Personal Experiences

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The Boy in my History Class

-Anonymous

During my freshman year, in my history class, a boy walked into the room and I realized that he was new to the school. He went up to the teacher and asked if he was in the right place and the teacher told him yes and introduced himself and all that stuff. The teacher told him to sit in the back in the seat next to me. I don't interact with people very well so naturally I was nervous that I was going to make a complete idiot out of myself. He came over set his bag down and then sat himself down. He smoothly introduced himself and I told him my name and as I was about to shake his hand, I had a pen in my hand and kind of stabbed him with it! It was so embarrassing but he laughed it off and was really cool about it. I also found out that he was in a few of my other classes. Slowly after spending so much time with each other in all of our other classes, we got to know each other and became best friends. It was like we knew each other since we were born! I'm always happy to see him and we found that we both had a passion for history. Now, today 5 years later, we are both once again freshman, but this time at college. My best friend became my boyfriend and we are happily living the college life. I love the fact that this one transfer kid can change my whole life. I love the fact that I am no longer as stressed as was and that my anxiety attacks are becoming less and less frequent. And it's all because of the boy in my history class.

It Got Worse

-Anonymous

There was this guy when I was in the 7th grade. Let’s call him…J. So I had a crush on J for a while and I really liked him. When he finally “asked me out” I was excited. We “dated” for around 5 months (we were 13 so it doesn't count). One day I was at his house and it was starting to get hot out so I took my sweater off. I had completely forgotten about what I was hiding. J saw my arms and he freaked out. He asked me what happened so I told him since he was my “boyfriend” and I trusted him (again, please keep in mind that I was 13). That was another one of the many mistakes I've made since the beginning of my existence. He was so disgusted. His words still cross my mind from time to time. “You’re so gross. How could you do that to yourself”, “You must be like crazy or something”, “I always knew there was something wrong with you”, and the one that hurt the most. “I only dated you because it was a dare, I feel bad for any guy that ever goes near you.” Yeah, ouch. The next day at school he told everyone. Some people “felt sorry” for me and everyone else just laughed at me. The bullying got so much worse that day. People were saying things that they knew were wrong but they wanted me to hear it. Apparently I was the fattest girl in my school. I don’t believe it now but I did before. That’s where my anorexia came into play. I was no longer purging, I decided to starve myself. Some months later I tried killing myself for the first time. I took my mother’s blood pressure medication and a bunch of Tylenol. I woke up in the hospital and things just started getting worse after that.

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Ruined

-Nick B.

So, I have been thinking about writing this for a while now, and I decided I’m finally going to do it. I know I haven’t spoken to you for a while now, but still this must be said. I am sending this little “letter” to three people, from my life this year. And go ahead and correlate with them to figure things out if you wish, but all three of you will receive the same letter, so there really isn’t a point, I apologize if each one isn’t exactly tailored to each of you. I’m not going to avoid it, this letter is very negative and will most likely leave you feeling horrible, but if you want to know the truth about what happened to me this year, then you can continue reading. There is no anger in this letter, no sadness, no feelings, there are simply facts and words. I don’t wish to start anything with this, but I feel that what I am going to say needs to be said. Once again if you don’t want to hear it, don’t read it. The truth this year, is that I am completely ruined. No matter how many times I said “No, it’s fine” or “I’ll be okay”, it is not fine, and I am not okay. Three people this year single-handedly managed to ruin what I had built up of myself in my life, you, being one of the three. I write this only because I really want you to understand what I experienced this year and I imagine you want to understand it as well. The damage done is far beyond repair, and I honestly can’t understand how I even made it this far. This year was a living hell for me, and it was definitely the worst year of my life so far. I spent 90% of it, in complete emotional agony, wishing I was dead. Night, after night, I cried, and cried, and cried until I used up all the tears I had. I sat and watched as everyone carried on, while I lay desperate for an escape from this world. To be honest if I hadn’t made a promise to some people I would be around, I would have most likely taken my own life a long, long time ago. I can’t imagine you know how I felt, but I experienced emotional despair like never before, like I never thought imaginable. It broke me, shattered me into a million little, tiny, pieces. I tried my hardest this year to do the right thing as many times as I could, and I feel like I was still just thrown away, like trash. I believe that with all the emotional pain you felt this year, it doesn’t even come close to how much my soul was crushed. There is not a single doubt in my mind that I am dead inside now, and I feel nothing. I feel as if I can never be happy, and I have no hope in it. Everyday I sit here now and I wonder if it’s even worth it to carry on, I wonder it because you along with others pushed me off the edge. Granted, I was already on it, but you, you pushed me to it. I felt everyday like there were a thousand hands tearing at my heart in all directions. I put on a fake smile and I pretended to be alright, for you. I didn’t want you to feel bad, and I still hope you don’t but I do hope you completely understand now what I went through this year. There isn’t a single fiber in my body that is not filled with regret from this year. I wish I could say that I wouldn’t take it all back, but I would in a heartbeat. I also wish I felt sad about wanting to take it back, but I don’t I have been robbed of that as well. I lay here now, wishing I could cry every night to let out my feelings, but I can’t because there are no feelings, and so no tears are able to come out. It’s a feeling of emptiness and a feeling of hopelessness unlike you can probably even imagine. Once again, I write this not in bad intentions, or so that you can feel bad about it, but only so that you can understand me. Understand, I was never okay and understand I believe I never will be okay. You along with others have literally left me a shell of my former self. Everyday I sit and I watch you carry on in your life and I envy you. I wish I could forget it and move on, but I never will be able to, because it will always come back to haunt me. And every second I see you happy, I envy that too because I wish I could feel happy, again. But I feel absolutely nothing. I honestly wish nothing this year happened, and I wish I had never experienced anything with you. And I wish it were another way but it isn’t. This is real life and not all stories have happy endings and this one doesn’t have one. Maybe you will have one someday, but I feel as if I never will. So next time you think about my decisions, or you wonder something about me, now you know what it was like for me. Still you don’t completely know as I can never explain it in words. I know at some point I will most likely have to interact with you in the future, and that is fine. I am just saying now, don’t expect a happy ending for me, and you, I wish there were one, but there isn’t. If you wish to get back to me about any of this feel free I have nothing against you and I have no wish to say anything bad to you or about you, and I will listen as long as you feel the need to speak.

