The Graduating Class of "We Made It"

5.30.2019 it didn’t win.

the evening of my graduation ceremony i did not want to leave my mom’s side. as a virtual school, we vaguely know each other. we MAYBE know the sound of one another’s voices, that is as if we have ever spoken on our mics during our virtual live classes. for some of us, we only knew the names of one another as we received notifications that we joined the class session, or left it. i only knew a few of these people from a school event over a year before my graduation. knowing hardly no one on my grad night made me anxious and feeling lost. i was exhausted, i didn’t want to be there, and i felt like my entire world was falling apart- which was so tragic, because this was a moment that, for so many around me, was an experience that so seamlessly made their world fall even more into place.

so, feeling alone and terrified, my mind tried to back out and leave, but the smallest parts of me wanted to stay and celebrate this moment by walking across the stage. because for me, high school was hell (to say the least.. *and don’t get your panties all up in a bunch, hell is a place.*) it was the time of my life that was SUPPOSED to be the time of my life !!! but nonetheless, it consisted of the most grueling moments of my life thus far. juggling with death on teeter-totters and tightropes, for months and months inside of my head, through manic stages, anxiety attacks (that might as well have been endless), and paranoia that felt so real that it took every last living part of me and my life that i had salvaged from the wreckage that anxiety, O.C.D, P.T.S.D, paranoia, mania, depression, hallucinations and delusions, psychological reactions to medications and treatments, etcetera, etcetera, etc.,… i was so sick. an outbreak of horrifying things created by my own mind that were so grotesque, things that were so severe, that my blood became the wind that adrenaline poisoned and blew terror through- like a dandelion stripped of everything it used to be—

graduation was a milestone, of course, especially after being hit with such illnesses. but it was also difficult, hard, and so uncomfortable, because it was a rush of reminders of everything that fell apart and went down at my previous public high school. that night felt more like me receiving the diploma and certificate of authenticity of living proof of surviving the darkest time of my life.. it was the day that i thought, for countless months on end, that i would never see. it was the moment in which i once thought i knew i would never know, because once upon a dark time i thought that i couldn’t take the pain that i felt any longer. it was the night that was pushed aside and stored away along with all of my other hopes, dreams, and aspirations that once felt like ransoms i would never (EVER) be able to pay for.

so here’s to the silver linings salvaged from something that seemed next to nothing. here’s to my story. my life. my ‘high school career.’ here’s to my past.

but above all, here is to the new girl, with the name of the old girl, that we all once knew. here’s to the point in which the old girl disappeared, and left everyone with questions of why she went where she went, and why she did the strange things she did- here’s to the girl who disappeared:

my sophomore year of high school i was diagnosed with multiple severe anxiety disorders that flipped my entire life around and turned it completely upside down. i was afraid of everything- from breathing to pieces of paper, to eating, walking, and talking. the most simplest of things. my life took a nosedive i didn’t have time to rehearse for, and faster than i could try and do anything to stay afloat, a monster moved inside of me and into my life. i was unrecognizable. i eventually stopped talking and only said about 7 words. i cried and i cried and my body shook because it was in constant horror of the unknown. this wasn’t just a panic attack, or the good ole anxiety you hear about every day. this was my body under attack, held against its own pleas and advances, forced into a living hell, where i was no where near fit for survival. there came a time when i couldn’t take it anymore and i promised my body that i wouldn’t make it suffer any longer. i wanted to die. but, i couldn’t. no matter how badly i wanted to cut myself off from this world i couldn’t because i was terrified of the unknown. what if it didn’t work? what if i woke up in the hospital with people angry at me? a tube down my throat? permanent brain damage? my stomach pumped? blood all over the people’s hands who had to sacrifice a night of their life to save a girl’s life? my mind was held hostage, and there was no escaping the torment. i tried to kill myself but it didn’t work. i woke back up, and that’s when i realized that i was too afraid of everything..too afraid to die. and that was the center of it all. i was forced to stay alive inside of a body that wanted so badly to just go. i was forced to lay in bed shaking, quaking as my mom tried to calm me down. but i couldn’t calm down. fight or flight was triggered at the sight of light. i was alive but i wasn’t living. i was breathing but i didn’t want to. i was isabelle, but the person inside of me had been evicted by anxiety and paranoia, with only the remnants of a dead girl, who’s life had been completely robbed. i was 1% girl, 99% anxiety.

