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I have struggled with my self esteem all my life. I have always felt like “the fat girl” and “the ugly girl”. No boys ever liked me, and if they did it was because they were desperate. It made me feel like the most unworthy person in the entire world. When I was little, and even now, I was very sensitive. I got so upset when people would leave me out of group projects, play dates, etc. I would just cry right in the middle of class, and it would all come out and I would scream at the kids. And I felt so guilty afterwards, but later on in life I realized that I was crying and screaming because of all my built up anger and sadness I had been accumulating because I was a closed book. I also realized that it is okay to be sad and to have a good cry every now and then because its human! I really never thought that it was okay to cry until I started opening up in therapy. I never ever thought I could have good friends and that I could have a life after my horrible childhood. Thankfully, I have found my core group of friends and have learned how to love myself because of therapy. Therapy has helped me cope with my anxiety and depression, and it truly has changed me as a person. I now see that I am beautiful, even though I am bigger than my friends. I now see that I am worthy, and that I matter. Every time someone mentions their struggles, I recommend therapy. If you are going through a rough period, reach out. Whether its a therapist or a trusted adult, you should always reach out. If you don’t, you may make a horrible decision that you will regret. So that is my story. Lots of love! xoxo <3

During my sophomore year of high school, my friend and I had a huge falling out that left me devastated. The whole situation made me sad, but a type of sad I had never really felt before. I would cry myself to sleep at night and during the day I would pretend like everything was fine. Using my outgoing personality as a mask to my real feelings, I became the life of the party, constantly trying to make my friends laugh. When I got home, however, I was a completely different person. It started off as me being sad about my friend, but then my mind started wandering and suddenly I was just always sad. Honestly in that moment, that’s all I really wanted to be. I began to feel comfortable being sad, like it was just something that was a part of my day. As I reflect on that time, I think about what advice I would give to my past self or anyone struggling like I did. The thing I came up with is so basic yet so important: talk to someone. This is definitely easier said than done, but bottling up your feelings will not help you. I understand this is such a difficult thing and I get how nerve-racking it is to choose a person to confide in, but talking things out and seeking help, or treatment if needed, can change your life so much. Now I know talking to someone is not going to instantly cure your pain, but it does open up the conversation in order to help you feel a little less alone in your journey. Without the support of my friends, I cannot imagine where I would be today. They listened when I needed them to and held me up when I was feeling down. As you go forward, please remember you are not alone, and there are so many people in this world who love you and want to help you.

I was 15 when I flew head first through a back windshield I was 15 when my best friend died right in front of me I was 15 when I had to relearn to read, write, and walk I was 15, when I stopped sleeping at night I was 15 when I had my first suicidal thought I was 15 when I became consumed by depression, anxiety, and PTSD I was 15 when I was too anxious and sad to eat I was 15 when I first attempted suicide I was 16 when I started having seizures I was 16 when all of my friends decided that I was too different to hang out with anymore I was 17 when I attempted suicide for the last time I was 17 when I decided to live I was 17 when I painted my room white and decided to start with a clean slate I was 17 when I decided that I was going to be a success story I was 18 when I figured out that I wanted to help as many people as I could I am now 21 years old, and I am the happiest and strongest that I have ever been

