April 15, 2013

The day that changed my life

This is the day that changed everything. I was 14 years old when I tried to kill myself, and today I’m 20. In a lot of ways I feel detached from who I was on this day, six years ago. It’s like I was a completely different person back then. I have the memories of a 14 year old girl but they belong to someone else. I was so shy and sad and had no future, no direction to go in… but that has all changed. Except maybe the sadness (sometimes)

I didn’t know back then that that decision would shape the rest of my life, after all I wasn’t planning on having a life. It’s funny how these things work. I asked a girl once why she thought I lived when others didn’t. She said it was just, "To live your life. It wasn’t your time." It makes sense, but it doesn’t answer my question.

In May I’ll be 21 years old. I’m going to school for Psychology. Having to spend 3 months in a mental health unit as a kid ended up giving me a passion for Psychology. I want to help other 14 year old children who are lost. I want to find the origins of mental illnesses, I want to find cures…

Tonight I want to make a visit to the hospital that saved my life. Some day I want to work in that hospital. You know, when I’m 50 and I’ve done several ground breaking psychological experiments. For now all that there is to do is pay a visit.

Amy and I officially broke up (she was my Friendfriend, I have a boyfriend and I am happy with him). She said several nasty things to me when I told her that I felt she didn’t care and that I wanted to talk about it with her. Her words proved that she wasn’t worthy of my time. It doesn’t bother me. Our friendship dissolved long ago. What does bother me is that she told her boyfriend that I said She was to blame for her sister cutting herself. I Never would say such a thing. So to have Amy spreading such a malicious lie really damages my view of her. I worry about what else Amy will lie and say I said. I have proof that I didn’t say such things, but I don’t like having to defend myself over something I didn’t do.

I am making better, kinder friends than her. But that girl is slandering my name, and I don’t like it.

But me and my other friends have been hanging out a lot more recently. And my friend Martha and I are in the business of buying and reselling thrift store items which is keeping me busy. I have a lot to be thankful for. With the great friends and boyfriend that I have it’s impossible to miss a girl who treated me so poorly.

I got a C in the course I was most worried about. This is not terrible because I thought I’d be getting a D, this is not good because it’s university and I should be getting As if I want to get to grad school.

I am so afraid of death these days. I have no idea how it is that I once wanted to end my life. Everything does happen for a reason. If it weren’t for my suicide attempt I might have never known that I should be a Psychologist, I wouldn’t have met many of my friends, or my boyfriend, I wouldn’t have learned to be more outgoing, or been called beautiful, and who knows how my family and friends would have felt.. my life has been full of difficult lessons to learn, but in the end I am glad for the life I have. It’s wonderful in its own right.

Halcyon

April 20, 2013

I think you’re misguided, both on what I said and what you said. Digging in! “Ideals in my opinion are not what we need.” What else drives humans forward to do things bigger than mere selfish acts? What drives you to want to help 14 year olds? Ideals. Only ideals and the promise of a better tomorrow can possibly push the world towards a better place.

“Ideals are built on lies. I mean, more so they are built on a hope of becoming true.” Hope is not a lie. Hope is an aspiration. Even if a particular hope never comes to fruition, it does not ever at any point become a lie. And even if it doesn’t, does that make it any less valid? Look at Ghandi and his aspirations to end poverty, to expand women’s rights, to end untouchability among others.

He did not succeed in any of those things. India still is a terrible place for poverty, it still has tons of women’s rights issues, it still many who believe in the untouchability of certain castes. Does that mean his ideals were worthless? That they were pointless, and that, in acting on them, he was wasting his time? No. What he did has touched many *millions* of people and changed…

…their lives for the better. And even if their ideal was built on a lie, as long as it was a positive one, what does it matter? Lets say it was a catholic person pushing to end poverty because of Christ’s teachings instead of ghandi. Or let’s say it was a total atheist pushing to end poverty because there is no God to protect us, so we need to do it ourselves.

One of these people are necessarily wrong; their rational behind their ideal to end poverty is based in polar opposites and are totally incompatible with the others point of view. Yet does that take away from the positive power of the ideal? No. It does not and the effects would be just as positive and good as it was for Ghandi. And hell, maybe they’re *both* wrong. There’s that too.

But even if they are, that doesn’t take away from the ideal or it’s worth. Some of the worthiest ideals are based on lies and that’s okay. Like yours with psychology, that’s based on a misconception too. Doesn’t mean it’s not good to have anyway. “I think you mean realism and I agree with u ” To an extent I do, yeah. I don’t think that the world is ready for realism. Not really.

To really be able to absorb reality as it truly is would requires us as a civilization to think in a different kind of way than we’re used to and for us to understand ourselves and our motivations in a much more real way than we currently do. I don’t think our neuroscience has progressed far enough to give us a reliable indicator as to what’s true yet…so I’m just biding my time on that.

I just think realism is right for me because I do feel I’m at that point and that I’m able to incorporate that into my daily routine. There are many others for sure, but the population at large? Totally not ready for it. We just don’t teach people to think that way.