i don’t talk about this because it’s hard. it’s hard to say that there were days of my life that i sat up crying, prying at my skin and begging God to MAKE IT ALL STOP. but He didn’t, and i realized that there was a world full of people who some, mathematically proven, felt the exact pain i felt. and there were people who’s lives had been taken from them too soon, too early, for reasons they had no control over. yet i still had a choice. no matter how hard things got, no matter the words “I CAN’T” that were carved into my left thigh, no matter the days i spent curled into fetal position on the ground holding myself bracing for the impact of the next anxiety attack.. and this was horror. it was the most gruesome, horrifying, brutal, and painful death that i know i will ever experience. losing the girl who i grew for 16 years was hard news. losing her meant relearning everything. it meant a new life. it meant starting over. it meant never being the same. it meant having hellish days. and at the time, it so painfully meant that i could no longer go to a public school, and that i would have to remain in my high school years at home in front of a computer screen. i had to continue school virtually because leaving the house was a death sentence in more ways than just one. in more ways than i was even conscious of. so every second of every day from those moments, i have fought so hard to win back my home that is MY BODY. the monster is still here and it is well within me, but i, am winning. and i continue to win, day after day, and i will never stop, because even after losing so much of myself and landing on something so dark that i had to look up just to see rock bottom, even after all of this..after losing my life to a mental illness, i made it. i walked across a stage today and showed my anxiety that it STILL didn’t have custody of me. and it won’t ever.

i have come so far and learned so much. i love life with a greater purpose and passion. i know more of myself than i ever thought was possible. i have fought through the darkest of times and fallen hard, and carried myself out from the nightmarish reality back into life. i have this blog that i dedicate to spreading the awareness of mental health, and to hopefully reach those who need to know that they are not alone in this fight. through my pain i have been given so much life. through the silent and slow death of myself i have been given a beautiful blessing. and though it is hard, oh so incomprehensibly hard...and i still struggle on a daily basis, it is possible. i am still here.

it didn’t win.

i won.

so here’s to the “Graduating Class of ‘I Made It.’”

i did it, and i will keep doing it, and i will spend my entire life with the goal of carrying those home who think that they have lost themselves.

because we didn’t lose ourselves. we brought ourselves this far, so how much farther can we go?

i am forever grateful for my school that took me in, helped me continue my education, for the teachers who were so compassionate and understanding- even though they knew nothing of what it was like to live with a mind like mine. and for my fight, i am eternally grateful. here’s to living and healing.

i love you guys

and no matter what you go through, it is NOT the end of the road. we are not abandoned cars stalled out on some highway. and if in some way we are, we only got out to walk and get gas. YOU, can do this. together, we create a legion. as people, we fight. and as we fight, we conquer death even on our worst days. so if we stand with one another, the world will begin to change. follow my journey and subscribe to this blog for new post announcements that will be sent out weekly. i believe in you and all that you are, even if you feel that you are not much inside of this busy world. because to me, you are the whole entire freaking world. and i am determined to live my life in a way that you will know that you, are indeed, the whole world, in one beautiful being

WE.NEED.YOU

the grounds you walk on shutter upon your graceful arrival. this I know is the act of them preparing themselves to keep you on your feet so that the rest of the world can feel your beauty, too.

you are vital embedded deep within us all.