The first time I forced myself to throw up, I was elated. I felt lighter, happier and strangely more in control of myself. I had found a way to prevent weight gain but still eat whatever I wanted-or so I thought. I was 12. Over the years my preoccupation with food grew to the point where I dreaded waking up in the morning because I didn’t want to face eating. My whole life revolved around food. I was stuck in a vicious cycle of dieting, fasting, binging and throwing up. I was left feeling depressed, exhausted, irritated and fed up with my body and myself. Looking back, my six year struggle with eating disorders was triggered by the crushing pressures of being a competitive athlete and not having many friends as a young girl. I was lonely in elementary school- the weird fat kid who everyone loved to exclude. I was told I was too fat to be friends with anyone. I turned to food for happiness and somehow throwing up took my mind off things. It made me too tired to deal with the stresses of life. in turn my school suffered. I barely turned assignments in on time because I just wanted to binge, purge and sleep. My athletic performance was destroyed and I ended up sacrificing any chance I had of swimming in college. My rock bottom-the point where I knew I had to turn things around was when I found myself crying in a bathroom after throwing up at my own nephew’s birthday party. I spent years lying to my family and friends about why I had red eyes, constant fatigue, throat aches and stomach pains. My overly conservative family would never accept the truth. Today, I am in a better place. I still cringe at the words “eating disorder” and I have many many relapses- but I’m stronger now. I am still working on loving my body and myself but I’ve learned to depend on my family and friends to show me true happiness-not food. I have embarked on a journey of healthier living and building up a circle of support around me. Volunteering at friendship circle was one of the many things that pulled me out of this hole. Working with teens and kids who are so capable of genuine love and affection gave me a positive way to channel my energy. I now have an amazing friend group who has lifted me up and supported me through rough times. I came clean to my family about all the times I hid food, the disappearances of large amounts of food, and why I skipped so many days of school-77 days a semester my junior and senior years to be precise. I’m still not better but thats a part of life. Sometimes you will face uphill battles but you are never alone. Find hobbies to invest yourself in, hang out with people you Loveland know that one day you will look back at your battle scars and they will give you the strength and determination to keep fighting. Teenage years are incredibly difficult, but by creating an atmosphere of love and acceptance, no one will ever have to walk that road alone. Thank you Friendship Circle for welcoming me into an environment filled with love and support.

Want to know the fantastic thing about Generalized Anxiety Disorder? Imagine a snowball. Each snowflake is an anxious tendency that gets rolled up into one giant snowball. Isn’t that great? Maybe it’s terrific for a snowman, but not for me. It all started when I was little and terrified of tornadoes and being kidnapped. Eventually, I went to therapy because I was paranoid to a point of ridiculousness. Therapy helped and my fears were temporarily subdued. However, that was only the beginning. My freshman year, I began to feel dizzy all the time. I didn’t know that what I was experiencing was anxiety. The doctors didn’t initially consider anxiety and ordered a hospital test to make sure my heart and brain were functioning properly. The results came back normal, but I didn’t feel any better. Then sophomore year started. I was told this would be the best year of high school, the easiest and the most fun. Boy were they wrong. I struggled immensely with friends and my grades, and constantly felt down about myself. I tried to make new friends by joining a youth group, but both times we went on overnights, I got sick. My mother even drove four hours in the middle of the night to pick me up. Anxiety was preventing me from doing something as simple as sleeping out, and I felt horrible about myself. I convinced myself there had to be something wrong with me. Junior year was shockingly better than sophomore year, at least concerning grades and friends. Although, my anxiety had a different idea, life couldn’t be too great right? My anxiety decided to think the most obscene, morbid and unrealistic thoughts. Constantly. I thought it was normal, because everytime a thought would pop in my head it would be mortifying. I distinctly remember once walking towards school and a FedEx guy was standing near me. For no apparent reason I thought, “what if he stabs me?!” This kind of thought was NORMAL! Obviously the likelihood of that scenario playing out was next to nothing, but I still thought it. My anxiety has prohibited me from being social. It has stopped me from going out and acting my age. It has me constantly overthinking, and I’m my worst critic. I used to always feel nauseous and my head and shoulders would hurt. My chest would constrict and slowly the world would end. After all this, what may surprise you is I’m a generally happy person. I run cross country, play soccer, do the school plays and volunteer on a regular basis. I’m always busy. I like being with people, learning and making friends. I’m a social butterfly with a chip in her wing. I’ve struggled long enough that I’m done letting anxiety rule my life. I’m open with my struggles, because it feels good to share with people. I’m learning to cope and learning that the dark moments will eventually end. Thanks to my family and friends, whom I’m very lucky to have, I know that the bad days will turn into good days, and I’ll be okay. Never give up, life is truly worth living because you only get one shot. Even the happiest and luckiest person in the world can have the dark moments. Reach out to the people around you, or pick up a hobby and find something that makes you happy. Don’t listen to what other people say, because the people who deserve to be in your life are the ones who will stand by you no matter what. Find those people, be yourself, and keep fighting.

