Senior Year

It's been a minute, I'm not gonna lie, life has been crazy. And things have changed.


I never thought my depression would disappear. for years I've struggled with the monster that lies on my chest and plays with my thoughts. As a child I dealt with depression and suicidal thoughts. I used to self harm and even attempted suicide once. It was a dark time for me. Life hadn't seamed to get better by any means by high school. It was the same shit, different day, sort of deal.
I still see the scars on my arms and thighs. Every day they remind me of the past and what I felt. They remind me of the monsters that stared me down in the middle of the night telling me I wasn't worth it and that life in general wasn't worth it.
I've spent years battling these monsters. Some days were better than others, and then some days it'd take a miracle to even get me to leave the house. I still get days like that. Where my body feels like a ton of bricks and even the slightest move of my arm takes all the energy straight out of me.
But then I had days that couldn't be better, lately I've had more of these than the other. These are the days where I feel like me. I feel like I can tackle the world, and in a way I have.


When I was a kid, and I was told life would be better, I never believed it. I never actually believed life would get any better than it actually was. I always saw the posts on Facebook, tumblr, and even in school that I was loved and to keep moving forward, blah blah blah. It was the same everywhere you went. But I never actually thought it was true.


My senior year of high school was probably the worst and best time of my life. My depression was at an all time high. Moving to Saginaw was a new experience, while i had visited the city many times throughout my childhood, I never thought we would have actually moved there.I felt like I had lost a large part of me as a person when we left Leroy. And every day I still miss that shitty little town. 


I changed a lot as a person during my senior year. I had become friends with some wonderful people. They were kind to me, which I appreciated, but I still missed my friends back in Leroy. at the beginning of the year I fell for a girl named Trisha. I had never really thought about liking girls before. But there was something about this woman that made my heart stop. We messed around together for a few months, I feel like she was embarrassed to be around me in public and at school. Her friends didn't like me, she didn't care for my friends, she kept trying to repaint me as a person. Fix my hair, my clothes, the things I thought made me, well me. I listened to her every word, I tried to change the things she wanted, tried to please her. But it was never enough. Eventually she broke up with me. It stung, I wont lie. I felt like I had changed my entire being to love this girl, yet it was never retaliated in the ways that I had hoped.


About 3 months before graduation, I was raped,  I've told very few people. I don't think I've ever mentioned it to my parents. When your privacy and life is destroyed in such a way it changes your mental health. The sense of violation and pain that comes with being attacked is like nothing anyone can describe. I wont torment you with the details of the attack. Do not pity me, for I no longer feel shame or sadness from the event. I don't remember the name or face of my attacker anymore. I once read somewhere that after 7 years all the skin cells on your body have replaced themselves. I like to think that in 3 years any sense of that individual touching my skin will be gone.
Before graduation I had actually written my suicide note probably a dozen times, I even knew how I was going to do it. My plan was that after my graduation party I was going to go for a drive up to Leroy, go to my favorite field by our old house, take a bunch of pills, and close my eyes.
I wasn't planning my suicide just because I was depressed, with everything that had gone on throughout the year, I thought it'd be a way out. My mind couldn't take anymore and the monsters in my head told me to end it.


Something happened that I never expected to happen two weeks before I planned my demise, I met someone. His name is Andrew. We met online, our first date was at a sushi place called Sushi'n we went to the movies and spent three hours sitting in my car just talking. There was something about him that just drew him to me immediately. My demons slowly disappeared, the more time I spent with him the less the monsters came around.
As our relationship began the more I thought of his well being and the less I thought of mine. The monsters had been at bay. rarely making an appearance. Something about Andrew keeps them away. Andrew encouraged me to go to therapy, the doctors, and actually become a healthy individual. Without him I probably wouldn't be here.


As we passed our one year mark, Andrew and I moved in together. We rented a tiny 400 sqft loft apartment. And that's where our life began. After four years together, thinking of life without him is just something I cant do. He is as much a part of me as I am of him. Our four year anniversary came and passed and we are now engaged.


I'm going to be hypocritical and say, it does get better. I never believed it would. I never believed I would actually make it to my 22nd birthday. I have two amazing best friends that I couldn't imagine life without either. my best friend of 20 years who has been by my side through every piece of shit Leroy has thrown at us and them some, and my newest bestie of 4 years. My fiancé, my friends, life couldn't be better. The demons and monsters have nearly disappeared. Life couldn't be better.


Until midnight.
Courteney

3 Thursday - Inspiration on Life, Depression, and Inner Beauty

I always find myself scouring Pinterest at the darkest hours of the night. 
I've been having a rough week so I thought I would share a few my favorite quotes that have gotten me through some hard times. 

Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/kohanart/4916218209/

In all honesty this is something I have learned the hard way. 

When I was younger I took everything for granted. I took life for granted. I didn't live each day like it mattered, I breezed by waiting for the day to end. 

When my grandpa died was when it really HIT me. The littlest things matter the most. It's not about living it's about LIVING. Truly and fully. And I'm not telling you that you need to go out and do something super important and amazing and fun right now. What I am telling you is to live. To learn to love life as though it could end any moment. Spend time with your loved ones as though today could be the last day you see them. You don't have to do something brilliant every day. Do something that you consider to be brilliant. Whether that brilliant is sitting with your mother and watching TV or baking with your grandma. Learn to appreciate the little things. It took me 19 years to figure that out. 

Image from pinkwallpaper.blogspot.com

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. 

I cannot begin to tell you how very true that is. After 16 years of school I have discovered that EVERYONE will try to mold you into something you are not. It does not matter who it is, teacher, friend, students, jerks you meet on the sidewalk. Everyone will want to change something about you. What you must always remind yourself is that you are perfect. It doesn't matter if you aren't a size 0 or that your boobs aren't quit perky or that you don't have that 6 pack abs that your bros at the gym have. YOU ARE PERFECT. Every inch, meter, foot, of you is perfect. You do not need to change so society accepts you. Simply say FUCK YOU to society and go on your merry little way. 

Image from healthyplace.com

I found this one one day when I was scrolling. It stuck to me like glue. There was something about this little quote that made my mind wander. 

When I was a kid in middle school I struggled with serious depression. The only thing was, I didn't realize it. I didn't see what was happening to me. All I knew was that I wanted out of life. 

When I was in 7th grade I started to cut myself. I would hide sharp things in my pillow. Some days I would escape into the school bathroom to find the sharp blade of release. This is what happened. Am I proud of it? No. But I was 11 and had no idea what was happening. I didn't know who to turn to.

In 8th grade I thought about suicide. A lot, more than I'd like to admit. I thought of it as a way out from the horror of my mind. It was a friday evening after school, my parents were still at work and my sister was still at daycare.  I went out to my woods and stood in front of a tree for nearly an hour or so debating on whether or not I should take the chance. Later that evening I heard my mother calling me for dinner. I dropped the rope and went back to the house. 

Life isn't just about getting through the day. I can't begin to believe how grateful I am that I didn't go through with what I had planned. My greatest accomplishment (even if I didn't know it at the time) was continuing to live when I truly felt as though death was the way out. I can't begin to say how important it is. 

Today I am 19, I graduated with honors from high school, I am sophomore in college, I came out Pansexual to my family,  I have a magnificent boyfriend whom I love more than my own life and we plan on moving in together soon and maybe I might even marry him (who knows?), my life has continued. While many days are a continuous struggle to fight myself and to get out of bed. My world is slowly getting better. I am working on fighting and living every day to the best of my abilities. Some days it takes more than work than others. 

I am happy I didn't use the rope.

xoxo

Courteney