ilc

embrace who YOU are

I get really sick to my stomach when people are constantly romanticizing mental illness. Anxiety is NOT beautiful butterflies flying swiftly through your bloodstream. Depression is NOT the reason that you are upset with your math grade, or the reason you can't stop crying after your 2 year relationship breakup. OCD is NOT a cute personality trait given to mothers who don't like their houses dirty, or people who choose to color-coordinate their closets. Bipolar does NOT mean changing feelings, it is clinical mood swings. Mood swings are spread across the timeline of 6 months, the first being filled with depression, and the next being occupied by uncontrollable mania. Bipolar isn’t a word you can use to describe the weather, or your girlfriend/boyfriend who was sad five minutes ago (probably something you guys inflicted), but is happy all of a sudden after pouting. Those are feelings that are part of the human condition; and for the weather, it will do what it pleases. Don't offend or put people down with the careless use of your words. Think before you speak, because sometimes what you choose to say is offensive and detrimental to others. Please, out of respect for the people around you, get educated before you use those words, and when you do speak them, use them only in times when educating others, and for the greater good.

It is not a race to be the 'saddest', or a contest to be the first one who's doctor finds it reasonable enough to put you on Prozac. So tell me about your boss, tell me about your homework, tell me about your alarm clock, tell me about how your parents will not buy you a brand new car for your 16th birthday. Explain to me how these things burn your days to the ground. Tell me these things, and I will congratulate you FOR BEING HUMAN. Stop reading sad fiction stories on tumblr just to make yourself feel something less than happy, when you have absolutely no reason to revel in sadness. Stop wishing you were on medication, needing cognitive therapy, or thinking that a psychiatrist is right for you. You must recognize natural emotion and grief before self-diagnosing yourself with depression. Clinically diagnosed mental illnesses are anything but beautiful. They are tragedy and catastrophe at its finest. To want to possess one of these things, is like wishing you could plants seeds within you that reproduce blood cells uncontrollably that sprout a tumor in your body that grows and grows and goes undiagnosed until it is a tree and its strong unwilling branches are growing from within you, outside. Do not romanticize with mental illness. It is unforgiving and absolutely horrifying. It is not like how they portray it in the movies. It is laying on the bathroom floor at 2 a.m. because your throat burns and your stomach screams at you for taking so much out of it. It is standing in the shower watching blood run down your legs and your life circle the drain. It is shaking uncontrollably and not being able to stop the adrenaline rush that is running marathons around your heart in attempts to rid your body of the fear that you are in danger, when you certainly are not. It is buying the same pair of jeans 78 times online because the two polar ends of your brain are not working the way that they are supposed to. It is hallucinating visually and audibly, and not being able to differentiate reality on your own terms, because your brain robbed that from you. It is washing your hands until raw flesh surfaces, and it is counting every single article of clothing you own 3 times before you go to bed to ensure that your family will never be without food, shelter, clothes, and warmth...it is NOT pretty. Stop romanticizing mental illness.

Mental illness will not dance with you under a soft kitchen light in the middle of the night. It will not dip you gently in its arms, to bring you back to its kiss. It will not carry you to bed like the way a lover is supposed to do. It will drop you. You’ll have to find your bed in complete darkness, and you’ll have to fight to know if tonight the monsters are going to live in your head, or underneath your bed. It will not dance with you, the only dancing will be the monsters who are taunting you. I know that you look at tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and all the other scary stops that are on the same road as the information superhighway that social media has become. I know that sometimes your mind and your body crave sadness because sometimes you just want to feel something, but please understand that is dangerous and can cause harm to you. In an article called

“Did We “Take Delete the Stigma” Too Far?”

on https://stopromanticizingthingsthathurt.weebly.com/the-romanticism-of-mental-illness.html, it addresses the concern that the public is taking mental illness and using it to express their pain by labeling their trials with words like artitistic, aesthetic, elegant, and alluring. The article states “while mental illness isn’t something people should be scared of, it also isn’t something that people should aspire to have.” I love this!! I love it because it is so true. People should never be afraid of mental illnesses, or people who are diagnosed with them. But also, people shouldn’t ever aspire to have such illnesses. The article also states,

“Today, people everywhere are romanticizing mental illness. Girls have started to associate the words “tragic” and “beautiful” together. Let’s think about this realistically for a second. In fact, let’s look at the dictionary definitions for tragic and beautiful.

trag·ic /trajk/ adjective

                 causing or characterized by extreme distress or sorrow

  beau·ti·ful/ˈbyo͞odəfəl/adjective

                  pleasing the senses or mind aesthetically.