My brain is a bully. You are ugly. You suck. You will never be good enough. You are a failure. You are a disappointment. You have no talents. You have no skill. You are dumb. You are worthless. You will never achieve anything in this world. You have no purpose in being alive. Nobody likes you.
Every day I wake up in what seems an unexplainable dystopia reminding myself of my non-existent worth. I am worthless. It is a vicious cycle of negativity. The sun is just a lost planet, and darkness is all I see. It chips away at my brain. Each day that passes, a little part of me falls off and disintegrates.
Countless days and nights in agonizing pain, it feels like you are being stabbed in the chest by a sharp knife. You feel completely and utterly alone. You begin to question what you are in this world and why you are alive. You are scared of yourself.
The tears that pour out of your eyes is just one of the physical parts. Your chest aches of anxiety, your head pounds from hours of crying, you are nauseous, your leg shakes, you feel weak, your body feels heavy as steel.

There is no word to perfectly describe depression. The closest I can get is horror.

It is your childhood nightmares. It is your teenage nightmares. It is your adult nightmares. It is your worst nightmare. It is a nightmare except for the fact that you can’t wake up from it.
Through all the suffering, I am still here today. How? When your mind tells you you want to die, how can you survive?
The fury. The anger. The fuel.
This was something I didn’t learn until one of my darkest periods. Those months were the worst I had ever felt in my life. After a never-ending battle, I finally was on the right track with the right help. This was only because I used the power of my words to speak up and communicate. If I didn’t, my life would have turned out very different.
Life can suck. A lot. For many reasons. Everyone has their personal struggles and everyone goes through something in their life.
I used to let mental illness define who I was. It controlled me. Now, I learned that the hardest things you face in life only make you stronger. My illness is my drive. My fuel. It fuels me to face it head on, and not let it win. I am tired of quitting. Tired of not seeing the sun rise.
I matter because I know the pain. I know it. I feel it. I experience it.
I matter because everyday I strive to let that dark hole inside of me spark a soaring light on the outside.
I matter because I have been through the worst of times. If I can make it out alive, so can you;
“The semicolon was chosen because in literature a semicolon is used when an author chooses to not end a sentence. You are the author and the sentence is your life”
The Semicolon Project

When I was young, my sister and I were on Disney’s website making a fairy version of ourselves after watching Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure. When I asked my sister what she wanted to look like, I was at a loss when she pointed to a fairy that was white. When I asked her why, she said, “I wish I was white.”
At the time, my mother was in our room putting our clothes away in a closet and she immediately scolded my sister for saying this. Fast forward a few years, and now, I am in her situation. I often find myself staring at the white people in my classroom thinking about how much easier their lives are because they don’t have the added barrier of being black in America.
Even though I know that being white won’t solve all my problems and that being black is amazing and beautiful, I still can’t help from feeling my blackness is a burden.
I want to hear more black people who have problems feeling like they matter, so I thought that I should start with myself. And I guess this is my way of overcoming this feeling because writing this is like lifting a weight off of my shoulders. I strive every day to remind myself that I am important and that I have so many people who love and support me. I just need to love and support me, too.

That path begins with school. We are taught to work hard in school so we can be accepted to a prestigious college or university so that we can be trained to enter the workforce and exit with a fabulous job that pays well. This pathway is enforced so much so that I didn’t once think about an alternate pathway, until I was exposed first hand to a new form of life.
We were seven miles into our backcountry hike on Upper Yosemite Falls when we came to a consensus that something wasn’t right. We hadn’t seen a mile marker for hours. We were all out of water and completely lost in one of the most dense forests on the planet.
Just when all hope was lost, a flash light began to shine in our direction. The man yelled for us to come towards the light for help. We finally reached the man and were amazed to see the cleared out section of forest in which he and his wife had been living in for 6 years. After hours of small talk we learned that the couple was fed up with their middle class desk jobs and the two picked up and ventured into the wild. 6 years later, they are happily living one with nature; they hunt for food and hike down to the lower Yosemite Falls to shower.
On my travels, I found that the core of our spirit truly comes from new experiences.

