Class of 2006
Entering a place like a high school in Fairfax County has to be the most pressure any young adult like myself will ever face. There’s a standard, and a mold.
I stood for over 15 years in my thoughts and with myself believing I was truly alone and never going to be any different. This my story, and it is an open story for any and all persons who want to know about the other side of the darkness you may truly believe is not there. I am here to tell you – I’m living proof it is!
I’ve always had a fascination with people who were smiling. I always wondered what it was that made them so happy, and why was it that when I smiled it didn’t seem to exude the same confidence everyone else seemed to grasp. I knew how to laugh, how to showcase what I believed to be happiness, and maybe I showed- on the outside- what confidence was. Little did I know though – I was doing it completely wrong. I was completely oblivious of it until I hit high school and it was shoved in my face daily that I just wasn’t good enough.
Fairfax, Virginia is one of the best places in the United States to live, hands down. It has opportunities that you can’t seem to get in many other areas or near other metropolitan cities.
I was extremely fortunate to have a very hard working single mother who believed in the power of tough love, determination, and feeding to my artistic side by taking me to Manhattan whenever there was a top notch exhibit at MOMA (Museum of Modern Art). I was blessed, in more ways than one. But my love for art also made me extremely different. I knew art was one of the very few things I was going to be good at (if not the only thing) so I decided at an early age I wanted to go to college for it.
I did my research and decided that there was only one school for me – Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. My entire high school career was based on getting into that school and that school alone. I wasn’t going to get in based on my grades though. I wasn’t very book smart, I couldn’t concentrate very well, let alone do anything other than use my charcoals. My ticket into a college was going to be based on my paintbrush and ability to see beauty where others couldn’t.
What made it that much harder throughout my high school career was- I was also suicidal.
Depression in the early 2000s, at least in my experience, was not talked about. My mother was completely unaware of how to deal with me. Her generation wasn’t brought up acknowledging these types of emotional problems, and so a daughter with mental issues was brand new for her.
I had problems from a very early age because of my parents’ divorce, being of a different color than that of my mother and my father, and always having issues with my weight. I was different, and difference is feared. As a society, we don’t know how to deal with difference, unless it’s blatantly attractive by societal standards. I wasn’t accepted. It was very tough for me.
Yet, I was fortunate because I had a mother who (despite me ‘hating’ her for a good 15 years… or what I thought was hate but was really just a cry for help) never once ever gave up on me. She loved me unconditionally. She just wanted to see me happy and healthy and to just love who I was. During my high school years, I was incapable of those emotions. I thought what my mother was telling me every day for so long before high school was right; you’re beautiful just the way you are. You know how to love and you know what happiness is.
Entering a place like a high school in Fairfax County has to be the most pressure any young adult like myself will ever face. There’s a standard, and a mold. I wasn’t the normal student with two parents and an ivy-league thirst. I was an overweight yet passionate art kid with awkward hair. And once it was pointed out to me by older students and even ones my age that my life was just a path to failure, I took a turn for the worst.
I’ve had to learn a lot on my own. What a real man is supposed to be, how to be independent in adult situations, and how to not take things extremely personally. I would love everyone, for fear that everyone would leave, which most would always do. When things would go wrong, I would fall hard and usually ended up grabbing a bottle of something and just eating as many as I could to just go numb. There are dozens of times this would happen and I would try to stay home from school because I couldn’t face anyone. I didn’t want to be alive, and I tried many times to make sure my life would end. I hated waking up and realizing that I had to live another day. Every waking moment of my life was dedicated to either fighting my mind or figuring out my next attempt. My grades were barely passing, my art began to decline, and I even got arrested at the age of 17 due to a very poor choice.
During all this, I was put on medication, still seeking therapy, different medication, and psychiatry, but my drinking canceled out the effects of the Prozac and my emotions, so I was basically working on nothing. Somehow, I gained strength and courage back from my art, from my art teacher, and my school counselor and began to believe I could get through this. I could beat depression and become what I have always wanted – to be happy and healthy. I decided that the only way for that to happen was to graduate high school, even if I had to scrape by just barely. I pulled together a concentration in my AP Studio and Portfolio Preparation classes and I got accepted to Pratt. They accepted me based on my portfolio alone. For the first time in my young life I felt truly wanted and accomplished. The only school I ever wanted to go to and the only college I applied to my entire high school career accepted me, and wanted me because of my art. It was that motivation that kept my suicide attempts at bay for a while. Art became my only ticket to getting out of Fairfax.
