weight or get skinner, it was for another reason.When I would skip lunch, my stomach would begin to gnaw and churn after a while. I like the feeling because it tells me that nothing is in my stomach, that my stomach is empty… I like it because the feeling of hunger distracts me from the emptiness I feel almost every single day.
Certain things give me flashbacks of what I went through, almost like PTSD in a way. For example, when my father buys a certain brand of sliced turkey. One day, my father had gone to the store. I asked him to buy a specific type of turkey, the turkey with 50 calories per two ounces. When he came back, he had bought a type which had 52 calories. I began to cry, my frail and bony body collapsed and my mother lunged to the floor where I lay, just as scared as I was, and tried to get me up. I wouldn’t move. I just stayed there. I just stayed on the floor sobbing and mumbling the words “I don’t want to live anymore” over and over again. My mom held her thirteen-year-old and dying daughter in her hands. She picked me up carefully and carried me to my bed, where she laid with me and we cried in unison… all of this over turkey. Now, whenever I see this brand of turkey in the fridge, its like that day fills my mind, takes over me, and haunts me. It’s different though, I’m not the girl on the floor anymore. I am a ghost watching in the corner, unable to do anything as I watch my mom and I suffer. As much as I try to reach out to myself and say “i’s okay, it’s going to be okay,” I can’t. As much as I try to get the memory to stop looping in my mind, it continues to replay and replay with more and more detail every loop. Just like the turkey, there are many more symbols equated with awful memories from my eating disorder. Natural Cafe,the white tank top on the bottom of my dresser,Pressed Juicery, my birthday, King’s Hawaiian Rolls, string cheese, buzz-cuts, and safety pins are just some of the items tied with memories even worse than the one above. Memories that I try to keep locked away for a reason.
I like to pretend like it’s behind me, but deep down I know it’s not. I honestly don’t think it will ever be. I’m not saying that I am in danger in any way shape or form if going back to how I used to be. All I am saying is (in honor of mental health awareness month) it’s okay to not be 100% okay.
OVS Journalism Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.