Everyone dies but not everyone lives, so go outside and live!

My anxiety caused me to never be present. Getting more and more overwhelmed, I had to leave whatever I was doing because I felt a weird tingly feeling throughout my toes to my brain. School dances, awkward high school parties, and hanging out with a larger group of friends, that tingly feeling turned into tears rolling down my cheek and sweat dripping. I was so out-of-place, the whole world felt like it was crumbling up on me.
I stopped hanging out with friends and got no sleep. Day by day obstacles came upon me, and instead of facing them head on I wouldn’t face them at all.

Depression is something you have to live with your whole life. Life’s a roller coaster. It has ups and downs. One second you’re the best you’ve ever been and a second later, bam!, you’re down and there’s no way of getting back up. You feel as if the whole world’s crumbling upon you, or that the world has stopped spinning. The roller coaster keeps going and you get back up. Ups and downs are just part of life.

Depression has taught me to handle downs differently and to move past them. Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. IT’S OKAY to feel the way you’re feeling. Be open about it.

So many of us have forgotten just how much freedom and power we have, simply by our status as human beings with free will. If you really wanted to, you could walk away from this carefully constructed life and never look back.
I feel it is rather empowering to know that what we do is a direct result of what we want for ourselves. We choose to follow the progression- high school, college, graduate studies, career, retirement. But we absolutely should not let that progression dominate our lives.
If there’s something we are passionate about, absolutely anything, I don’t think we should let the fact that we’re in high school be an excuse not to do it. Rather, let’s acknowledge that we can make the choice to dedicate more time to that, that thing that excites and energizes us and which bring us the utmost happiness, and a little less time to maintaining our GPAs. We may even find it’s possible to do both.
So let us not wait until we are older to follow our dreams. The choice has always been ours. The only thing stopping us is ourselves.

A year ago, a close camp friend of mine took his own life.
The countless times I have tried to wrap my head around the very idea, that this boy that smiled from ear-to-ear, took his own life and is now gone, pains me. Needless to say, I was well aware of the impact he had on me and all my friends. He was that person who had the entire room locked in a trance. His personality was a magnet and his ever-growing spirit never failed to bring up the energy wherever he went.
But none of this compares to the toll death takes on you, especially when it’s a good friend. The worst part is when you begin to feel helpless. There were days on end where I kept questioning whether there was something I could have done, a difference I could have made.
The grieving process and constant questioning never fully dissipates. But the only way I got myself up in the mornings was knowing that although I wasn’t able to help him, I am still able to help others. Ever since that realization, I have developed this driving force within me to reach out to the broader spectrum of people with mental illnesses and to help prevent suicide.

I faced and am still facing a long and dreadful battle of depression. It feels as if my life is consumed by it. The constant feeling of guilt, sadness, sorrow, gloom.
All of it consumed me. Made me a bitter person. Made me someone I truly was not. I became distant. Stopped responding to texts. Stopped answering calls. Stopped posting on social media. Stopped hanging out with friends.
Started sleeping a lot. Eating a lot. Watching Netflix a lot. Crying a lot. Yelling a lot.
It is a dark and scary time.
And what makes it worse is when nobody around you understands it. All everyone sees is the mask I put on everyday at school. Nobody sees beneath it. Nobody sees the crushing pain.
I’ve seen 4 different therapists. Spent countless hours crying, sleeping, and isolating myself.
My self-esteem at an all time low. I hated myself for who I was, blamed my learning challenges for not being smart, compared myself to everyone around me, and I always managed to hide everything from everyone.
I still face many of these battles, and they will always be apart of me. But I have learned how life is a privilege. When someone close to me died way too young, I started to rethink the meaning of life and the gift it is. In the matter of seconds, life can be taken away so easily, it’s terrifying.
So what made me keep pushing through? What motivated me? I could’ve easily given up. Could’ve easily said I quit. I am not dealing with this anymore. I’m done trying to live with a mind that wants to die.
But a little fight was left in me. Life will get better. It’s just a moment in time, It will pass.
Depression will haunt me lifelong, but I am not letting it define me. I am stronger than it.

