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I want to die.

I have for a while now.

Everyday life piles on top of me. 

My roommates anxiety increases my own.

I have no money. I can’t pay for the things I need and want.

I feel like my families always in danger.

Even when things go right, I feel nothing but doom.

I joke about my anxiety but my life is the real joke.

I can’t focus on anything.

My life is a disaster.

The world spins on.

I just want to die.

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2018: The year of self-care

I’m joining a gym.

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I’m a codependent and I’m in recovery!

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Hamster probs

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Mental health habits aren’t always pretty but they are much needed. Don’t think you need to be pretty or social-media present when you throw on a face mask. Do it for you, not for the selfies (yes I realize I took a selfie, but I did it to show I’m not ashamed of my less beautiful moments).

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If I’m Being Honest...

Dear Boy-I-Met-On-A-Dating-App-Who-I-Hope-Will-Be-The-One-So-I-Can-Stop-Worrying-About-My-Worth,

There’s some things you should know about me before you get involved. 

I have depression and I feel suicidal more days than not.

I cry while doing homework because I know I signed up for a job that I am not cut out for.

I’m overweight and no matter how much I try, I will never look like the pretty girls that every guy wants.

I don’t want kids, though I find them adorable.

I’m not really wife material: I can’t cook, I hardly clean, and I’m not pretty enough to be a trophy wife.

I have one friend who doesn’t like me.

I wish I had the motivation to be anorexic.

I get winded going up one flight of stairs.

If you couldn’t tell, I have a terrible body image and no self-confidence.

I believe in a lot of 9/11 conspiracy theories because at this point I’m not sure what the government is capable of with Trump as President.

I adopt pets because I think they fill a void no human is willing to fill.

I'm not academically smart.

I base my self-worth on whether or not guys find me attractive.

I get piercings because the physical pain is cathartic for my emotional pain.

If I'm being honest, I don't have much to offer and I wouldn't want to date me either.

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The Catch 22 of Wanting to Be Skinny

I hate that I’m not happy with my body and miss the old days of anorexia. Even worse is that although I’m trying to lose weight the healthy way, my frustration leads me to emotional-eat and gain weight....

...not happy.

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Internalisation.

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I miss being skinny. Gotta remember my motivation when I want that 5th Hershey’s bar.

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Goals! o.O

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Light Therapy Day 10

Light therapy is working again and I’m finally back to a semi-normal sleep schedule. I slept with the sound of rain playing last night and I don’t know whether I slept better due to the noise or just because I was so damn tired. 

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November 6th, 2017

The Title of President of The United States

My name is not important.

I am just one woman of many, one child of millions, and one human on the face of this earth with a story. Today I am going to share my story just as others have before me, and I hope you will read what I have to say with an open mind. I sat down to write this today, because Donald J. Trump was elected President. His continuous slander against women, minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, and others has continuously hit the wrong cord. I have walked through today in a daze. I have close family members who voted for him, and I have friends who fought against him with everything they had, but at the end of the day only the former matters because Donald Trump will still hold the title of President of the United States.

What none of my family members or friends who voted for Trump know is that I no longer trust them as much as I used to, or in some cases, at all because they voted for the man that reinforces the idea that what happened to me is okay and acceptable.

I was sexually assaulted when I was 18. I didn’t report because anyone who heard my story would blame it on me, and I did too, at first. I went to his house to hang out, a relatively innocent action. I would soon find out that my naivety would cost me not only my dignity but my mental state. He shoved me up stairs that day just moments after he had rammed me against the wall and attacked my mouth with his. He stripped me against my will and violated my mouth after I pleaded with him repeatedly not to rape me. I said no again and again, I shut down mentally in an attempt to tune out what happened, but there is a piece of me that never forgets. This piece exists in all survivors despite our best attempts to repress it and take away it’s power just as our attackers took away ours. My story is not unique, but it is mine. I live every day with the memory of my attack and it still affects my relationships with all those who are close to me, mainly by removing the trust I had for family and friends that I used to have such warm relationships with.

I share my experience of stolen control and violence with so many people, men and women alike who may or may not have come forward, like me. Many people came forward accusing Donald Trump of these very same actions and yet instead of standing up for humanity sake and saying “I am sorry that happened to you” many members of the United States attacked those who needed comfort most. What I say next is my explanation and reasoning behind Trump’s success. It is more for my own mental health than for those who will read this piece.

People claim to have voted for him because he is different from the corrupt politicians we currently have, and yet this claim was made about a man who has not paid taxes for 18 years. People claim to have voted for him because Hillary had a private email server full of emails, yet few people admit to having not read them personally. People claim to have voted for him because he tells the truth and yet according to The New York Times article on September 26, 2016, Trump told over 31 lies during the presidential debates alone. Many people claim many things, but at the end of the day Donald Trump will still hold the title of President of the United States.