I don’t know about you, but these terms definitely don’t look like synonyms to me. In fact, they seem more like antonyms. So why are people everywhere talking about how tragic is beautiful? The new mindset “tragic is beautiful” likely stems from the false idea that mental illness has a positive correlation with creativity. And it’s true, people who suffer from mental illness have been known to create beautiful things, but so have people without mental illness. A mental illness itself isn’t beautiful, it is debilitating.

You see, that’s the thing about mental illness. It’s all encompassing; it’s all consuming; it hurts. A mental illness isn’t beautiful simply because pain isn’t pretty.

We throw around mental illnesses every day as if they are adjectives, as if they are something we aspire to have. People say things like “I’m so depressed, I failed my statistics exam.” Girls can’t stop talking about how Jessica looks so “anorexic,” Tommy is so “bipolar,” and Professor Jacobs is absolutely “psychotic.” When did we start self-diagnosing ourselves and others with terms we really know nothing about? The truth is: you aren’t depressed because you cry when Rue dies in The Hunger Games. You don’t have Generalized Anxiety Disorder because you get nervous for your final calculus exam. Skipping a meal doesn’t make you anorexic, and being organized doesn’t mean you have OCD.

DON’T BELIEVE ME? SEE FOR YOURSELF…

Tumblr is where a lot of the romanticism of mental illness stems from. The pictures to the left are images you would be likely to see on any given day when scrolling through Tumblr. We, as a society, aren’t doing anything to discourage it.  In fact, by refusing to acknowledge the problem, perhaps we are encouraging it.  It stands to reason that these images and posts might actually encourage self-destructive behavior. Misery loves company and sometimes a shared sadness can be seen as a way to fit in. Teenage girls are the most susceptible to these images and messages. Every picture has a different affect on everyone. The one that troubles me the most is the first one that reads “I think suicidal people are just angels who want to go home.”  I believe that this post is glorifying suicide and saying that it’s okay. Suicidal people are not angels that want to go home, they are people who are in desperate need of some help. By posting quotes like this, and re-blogging them, we are promoting suicide as well as romanticizing it. Most days when scrolling through Tumblr I see black and white pictures of a girl’s arm with fresh blood rising from razor cuts. There is often a quote accompanying the picture describing the beauty of the fresh blood and scars. Girls on Tumblr have decided that cuts are beautiful because they have decided that depression is beautiful. So I ask you, is perpetual sadness really beautiful? Imagine walking around everyday with the weight of the world on your shoulders, too exhausted to get out of bed in the morning, ready to give up before you have even began the day. Depression is a veil that clouds our thinking and casts a shadow over our true selves. It’s a seemingly endless black hole that keeps propelling us downward. I don’t know about you, but that’s not something I think is beautiful. And it’s definitely not something I would ever hope to experience. So why are we romanticizing it? Why are we trying to make mental illness into something that is beautiful when it clearly isn’t? Society has turned mental illness into something that is “cool,” “edgy” or even “glamorous.” Suddenly, everyone is convinced that they have anxiety or are depressed. They think that having a mental illness will aid them in being beautiful. Sadness doesn't make you more alluring, self-mutilation doesn't make you popular and suicide just makes you dead...where's the beauty in that? No amount of flowery prose about suicide or graphic pictures of self-mutilation will change the fact that mental illness isn't an art form. There's nothing "cool" or "edgy" about it. Every day is a battle and requires a choice to be made between living and dying, trying and giving up. The struggle is real. The romanticism of mental illness hurts people who actually suffer from a mental illness. It can hinder them from receiving the real help they need. Mental illness then becomes desensitized because “everybody has it.” Having a mental illness doesn’t make you tragic or beautiful. It just makes you hurt. Pain equals pain, and  #painisntpretty.”