I never attended Pratt. I took two years off before I decided to go to college. At 20 years old, a wonderful friend of my brother’s committed suicide. Someone none of us knew was suffering so badly. It rocked our small community pretty badly. He was an alumnus of my high school in Northern Virginia as well. If you ever needed the best smile or hug he was your guy. An all-around beautiful human, who never got the chance to showcase his abilities. He hurt too much, and it took his passing to make me snap out of my stupidity and realize I needed to do something with my life. If not for myself, then for him.
I decided to go back to school and to pursue a career in Graphic Design at the Art Institute of Washington which was in-state and affordable. It wasn’t Pratt, but I knew one day I could get there. I got a full time job, was doing very well in college, finding new friends, and even a new relationship. I ended up losing everything in 2011 to my lack of self-love, confidence, and drinking. But in the month of November that yet, I had the biggest epiphany of my life. During a week stay for a nanny job I got, it just clicked: I needed to end my relationship, pack up what was left of my life, and get the hell out of Virginia.
I ended up choosing San Francisco, California. I left all the small pieces left of my life in NOVA, and drove across country with my mother, computer, and new kitty. Although my first year in California was filled with more extreme ups and downs, I remember having an extremely strong emotion in my body and mind that allowed me to stay positive through it all.
I still failed. I got in trouble. I made poor decisions. But my good and positive decisions began to finally pay off although it felt like 10 doors would slam while a window barely cracked open. But I changed my lifestyle, 100%. I began doing better at my new school then I had in years.
Producing work that I never thought I could, speaking about art and design again which made my heart light up. I found a wonderful job in the publishing industry which utilizes my skills and who I am as a person, and I’m appreciated for it every single day. I’ve lost over 70 pounds. I’m living an active lifestyle, eating healthy, and enjoying my beautiful new friends who love me for me. I’m beginning to have a fascination with myself and my own smile. I’m beginning to believe that it truly was in me all along. Through all the hell, the bullies, the physical hate, the attempts at my life, and the awful friendships and relationships – I’ve actually prevailed. I will forever be growing, improving, and bettering myself.
I will fall, I will fail, and I will be unhappy with myself again and again. I’ve learned to accept that that is a part of me, but also a part of everyone. I’m not alone anymore. I want to aspire, be inspired, and gain knowledge to be greater. I am appreciated by people who never would have given me the time of day 10 years ago. I am actually rewarded by those people, and some have actually let it known they aspire to be me. If that’s not success, then I don’t know what is.
Every single day is a new day to be grateful for being alive. I know what it is like to be in the dark, engulfed by a mentality that seems all too overwhelming to want even want to be alive and on this planet. It has plagued me for over 15 years nonstop. I have learned that you do not have to be what others tell you to be. I now have the ability and the green light to be the best version of myself, find out who I am, especially who I want to be. I surround myself with those who will stand by my side when I won’t stand up for myself. I love and love again. I see what my heart believes me to be, and I accept it and nurture it. I am strong for those who cannot or won’t be strong for themselves. I am far from where I want to be, but for the absolute first time in my life I feel like I have the ability to get there. The progress I have made due to this underlying power within and my small support system is something I never thought in high school I was capable of achieving. No longer is there a dark wall in front of me and my visions.
I live my days one at a time. I am gracious for those people back in Fairfax who forced me to continue and for accepting me as I was and being proud of who I am becoming. I will forever be indebted to my mother. I will never forget my art teacher and school counselor. I will always thank my old friends and past relationships for being the biggest blessings in disguise to help me stay true to myself and never look back. I am becoming one of those people I always admired who smiled and seemed to have it all. It’s finally possible for a girl like me. The girl who was bullied, different, and who stood alone her entire life. When I laugh now, it’s real. I show confidence when walking on the streets of San Francisco, and I am proud. I’m 26, and I am finally the happiest I have ever been in my entire life.
You are not alone. Together we can be resilient. However, this website is not to be used in place of therapy or other forms of help. Non-judgmental help is available 24-7: Call Crisis Link at 1-800-273-TALK(8255). Text with a Crisis Text Line specialist, by texting “TALK” to 741-741. (You can also go to your nearest emergency room or call 911.)
You can also chat online with a specialist at CrisisChat.org (between 2pm and 2am) or ImAlive.org. Many other links to various types of assistance are also available on our RESOURCES page. Help is out there. Reach out, for yourself, or for someone else.