Last night while watching the election I posted a status about how no matter what the results of the election turn out to be, we must unite as a people, and not expect the government, to Make America Great Again. However, my status was seen by few and it’s debatable if those who read it even read it to the end. I question, now, my reason for writing that status and in retrospect I realize it was a desperate plea. A plea for the people of the United States to not turn against each other and against those are different than themselves. Trump has stood in front of America and awaken the great monsters that we as a ‘democratic’ nation have spent the past century trying to defeat: monsters known as racism, sexism, ableism, bigotry and so many others. We have, finally in 2016, learned that fighting does not resolve issues, it only encourages them, and yet our newly elected President spews the hateful words that reignite painful feelings previously caused by those monsters. I speak of these monsters as if they are only concepts and constructs, but this would be completely invalidating what they truly are. These monsters are people. Regardless of what every person's ballot stated, the real monsters are men, women, blacks, whites, able, unable and every member in between who wake up in the morning and believe that they have the right to tell others how to live or believe that they are superior in any way, shape, or form to those members of this country who are different. It is foolish to think that humans are fundamentally different when we share almost 100% of our DNA. Every human on this earth is the same despite every claim otherwise. Yes individual differences exist and we all wake up with different passions, but despite any differences, we fundamentally want to be happy at the end of the day. We all put our pants on one leg at a time (or skirts if you prefer) and yet some people believe that the amount of melanin in their skin or the physical traits below their belt make them in someway better than others. Those who voted for Trump have no right to claim that they did it because of his economic policies, he has been bankrupt four times in the last fifteen years. I can confidently say that deep inside, in a place they will never admit to having, they voted with Trump because he is willing to express the vile, hateful comments that have been suppressed and deemed inappropriate by the few with a moral conscience and the guts to speak out despite immense pushback. It is these frightening words that will encourage others with even more extreme hateful views to attack those have only begun to gain the human rights that they have been denied in the name of “taking back America and making it great again”.

Views like those mentioned are what have separated us as humans for as long as we have existed on this earth. Donald Trump took these views and people’s insecurities and used them to take control of a nation. What he will do now is anyone’s guess, but no matter what happens, at the end of the day he will still hold the title of President of the United States.

For the next four years it is quite possible that many members of this country will wake up in fear for their safety, their family’s safety, their personal rights, and even their lives. Unfortunately, just like many Americans, Donald J. Trump does not care about my story or the other millions of stories that the people of this country have to tell. He will continue to care only about himself and those like him. He will use the idea that humans are not in fact equal but fundamentally different to divide this country further and silence those who do not share his views. Despite Donald J. Trump’s superiority complex and his horrible comments towards people unlike him at the end of the day he will still hold the title of President of the United States.

Haberman, Maggie, and Alexander Burns. "A Week of Whoppers From Donald Trump." The New York Times. The New York Times, 2016. Web. 09 Nov. 2016.

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My Al-Anon Story

My dad has been an alcoholic for my entire life. However, his disease did not become fully apparent or malevolent until I reached middle school age. Though a hardworking, determined, caring father of two (and a half), his alcoholism turned some of his most admirable traits into some of his most frustrating. His hardworking nature became the reason for needing a drink to take the edge off. His dogged determination became a vicious, stubborn attitude during disagreements, and his caring paternal instincts became an inability to let go of his children when adulthood dawned.

During one particularly painful disagreement, I became so emotionally unsettled that I packed a small bag of items and removed myself from the only home situation I had ever known. As a senior in high school, I had not fully realized the capabilities of the disease that is alcoholism and its deceptive ability to turn good people, like my father, into monsters. Eventually, the damage created from that fallout came to be repaired to the meager extent that it could be. However, that was not the end of the pain for my family.

Fast forward to the summer after my sophomore year of college. I was working as a camp counselor at a Lutheran bible camp approximately five hours away from home. Though strained due to my father’s anguish at losing his eldest to adulthood responsibilities, my relationship with my dad remained neutral leaning toward positive most of the time. However, while home for July 4th vacation from work, I found myself having to leave my home situation again due to turbulence in my relationship with him. His refusal to change and even more adamant refusal to admit to having a problem, drove me away so intensely that I cut off all communications with him until a few months later when his ego led him to attempting to turn his side of the family against me and convince them of my insolent, pathetic nature. This was also the interaction that drove the wedge far enough between my mother and I to send our once intimate relationship spiraling out of control.

Through the entirety of middle and high school, my mother had not wanted to admit that my dad had a serious problem with alcohol. Though she would often say that she knew he had a drinking problem, I think she refused to believe in the full extent of the problem. It seemed as if no matter how bad the problem got, she would return to his side rather than taking mine and admitting I was right about his alcoholism. During the last escape made from the house in July, I told her that I was sick of being chosen second to him and his problems. I had no choice in being brought into the world and, additionally, their turbulent relationship, nor did my brother have a say in the matter. Yet, her response was always the same; she had put too much time into her relationship with my dad to leave him despite the abuse that came as a result of the alcohol (and not as a result of it).