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Our Realization

And that moment, it hit us. We realized that Teen Mental Health is a problem in our school, and in our community. We added a padlet link under the Personal Experience page and shortly after we announced to our class that we had created the padlet, we received a response. Here is what the comment said:“I had a personal experience with such a similar issue. I use to be made fun of because i was much slower than the other class.”We hadn’t told the public about the padlet yet, only members of our class knew about the anonymous padlet. This initially shocked us because we realized that teen mental health is a problem not only in our school, but in our classroom.

In My Skin

-Anonymous

People don't understand how much words really do hurt. When I was in middle school- and still sometimes now- I was made fun of because of the way my skin looked. And by 'skin', I literally mean my skin. I don't have "normal white girl" skin, as referred by others. It's discolored, thin, pale, and sickly looking. I never had that sun-kissed summer tan that my friends had. I never wanted to go outside in the summer because I knew I would end up looking like a walking strawberry. I just never felt comfortable literally in my own skin. Classmates used to call me "Ghost", "Anemic", and "Snow White". I tried everything to hide it; spray tanning, pounds of makeup, clothes that covered up every inch of my skin, basically I would have done anything to make my skin look "normal".

It took me quite some time before I realized that having this skin type is what makes me, me. I also realized that just because someone looks 'different', or 'weird' on the outside doesn't mean that they're any different from you. Yeah, I may not be 100% happy about how my skin looks, but at least I'm more confident now.

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Figuring Myself Out

-Anonymous

I don't have a mental illness, I'm just stressed..right? I play sports a lot and I love it. I mean maybe not the late practices and everything but those are just stresses of any teen..right? Coming home often crying because I was overwhelmed is normal for everyone..right? WRONG. These are all the things I told myself as I was suffering with General Anxiety Disorder. This disorder washed upon me like a wave on a shore. Every time one of my stresses would slide away, another would be roaring to the surface. I didn't know how to stop it. Run into the waves and drown myself in them? No. Run further up the beach and handle my anxieties. Yes.

I wore down my parents constantly worrying about things that teens usually don't. "Will mom make it home from the store?" "What if dad gets in an accident on his way home?" " Will my brother get hurt at football practice?" Why were all these things in my mind? I couldn't relax. My mother says " You never can truly relax, can you" to me in a joking way and I shrug it off. But it sunk in, maybe I couldn't. Was I losing control of my worries? Unable to push them out of my mind? Yes. I was. I talked to kids at my school, asked them if they ever felt like they were going to explode with worry, they said yes. Sometimes teens get stressed. Sometimes we get overwhelmed. Sometimes we break down. But that was my life. Sometimes was all the time and I knew I needed real help.

After talking to my parents they agreed, if I needed help, they would provide the help. And they did. I saw a counselor who helped me deal with my anxieties and although I haven't pinpointed a "cure" I feel healthier than ever. I haven't regained my spot on sports teams but that's okay. I play my sports outside of school with my friends and I go without the stress of practice times and game days.

Please. Don't read this and think "I have to quit my teams and focus more" That isn't true. As a teenager find your own lifestyle. What works for you? Can you do homework until 4 am every night without a problem? Do you want to go home every day after school and miss the fun parts of sports? It was a hard decision but do what is best for you and don't let others influence your choices. You are who you are and you can't change that.

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