Being a survivor!

Being a survivor is so much more than most people think. Being a survivor is proof of strength. You have been through mental disorders, self harm, bullying , depression, abuse, suicidal thoughts and attempts and youʼre still here breathing. We should be proud to be a survivor, weʼve been through hell and back and now we are standing taller than ever before. People think dealing with mental disorders is easy, but itʼs far from that. When you are dealing with an anxiety disorder, you are not trying to get attention; people who struggle with anxiety disorder don’t always know how to deal and take control of it during an attack and that is totally normal. Your brain is so focused on the fear,and the more and more it focuses on fear that is not really there, more it will panic. They do not do it for attention, they are struggling, they are fighting. People with PTSD often suffer in silence while people just tell them to get over it, but you can never get over a trauma like that. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is caused by a huge trauma; like soldiers coming back from war, but also people who have suffered from abuses of many different varieties. Verbal abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse, all of these effect many individuals in today’s society. Yet often times people donʼt even think that these types of trauma can cause this condition. Unfortunately, you canʼt just get over it, you canʼt pretend that it didn’t happen. When you deal with a PTSD attack, you cannot fight it, you cannot hide from it. If you try to pretend itʼs not happening, try to push it aside and ignore it, the more it will manifest and the more you will suffer. As soon as you start facing it and accepting what happened, gradually the images and symptoms afflicting you will dissipate. Most importantly, if you are willing to not let it control your life, the easier it will be to recover and heal. When you are dealing with an attack, you are surrounded by anxiety, and the horrors you suffered from. All you can see is the event in your mind, you are reliving the whole trauma all over again. In those moments you have to stay calm, relax and face it. Itʼs like a leaf on a river, if you stop trying to pick it up and just let it be, it will float away by itself. We cannot stress this enough… People who are combating this are not trying to get attention; they are struggling and fighting, please remember that. Letʼs talk about depression, we hear about it much more often than any other mental disorder, that is because it affects way more people than we think, and what do we do about it? Nothing. We tell our children to stop pretending, they are too young to be depressed about anything. But this is entirely false. There is so much that could be happening in their lives and you could have absolutely no idea. Some youths could possibly begetting bullied in school, getting pushed around, and others could be calling them all kinds of names. They might be getting physically assaulted or abused, or unbenounced to anyone else, they might be getting attacked over social media, Cyber-bullying is much more common in modern times. Some kids and teens will come home and they will get abused the moment they walk through the door, they know that at that moment, the nightmare will begin for them and they don't know what to expect or when it will end. As for some of them, their parents will put an enormous amount of pressure and stress on their shoulders at home, and with school to have the best grades or else... There is so much more that could be happening in a youth's life for them to have depression and we need to take it seriously because most teens who suffer from depression will also start doing self harm. They will find a way to take the pain that others are inflicting on them, and they will take it out on themselves.
Everyone is different, some will want to try to feel something again. Depression has made them so numb that they will hurt themselves to feel. Some will hurt themselves to punish themselves from everything that has happened to them. In their mind it is their fault, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. All of these kids who are suffering in silence are not asking for attention. They are struggling, they are fighting, they are gasping for air as they are being pulled down into the depths. The Sad, honest truth about all of this is that each one of these mental disorders can push someone to the edge. They will eventually even encourage suicidal thoughts if they do not find a way to control it. The last thing we want is to lose someone to something that could have been easily handled. For someone who is fighting a battle between life and death in their mind is extremely difficult; Half of them want to give up, but the other half want to keep fighting to see if there will be hope for them in the future. When they are on the edge of doing something they will regret, they will call out to someone they love. It is not for attention, they just want to know if it will be worth it to keep fighting. They are in need of that reassurance from someone they love that they can make it through it. If someone calls to you and you notice they are on the edge,or that they are making rash decisions or threats, please listen to them. Remind them how great,beautiful, and strong they are. Mostly, how loved they are! People who have suicidal thoughts are not seeking attention, they are suffering and they deserve support. If you know someone who could be suffering right now, reach out to them. Make them feel safe and loved. Make them understand that they are worth it and that they will not be alone. We are survivors, we will make it through the relapses, through the mental breakdowns, through the depressive episodes and that we can make it through anything. We are all in this together and we will all make it out together. No one is left behind, we hold each otherʼs hand and we support each other.