I decided to paste the rest (basically the entire) article onto this post because it has so much great information, and I don't know who could’ve explained it any better !!

If you want to view the website where the article is, click the link below!

https://stopromanticizingthingsthathurt.weebly.com/the-romanticism-of-mental-illness.html

Check it out !!! It has so much good information that everyone could benefit from in positive ways !!

I FREAKING LOVE YOUR GUY’S GUTS !!! THANK YOU FOR READING THIS AND SUPPORTING MY DREAM TO MAKE A CHANGE !!! <3

think positive. think big. think accurate. think respectively. be yourself & don't try to be anything else. you are absolutely astonishing & inspiring & capable of anything, just the way that you are.           STAY HAPPY MY LOOOVESSSSS   :)))

you bring this world to its knees

4.54

4.54

4.54 billion

4.54 billion years

for 4.54 billion years this world has existed and has exhausted itself while begging for your arrival.

on the day that you were born,

the earth shuttered

its oceans roared

and its mountains crumbled.

however

this was not a tragedy

it was the earth expressing its fear to have you in its arms.

one person

one human being

a prodigy

a fragile heart

beating beneath fragile bones.

a complex being that will walk through the grasses of the earth

a being that will climb the curves within its trees

a heart that will have grace greater than its flowers

bones that will carry themselves through its winds

lips that will bend and undulate upon the sight of the intricate details it beholds

skin that will feel the rain

eyes that will tear upon the beauty of your upbringing

a mind that will wither within the things you possess.

the earth waited for you to fall into its arms so that it could tell the jealous planets of millions of miles away

that you have walked upon its ground and held its waters with your hands

it will tell the planets that they will forever be missing the greatest part of existence

because unlike the others

the earth held you

you

you

you

the most precious life to reside inside all universes

the most calming voice to speak into its storms

the most gentle hands to touch its creations

of 4.54 billion years.

when you arrive

the earth will call upon the universe to tell it that it has seen beauty in the purest form

and with your touch it is ready to burn away after 4.54 billion years of waiting

for you

you

you

you

because it has watched true love live through the most complex and perfect form of life;

you.

you are the greatest force keeping countless lives from slipping away.

the world has been waiting for you

and it has never seen anything important enough to live for but you

so know that you have changed the world

simply by being alive

you have brought the beauty of 4.54 billion years to its knees for an eternity

it knew that it couldn’t die without first holding you

so for 4.54 billion years it screamed in pain trying to form a place worthy enough to be stepped upon and loved by you

you were the beginning of life within the earth

and you are the end of time.

so know that when you look into the night sky

through the stars and universes and past the planets

the earth is looking upon it too

telling them that it has seen everything anything could ever fathom

after watching you live.

when you leave this earth

it will collapse into a black hole of depression

hoping that it will see you again somewhere inside of the cosmos.

and with this

know that you brought this world to its knees and you were the supplier of all life

yes, you

you

you

you

are that being.

ilc

this world loves you beyond the comprehension of any human mind

April 4, 2017 Saint George, UT

despite your pain, you have carried yourself to this moment. isn't that enough proof to show you that you can keep going, because you already have done so?