Entering a place like a high school in Fairfax County has to be the most pressure any young adult like myself will ever face. There’s a standard, and a mold.
I stood for over 15 years in my thoughts and with myself believing I was truly alone and never going to be any different. This my story, and it is an open story for any and all persons who want to know about the other side of the darkness you may truly believe is not there. I am here to tell you – I’m living proof it is!
I’ve always had a fascination with people who were smiling. I always wondered what it was that made them so happy, and why was it that when I smiled it didn’t seem to exude the same confidence everyone else seemed to grasp. I knew how to laugh, how to showcase what I believed to be happiness, and maybe I showed- on the outside- what confidence was. Little did I know though – I was doing it completely wrong. I was completely oblivious of it until I hit high school and it was shoved in my face daily that I just wasn’t good enough.
Fairfax, Virginia is one of the best places in the United States to live, hands down. It has opportunities that you can’t seem to get in many other areas or near other metropolitan cities.
I was extremely fortunate to have a very hard working single mother who believed in the power of tough love, determination, and feeding to my artistic side by taking me to Manhattan whenever there was a top notch exhibit at MOMA (Museum of Modern Art). I was blessed, in more ways than one. But my love for art also made me extremely different. I knew art was one of the very few things I was going to be good at (if not the only thing) so I decided at an early age I wanted to go to college for it.
I did my research and decided that there was only one school for me – Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. My entire high school career was based on getting into that school and that school alone. I wasn’t going to get in based on my grades though. I wasn’t very book smart, I couldn’t concentrate very well, let alone do anything other than use my charcoals. My ticket into a college was going to be based on my paintbrush and ability to see beauty where others couldn’t.
What made it that much harder throughout my high school career was- I was also suicidal.
Depression in the early 2000s, at least in my experience, was not talked about. My mother was completely unaware of how to deal with me. Her generation wasn’t brought up acknowledging these types of emotional problems, and so a daughter with mental issues was brand new for her.
I had problems from a very early age because of my parents’ divorce, being of a different color than that of my mother and my father, and always having issues with my weight. I was different, and difference is feared. As a society, we don’t know how to deal with difference, unless it’s blatantly attractive by societal standards. I wasn’t accepted. It was very tough for me.
Yet, I was fortunate because I had a mother who (despite me ‘hating’ her for a good 15 years… or what I thought was hate but was really just a cry for help) never once ever gave up on me. She loved me unconditionally. She just wanted to see me happy and healthy and to just love who I was. During my high school years, I was incapable of those emotions. I thought what my mother was telling me every day for so long before high school was right; you’re beautiful just the way you are. You know how to love and you know what happiness is.
Entering a place like a high school in Fairfax County has to be the most pressure any young adult like myself will ever face. There’s a standard, and a mold. I wasn’t the normal student with two parents and an ivy-league thirst. I was an overweight yet passionate art kid with awkward hair. And once it was pointed out to me by older students and even ones my age that my life was just a path to failure, I took a turn for the worst.
I’ve had to learn a lot on my own. What a real man is supposed to be, how to be independent in adult situations, and how to not take things extremely personally. I would love everyone, for fear that everyone would leave, which most would always do. When things would go wrong, I would fall hard and usually ended up grabbing a bottle of something and just eating as many as I could to just go numb. There are dozens of times this would happen and I would try to stay home from school because I couldn’t face anyone. I didn’t want to be alive, and I tried many times to make sure my life would end. I hated waking up and realizing that I had to live another day. Every waking moment of my life was dedicated to either fighting my mind or figuring out my next attempt. My grades were barely passing, my art began to decline, and I even got arrested at the age of 17 due to a very poor choice.
During all this, I was put on medication, still seeking therapy, different medication, and psychiatry, but my drinking canceled out the effects of the Prozac and my emotions, so I was basically working on nothing. Somehow, I gained strength and courage back from my art, from my art teacher, and my school counselor and began to believe I could get through this. I could beat depression and become what I have always wanted – to be happy and healthy. I decided that the only way for that to happen was to graduate high school, even if I had to scrape by just barely. I pulled together a concentration in my AP Studio and Portfolio Preparation classes and I got accepted to Pratt. They accepted me based on my portfolio alone. For the first time in my young life I felt truly wanted and accomplished. The only school I ever wanted to go to and the only college I applied to my entire high school career accepted me, and wanted me because of my art. It was that motivation that kept my suicide attempts at bay for a while. Art became my only ticket to getting out of Fairfax.
