I used to love my hometown. I loved everything about it as a child! My neighborhood was so children centered.. always doing things for the kids. It wasn’t until I got older and started really paying attention that I realized where I live is kind of a messed up place..

One thing in particular that really needs to change is the stress that is put on children/teens. From the time these children are 4 years old they’re expected to be the best at sports, the smartest in preschool and all around be the most successful. Yup.. the most successful at 4 years old. I never really saw it like this when I was young because my parents wouldn’t dream of raising me this way. Long story short- there is truly a suicide epidemic in my hometown. I could name 10 people I have personally known that have committed suicide in the last 8 years, from my high school alone. The parents around here don’t care, the schools don’t care. A 16 year old took her life around 8 months ago. And someone had the nerve to say, “just get on medicine, how are you that sad?” 

WHAT????

Where are people supposed to turn? If you aren’t apart of a picture perfect family around here then you might as well not exist. The pressure and stress put on kids, especially high schoolers is like nothing I’ve seen. High school isn’t supposed to be like that!!!!! No one is there for you, not even your parents. It’s all a competition to these people, and it’s so so sad to see now that I’m older. 

I work with the absolute sweetest girl, we’ll call her K. She breaks my heart everyday because high school has destroyed her mental health. All her parents care about is her getting into a prestigious college like her sisters. They don’t listen to her cries for help and it’s honestly one of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen. This is just one of wayyyy too many examples that happen everyday. I wish I could hug every single person in high school, because I know I needed it. 

This post was hectic! It’s just something that hurts my heart and I’m sure others can relate. 

I have been struggling with this question, especially the last year. It really seems like lately, no matter what I do, I just am not working hard enough. I have this one class in particular. I spend anywhere from 18-22 hours a week on this ONE CLASS, not including the time I spend actually in the lectures. This professor makes things unbearably hard and the class is nothing like I expected. Every 3 weeks or so we have an exam and the week before I get so so worked up. I uncontrollably cry day after day even though I know that isn’t helping me. I find myself so stressed out over this class I can’t think about anything else, I can’t even eat. Everyone around me puts in 1/4 of the effort I do and gets the same results if not better. At first I thought it was my studying habits but I am successful in other classes, so how would that make sense?

Like.. am I just dumb? Sometimes I think that is the only logical explanation. My family is always telling me, “oh you’re the smartest person I know”, but isn’t that their job? What I really want to know is, am I just not working hard enough? Should I be putting more hours into this class? Into work? I have little to no social life because of school and I keep telling myself it’s just for this last semester, and then I’ll be free to do whatever I want. But is that true? I want to continue my education, but do I have what it takes? Will I be able to work hard enough for a Master’s degree if I’m drowning in undergrad classes now?

I am extremely afraid of failing and that doesn’t help my anxiety about school. I always thought I was smart, but am I overestimating my abilities and that’s why I’m not having the outcomes I think I should? I do have a tendency to compare myself to others and that definitely contributes to the anxiety I have surrounding school. I always had a vision of how my life would look after school but what if I can’t achieve those goals? I am at constant battle with myself thinking that I don’t work hard enough, even though all I do is work for school! I think some expectations, especially for classes like the one I mentioned, are just unrealistic. When I’m writing this I can really see that I’m not the problem. Anyways… hopefully I’m not as dumb as this class makes me seem..

How do you define success?

I have gone back and forth with this for quite some time but I finally feel as though I have an understanding of what it means to me to be successful. If you had asked me 5 years ago what “success” meant, I would have said having money. I used to think that the only way to be successful in my life was to have extreme amounts of money. Happiness didn’t matter to me because I thought it would just increase as my bank account did.

5 years ago I thought this way because the people I surrounded myself with. I was in an awfully abusive relationship and I would throw myself into my work to avoid being around my boyfriend. I thought if I worked a lot and had money, I could buy things that would make me happy and that would be my form of success. I had very ambitious goals for myself that would have forced me to be consumed with work for the rest of my life. I wanted people to aspire to be me and to have my level of success.

Fast forward to now: I am in an amazing relationship with the person I know I will spend the rest of my life with.

I now have a new definition of success; happiness. Those ambitious, crazy goals I had for myself? Out the window. I still of course have things I want to do in life, however, I have scaled down (in my opinion) my goals. Since I could remember, I wanted to be an doctor. I wanted to be a big fancy doctor that everyone envied. More recently I really thought about my career choice and how the rest of my life would look if I followed through with that choice. *disclaimer* There are countless doctors that have families and are able to devote so so much time to them, that is 100% not what I’m about to say. The specialty I wanted to go into was a very competitive and demanding one. One that needed my complete focus for at least the next 8 years. Was I ready to give the next 8 years up?

I finally had come to the decision that PA school would be better for me. (Of the PAs vs doctors I have talked to*) I have heard that PAs overall have a better life/work balance and their work is less demanding but still just as rewarding. I want to be able to start a family sooner because that was now #1 on my list. I of course got so much backlash from my family and even some friends, but it really didn’t matter to me. Now that I had met my perfect match, being happy mattered. I will still be successful, no matter what I do. Maybe not by my old standards, but I will be able to take care of those around me and that is all that matters.

For as long as I can remember, food and I have had a love hate relationship. I have watched countless friends be hospitalized because of eating disorders and always thought to myself, “hmm I’m not that bad, I won’t end up like that”. I constantly restricted my eating because I wanted to stay the same size. I was a cheerleader for 13 years, which definitely didn’t help my body image issues. All through middle and high school I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch at school. I thought by doing this as well as exercising, I could stay the same weight. 90 pounds at 5’6…not my best look. Eventually I started gaining weight when I got really hurt at cheer. I had no other choice but to be basically sedentary for almost a year. Eventually the negative thoughts about my image faded away. I was fairly happy with how I looked now; I mean I had no other choice.

Fast forward a couple of years.

I was getting ready for school one day when I put on my favorite pair of jeans and they didn’t fit anymore. Surely I was mistaken and they would go back to fitting the next day. Well, that day never came. The number on the scale wasn’t different, by body shape was. I became very uncomfortable and upset with the way I looked. For some reason, I thought that keeping track of everything I ate would be a good idea. I intensely tracked my food intake everyday to make sure I was eating an “okay” amount so I wouldn’t gain weight. This ate away at me and I found myself constantly making excuses why I couldn’t eat. It was a constant argument with my parents and friends. “I’m just not hungry, ok?”

I restricted myself to 1,000 calories a day. I was constantly googling diets and what I could eat for a 200 calorie meal. I logged everything I ate. I would literally log if I ate 1 skittle… a SINGLE skittle?! I was literally obsessed with keeping track of what I ate. My mom was always arguing with me but I had convinced myself I was healthier this way. I would only eat the serving size of whatever snack I was eating. I lost weight, but for what? My jeans still didn’t fit me. I was a very angry and mean person at this point in my life, I was literally starving. After about 8 months I realized what I was truly doing to myself. I had the energy of a sloth, I was tired but couldn’t sleep and my stress level was through the roof. I since, thankfully, have realized that my clothes do not get to dictate my happiness.