“גם זה יעבור”
This too shall pass.

I came home from school that day extremely overwhelmed. I was constantly worrying about everything under the sun, and I didn’t really understand how to control it. I felt as if everything was falling apart. I put so much pressure on myself to be this impossibly “perfect” person that I pretty much drove myself insane. There was so much built up inside of me and I couldn’t handle it anymore. I felt this unfamiliar tightness in my stomach and I found it quite hard to breathe. I was alone in my room and I figured that I was just stressed from that day at school. I got underneath the covers and tuned out the world for a while as I tried to calm myself down, convince myself that everything was okay. As I lay there, my mind began to race, and it became harder and harder to breathe. Eventually, tears streamed down my face and I was hyperventilating. I had reached my breaking point. I needed to realize that there is no such thing as a perfect person and that my “flaws” are what make me, me. The rest if the night, I cried and cried. But, while I was sobbing, I was able to think. I needed to stop comparing myself to the world around me and starting being happy with who I was.

in the beginning,
life erupted into being –
sudden, like the exhalation of a conductor
signaling the start of a symphony.
in the beginning,
there was blood,
and it carried music, certainly.
and it was passed
down
down
down
generations – to me.
we look different,
so we sometimes forget that under earth-toned skin
we are all red
like tempered celestial bodies,
like forged passion.
but I remember
through the music –
when I pull bow across strings,
my violin sings,
and it harmonizes with my smile
and with the sparkle in onlookers’ eyes.
melodies fill a room until it becomes saturated
and the air is thick with dreams and other
intangible things
that cause hair on arms to rise
and minds to wander.
music had the same effect
when Paganini first played his caprices
for shivering crowds,
or when David plucked his lyre for Israel.
down
down
down
generations – to all of us.
you matter because you are one of us –
people made of space and time.
we share blood and we share music,
but that is just the beginning.

Life for me has always been a lot of ups and downs. I had a really decent childhood and you can even say I was a little spoiled. I never had too much to worry about. Until things would get rough with my parents, and the fighting would start. I never understood why my mom was always the one yelling and my dad always just took it with a smile. Until I started realizing that there was something my mom was hiding from us, and that’s why she was always the instigator. Behind closed doors my dad was severely abusive towards her, and we all had no idea. He had even cheated numerous times, but my mom never left him in hopes of trying to give my siblings and I a normal childhood.
But then he got worse when my youngest brother was born, and started abusing all of us one by one. Each in different sly dangerous ways. However, he never once put his hands on me. Till this day I don’t know why, but I think it was because deep down, he knew I wouldn’t take crap from him and just fight back to the death. Literally. But he was terrible to everyone in my family and damaged us terribly. I can’t even explain the extent of it, but he ruined us, and took us apart piece by piece as if we were a puzzle to be played with.
It was after 18 years, when my mom finally had the strength to break his cycle of abuse and got the police to put an order of protection in place and have him removed permanently from our home. He was finally gone and we could finally start healing. But we still had a long bumpy road ahead of us, and it wasn’t going to be an easy ride. We have been safe for the last 4 years, and that’s how long it has been since I have seen my dad. It’s pretty sad that he refuses to get healthy enough to try and fix our relationship, but I swear I will never put some unhealthy in my life again. NEVER! It is a lot of stress to have a single mom trying to put food on the table for her family, and it means I really have to pick up the slack. But I love my family more than anything and would never wish for my life to look any different. I believe you get stronger from struggles and I think of myself as someone who gets stronger and stronger every day.
It may not seem like much, but here’s my story.