The woman who had always been my best friend and greatest source of spiritual guidance was allowing herself to be emotionally abused and dragged through the mud by a man who claimed to be Christian but had never shown that to be the case. Having struggled throughout middle school and high school with my faith, the realization of the extent of my dad’s disease was one of the many final straws that drove God out of my life. I had been so angry at the “God” who claimed to be all-loving of every one of his children, yet he allowed alcoholism to exist and allowed it to tear apart families just like mine. Even worse in my mind was the lack of support and acknowledge from my mother which would also come to play a big role in a series of moments I would come to see as religious.

One day at the beginning of the Fall 2017 semester, during a seemingly ordinary conversation, my mother asked if I had ever gone to an Al-Anon Family meeting. I responded that I had not, and she told me that if I had a chance, I may find one to be beneficial. She told me that she had visited our new associate pastor, whom she had found a profound connection to in the previous months, and that she had directed her to an Al-Anon meeting in hopes that it would give my mom a different perspective on the issue. Upon arriving at the meeting, the group followed protocol and began to introduce themselves by first name only. The first man introduced himself as Bryan and the second man introduced himself as Scott. My mother said it was this moment that she was finally convinced. Though unrelated and unobvious to anyone else, my father’s name is Bryan Scott and it was this moment where my mother finally accepted, through God’s intervening that my dad had a problem and it was time to fully accept it rather than continue denying it. As she told me about this experience, I felt a wave of peace come over me; it was the much-needed result of finally being told that she would no longer deny his problems which released the pent-up tension I had been holding. I felt like God had opened my mom’s eyes and shown her that I was not making claims about my dad to tear our family apart but I truly was experiencing an emotional turmoil beyond imagination.

Previously, I had not been able to comprehend the structure of Al-Anon, much less had I wanted anything to do with attended a meeting surround by people like my father. From my perspective, it was a group that met to talk about how their week/month/season had gone and whether they had relapsed and used alcohol again. I came to find out that Al-Anon is, in actuality, a separate entity than the one I just described which is actually known as Alcoholics Anonymous. Al-Anon is a group of people who have been affected by alcoholism in a loved one. Distinct groups meet and utilize the same twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in order to cope and understand the disease of alcoholism better. It was this confusion that originally discouraged me from attending, however after hearing the way that God had affected my mother through the program I was willing to see what Al-Anon had to offer me.

Upon arrival at my first meeting, I was welcomed with no more than a few polite glances. I didn’t feel particularly welcomed, but I didn’t feel unwelcome either. It seemed like this group of people had known each other for a significant time and my presence was irrelevant to their conversations. As the meeting started, the group followed protocol and then began doing a round table of readings from Al-Anon literature, something I had not come prepared with. As people began to speak, I sat quietly with my hands folded in my lap, doing my best to remain unnoticed. Then the woman next to me slid a bit closer and nudged my arm to show me that she was sharing her book with me to read from. When it became my turn, I read the next passage in the lineup from her book and smiled in silent appreciation as she continued to allow me to share for the entirety of the meeting. 

As the session came to a close, the group abruptly stood and asked those who felt comfortable to join in the Lord’s prayer. Being a nervous newcomer, I quickly joined and did my best to follow the groups’ lead. I hadn’t realized Al-Anon was in any way religious. I wasn’t offended, but I was certainly surprised. This unexpected addition of religion confused me, but it also seemed to fit with the purpose of the group. As the final words were spoken, I quietly left the room as the returners continued to chat. As I left the church where the meeting was held, I was overcome with intense emotion. I began to run to my car and once in the safety of its confines, I let myself fall apart. I spent a long time sitting in the parking lot of the church talking to God. I told him how, despite the normality of the meeting and its simple nature, I had felt an unusually strong connection to the people in that room. I had seen their individual pains and their strengths despite the short time I spent with them. I had felt drawn to the church and drawn to the Al-Anon group inside of it. Each week I have returned to that church, and each week I have repeatedly felt the way I did the first night I attended. Despite the struggles each member faces, I can see that they want to understand the plight of alcoholism while going for their own benefit as well. They talk about their Higher Power and how connection with him has been influential in their healing journey. 

Where I once blamed God for the problems my father deals with, I now thank Him for showing me that there is hope. Just as he brought my mother to her first Al-Anon meeting and me to mine, it is obvious that he also brought each of the members I have come to cherish to their first meetings and have continued returning.

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Look at my cute little fat hamster baby. <3 

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There is a common and damaging misconception in mathematics - the idea that strong math students are fast math students.

Professor Jo Boaler

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Just a beautiful equation wrapped up in trying to find the answer to herself