I never attended Pratt. I took two years off before I decided to go to college. At 20 years old, a wonderful friend of my brother’s committed suicide. Someone none of us knew was suffering so badly. It rocked our small community pretty badly. He was an alumnus of my high school in Northern Virginia as well. If you ever needed the best smile or hug he was your guy. An all-around beautiful human, who never got the chance to showcase his abilities. He hurt too much, and it took his passing to make me snap out of my stupidity and realize I needed to do something with my life. If not for myself, then for him.
I decided to go back to school and to pursue a career in Graphic Design at the Art Institute of Washington which was in-state and affordable. It wasn’t Pratt, but I knew one day I could get there. I got a full time job, was doing very well in college, finding new friends, and even a new relationship. I ended up losing everything in 2011 to my lack of self-love, confidence, and drinking. But in the month of November that yet, I had the biggest epiphany of my life. During a week stay for a nanny job I got, it just clicked: I needed to end my relationship, pack up what was left of my life, and get the hell out of Virginia.
I ended up choosing San Francisco, California. I left all the small pieces left of my life in NOVA, and drove across country with my mother, computer, and new kitty. Although my first year in California was filled with more extreme ups and downs, I remember having an extremely strong emotion in my body and mind that allowed me to stay positive through it all.
I still failed. I got in trouble. I made poor decisions. But my good and positive decisions began to finally pay off although it felt like 10 doors would slam while a window barely cracked open. But I changed my lifestyle, 100%. I began doing better at my new school then I had in years.
Producing work that I never thought I could, speaking about art and design again which made my heart light up. I found a wonderful job in the publishing industry which utilizes my skills and who I am as a person, and I’m appreciated for it every single day. I’ve lost over 70 pounds. I’m living an active lifestyle, eating healthy, and enjoying my beautiful new friends who love me for me. I’m beginning to have a fascination with myself and my own smile. I’m beginning to believe that it truly was in me all along. Through all the hell, the bullies, the physical hate, the attempts at my life, and the awful friendships and relationships – I’ve actually prevailed. I will forever be growing, improving, and bettering myself.
I will fall, I will fail, and I will be unhappy with myself again and again. I’ve learned to accept that that is a part of me, but also a part of everyone. I’m not alone anymore. I want to aspire, be inspired, and gain knowledge to be greater. I am appreciated by people who never would have given me the time of day 10 years ago. I am actually rewarded by those people, and some have actually let it known they aspire to be me. If that’s not success, then I don’t know what is.
Every single day is a new day to be grateful for being alive. I know what it is like to be in the dark, engulfed by a mentality that seems all too overwhelming to want even want to be alive and on this planet. It has plagued me for over 15 years nonstop. I have learned that you do not have to be what others tell you to be. I now have the ability and the green light to be the best version of myself, find out who I am, especially who I want to be. I surround myself with those who will stand by my side when I won’t stand up for myself. I love and love again. I see what my heart believes me to be, and I accept it and nurture it. I am strong for those who cannot or won’t be strong for themselves. I am far from where I want to be, but for the absolute first time in my life I feel like I have the ability to get there. The progress I have made due to this underlying power within and my small support system is something I never thought in high school I was capable of achieving. No longer is there a dark wall in front of me and my visions.
I live my days one at a time. I am gracious for those people back in Fairfax who forced me to continue and for accepting me as I was and being proud of who I am becoming. I will forever be indebted to my mother. I will never forget my art teacher and school counselor. I will always thank my old friends and past relationships for being the biggest blessings in disguise to help me stay true to myself and never look back. I am becoming one of those people I always admired who smiled and seemed to have it all. It’s finally possible for a girl like me. The girl who was bullied, different, and who stood alone her entire life. When I laugh now, it’s real. I show confidence when walking on the streets of San Francisco, and I am proud. I’m 26, and I am finally the happiest I have ever been in my entire life.
You are not alone. Together we can be resilient. However, this website is not to be used in place of therapy or other forms of help. Non-judgmental help is available 24-7: Call Crisis Link at 1-800-273-TALK(8255). Text with a Crisis Text Line specialist, by texting “TALK” to 741-741. (You can also go to your nearest emergency room or call 911.)
You can also chat online with a specialist at CrisisChat.org (between 2pm and 2am) or ImAlive.org. Many other links to various types of assistance are also available on our RESOURCES page. Help is out there. Reach out, for yourself, or for someone else.