When I sit in darkness and despair
I have to remember that I am one of the lucky ones who’s still here
With each breath that fills my lungs
I am reminded that my battle was won
Thankfully I realized before it was too late that
I Matter
I Matter because He created me
And saw fit for me to be alive
Because I’ve been through nightmare-ish things
But still I thrive
I Matter because of the two X chromosomes in my DNA
And all the information I’ve attained
I Matter because of the dark color of my skin
Because I am not afraid of showing the real person I am
I Matter because I believe in The Dream
And because I want everyone to succeed
I Matter and so do you because we chose to fight
We Matter because we chose life

People always say words fail to hurt you if you won’t allow them to.

What they fail to realize is that compliments and words of encouragement can also fail to help someone.

When my grandfather died, my main concern was becoming someone he could be proud of, and that led to creating huge standards for myself. While I did improve, I was never good enough for myself. Any compliments I received went in through one ear, and out the other. I always thanked them for their kind words but I just couldn’t believe I was good enough to get any compliments and that they were all lies. I was not good enough for those words, I was not good enough for anyone.
In hindsight, they probably were complimenting my achievements because I was always improving, but since I never reached the impossible goals I set for myself, there was no way for me at the time to be able to see that.

The best thing you can do for someone going through something is to stay by them and maybe they will eventually be able to see that those kind words are not lies.

In 3rd grade, I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It made daily tasks take miraculously longer. Through my supportive parents, meditation, and therapy, it now doesn’t control my life as much. All was well until around the middle of 8th grade. To this day, I still can’t explain what I felt. Sad? Hopeless? Useless? I didn’t tell anyone what I was feeling. Somehow my parents found out and I started therapy again this time. I went through 3 different therapists (and that’s okay and normal.) Last summer I was sent home from camp, my happy place, due to mental health reasons. It was devastating but it also changed me for the better. I’ve given up unhealthy coping mechanisms and I realized how much I impact the world. Life isn’t easy for anyone, but it’s worth it. It may be hard to wake up each day and face new challenges but as a society we need to focus on the positive aspects of life: Laughing with friends, winning an award, or simply just living to the next day. Humans cannot control all of their emotions, but they can control how they carry messages to others. I live for telling others they matter, and you should live for the same. You matter.

Basketball is a huge part of my life. My friends and I played in a rec league starting in first grade and we were a very good team. We were too good that our coach decided that we would abandon the rec league, and form a travel team. However, there was no spot on the team for me. This made me very sad.
I started to gain weight, my grades slipped, I started to say to myself that I was fat, I wasn’t good enough, I was stupid. These thoughts became ingrained in my mind. Until one day, I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere by sitting around. I realized the only way to boost my confidence was to persevere. Even though I was in 5th grade, I made it my goal to make the middle school basketball team. Every day I worked on getting my mind right and eating better. In seventh grade, the tryouts began. I changed my wallpaper to a picture of the words “you can do this”. This inspired me to work harder.
This paid off when I made the team. This was one of the proudest moments of my life and it showed me how important resilience really is.

The next morning I woke up with the worst headache that I’d ever sensed. I couldn’t contact my friends, let alone look at my phone, without the brightness triggering my pain. This was the first time that I missed a vast amount of school. I was out for two weeks, and began to feel lonely and down. I started to see numerous doctors in the area, including an ENT, endocrinologist, infectious disease doctor, neurologist, and many others. At one of my appointments, they gave me steroids to help with my pain, but instead, I began to hallucinate. My neck was tight in one place, and I was unable to sleep for a week straight. I was paranoid, and didn’t want to leave my parents side. They realized something wasn’t right with the medicine, and took me off of it immediately. Unfortunately, I left each appointment feeling the same exact way… hopeless. I continued to miss school. Eventually I stopped contacting my friends, and after being absent for such lengthy periods of time, I began to question myself. When I was at school, I practically lived in my counselor's office. I was feeling so sad that it became difficult for me to get myself out of bed in the morning. I wasn’t showering, and took little interest in things that had been important to me previously. For the first time in my life, something had changed. I had become depressed.