hey,

you're not alone, and you were never alone. those people who seem to be walking right over and past you are actually people who have offered hands of hope and love in attempts to pull you up from the place that you cannot escape. although, in a situation where you have fallen ten stories down off of a building, those hands do not matter. because every single part of you inside, in that moment, is screaming and thrashing for some kind of life- but on the outside you sit absolutely still and silent, because you don't know how to tangibly manifest the overload of pain that you feel. so these people see that you have only tripped and fallen on the ground, however in reality you are laying lifeless beneath their feet. in response to what they can see, as humans they do only what they know how to do and they lend a hand to try and help you up- but despite the knowledge that their eyes give them they only see that you have taken a slight fall, even though you are paralyzed on the ground by the deathly grip of your own fundamental mind. you don't need a hand to help you stand up, you need an ambulance. every part of your body is screaming and it refuses to let go of the ground and the fantasy of sleeping beneath it. you want to blame the people, but they can only do so much. so this is where fighting for your life back is hard. because you are left to the reliance of your own self to give critical medical attention. in these seconds of unfathomable pain and distress you feel your lungs playing tricks on you, your heart mimicking the flutter of the butterflies in your stomach, and your conscious playing hide and seek. now, i will not sugar coat this, these moments are hellish, but i am here to tell you something that you do not already know, and that is that your body will regain strength and you will be able to stand up on your own. you will be able to do this because you carried yourself through the horrific, bloody, back breaking pain, and you are the reason that you are standing with hope on your shoulders and light inside of your eyes. let me make this clear...you, YOU, carried yourself to this place of peace and safety. YOU did this. YOU YOU YOU. YOU saved yourself. this may sound out of place or untrue, but i promise that this is the most honest observation and knowledge that i could ever make. you are the most powerful person and you have the ability to do anything, and to be anything. you are alive, inside of an endless cosmos, and you and i are just as carefully crafted as each star that is burning beautifully in the night sky. our conscious is influenced so that each one of us do not feel this. we are hypnotized. we are led to believe that we are powerless beings inside of an expired universe with limited abilities. but if this is the belief you are holding within your honesty, then you are living a lie. so stop. look up. you are a construct made up of a billion pieces of a divine concept created by a being who created the universe around, above, and within you. doesn't it ever blow you away that you are such an incredibly complex being, in the midst of all of this chaos, and you are doing all of this when you've never even had education in how to do it? give yourself some credit.

                                                                                           YES YOU ARE, YOU'RE INCREDIBLE !!!

every 14 seconds someone commits suicide; this statistic is haunting

together we can start a movement that can create a hope that could drastically decrease the amount of suicides that are happening among our communities every single day. 14 seconds is absolutely horrifying, and knowing that there are millions of things that we could do to end this silent suffering, we have to start.  suicide isn't just committed in Hollywood under neon stage lights, behind the cameras of millionaires, and topped off with fake blood made of money. tragically, suicide is being committed all around us everyday, and people keep on suffering. if we can stand up, be a friend, lend a hand, offer hope, then why aren't we? it is time to come together and fight the stigma of the opposing classes that don't want to see us succeed. we can help save each other. there is no reason for this to continue and for us to continue to be bystanders.. i am speaking to everyone, but i am specifically speaking to the youth of this generation. the youth of the past few decades have grown up with phones in their hands, and the ability to do catastrophic things towards anyone, or themselves, that can either save a life, or end a life. the expansion of advances and widespread use of technology is affecting people everywhere. social media creates unreasonable pecking orders, allows gateways for bullying to increase exponentially, and is ruining the connections that our brains can naturally make on their own in society, which are, tragically in turn, causing anxieties that are not seen to the naked eye. i know i am not the only one who is seeking a change, so walk with me. we can do this. change is possible once we come together to act as a whole, with one purpose in mind, and the same willingness and charity in our hearts to make sacrifices for the people who are alone, without the will to fight.

let's help the world create blueprints for hope.

                                                        <3

in appreciation & aspiration

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for the people who slowed my heartbeat in a time that it could not slow itself, thank you for saving my life.

my deepest wish is to give hope to others, because it is absolutely vital in order to navigate the terrifying storms that life could bring. there is no avoidance,                                                                                                                   but there is guidance. guidance that can turn a deadly                                                                                                                   storm into a beautiful calm.

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