Author: My Story

Mental Illness- Anon

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Do you ever have days where you feel so inspired and energetic? The days when you feel like you can take on anything and anyone in the world and come out on top. The days your brain is buzzing with plans and ideas and you feel your hands shake as you try to explain all of it to whoever is willing to listen. It’s like a crazy high that you acknowledge surrounds you, but you can’t stop it.

Do you ever have days that you feel like you are the scum of the earth. Days that you wish you could hide from underneath your covers. The days that there’s an invisible tentacle of death around your throat, neither choking you nor letting you breath.

Many people can experience these feelings, if they can be condensed into a single word as weak as feelings. The point is many people can have either of those days.

How many people have both in random subsequent orders?

How many people can go to sleep at night perfectly content and confident with and in themselves and wake up feeling like living death.

There’s a meme that says ‘I have two settings,  sometimes I hate myself and sometimes I’m Kanye’ and I suppose many people find it funny.

I however hate that meme. For people like me there are no settings. There is no on or off switch. I don’t have a manual or anot instructions guide.  If I did I guess I could be considered defective.

This concept of stories really speaks to me. I love the fact that you’re giving people to really share their own experiences,  because no one has the same ones as others. Life is full of statistics and generalities, that we forget about the individual. My story isn’t the same as another’s even if we share the same disorder, which if many didn’t guess is bi-polar. It’s a label that I’ll live with for the rest of my life, but I hope that it’ll also help others live with theirs.

Racism-Anon

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Don’t make excuses for your parents and family.

Many non-Black PoC have been using the phrases “yes, but I’m [my family, parents, culture] don’t think that!” And “But I [my family, parents, culture] do support your causes!”

I was one of them until recently.

Growing up I went to a private school where the population of Black kids could be counted on one hand. Because of that I never realized the struggles they went through outside of school.

As I grew up, my closest friends were Black, and though I could never understand for the life of me the struggle they went through, I did become aware of the hardships they endured.
Whenever they mentioned that “Desis or Arabs” were racist I would become defensive, because I feared they saw me like that as well.

For the longest time I would also tell them not to generalize because my parents weren’t either…that was a lie.

My parents despite being good kind people did have a hint of a racial stereotyping view.

Because of religion they were able to look past their original thoughts of a person and not show any prejudice.
They had somehow differentiated between Black people and Black Muslims in their mind.
Now I know many non-Black PoC jump to the defense of their parents, cultures, and communities when confronted by people who call them racist, and the truth is most are.
Let me tell you why.
My parents are first generation immigrants. They came from a country where everyone looked, acted, and dressed alike. There was just one way of life.
Then they come to America, where the advertised lifestyle is of a middle class white family with the white picket fence. They come here and what of they see?
The media defines anything remotely related to Black culture as “ghetto” and white people as your friendly go to neighbors. Black people are described as “thuggish” despite the fact that no one even knows what that word means.
They’re seen as over zealous and violent while white people are quiet suburban and peaceful.
My father moved here first and lived in a majority Black neighborhood.
He was robbed and assaulted twice, and both times by a Black man.
Despite the fact that two people do not make up an entire race, my father took from that coupled with the media description of Black people, and chose his outlook on race.
On the news he sees that crime committed by a white man is caused by mental illness, and crime committed by a Black man is caused by the fact that black people are violent.

So when I hear my Black friends try to raise awareness for the many injustices done onto them, I have to bite back my defensive words and realize that they have the RIGHT to say those statements because they are TRUE.

Instead of getting defensive, our goal should be to help. To understand the privilege we do have, and accept it. To support their cause, and to not just educate ourselves but our families, our friends, our communities.

Because if we don’t change our mindset and unite to help, where is our humanity. How easily we can assemble ourselves to fight attacks on our own ethnicities and religion, but can not see the attacks on another’s.

We do not have to compare every suffering and every struggle to one another’s.

The overseas struggles of Gaza, Pakistan, Libya and Syria or whatever majority Muslim country you can think of have NOTHING to do with the struggles of Black people here in America.

Do not disrespect either of their suffering by comparing and contrasting. It’s hurtful and creates nothing but animosity and turmoil.

As a Non Black Person of Color and Muslim woman I often times felt attacked when my Black Muslim friends would talk about people being racist, but in time I understood that they had that right and instead of feeling attacked and hurt I should focus my energy on helping them and supporting them in their battles against injustice.

~Anon

Abuse- Anon

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I was abused as a child by a close family member.

When I was younger I hated that person.

The more I got to know about the sick history of my family, it turns out that the family member who abused me was also abused.

I found out that sexual abuse seemed to have a viscous habit of repeating in my family.

I don’t hate that person anymore. I hate the cycle. I’m going to end it now. I’ll make sure it doesn’t continue.

Ever again.

Mental Illness- Anon

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Hello ,

I am a student that currently attends UMBC. My topic is not only about mental illness, but also about self-harm, bullying, and family problems. Growing up my parents always fought. My dad had and still has an anger problem, and my mother had her issues as well. I grew up seeing my parents hate each other, and had the police come to my house a couple of times. Somehow they stayed together through those times and are still together at this time- and are doing much better.

Growing up I had a lot of confidence,  but in high school is when it started to deteriorate. There were multiple reasons for this, bullying being one of them. My home situation along with my situation at school led me to rock bottom. I started self-harm, I fell in depression..I absolutely hated myself. If someone was to say something bad about me I would sit there and listen to them and agree with it.

I did try to commit suicide in highschool, and thanks to God it didn’t fall through. I believe I tried to commit suicide as more a cry for help than anything else. I ended up telling my parents and they were deeply concerned, but that only lasted so long. Going into college I still was depressed and I began to develop anxiety.

It began slowly but developed over time as severe social anxiety. I believe the reason behind this is because I had forced myself to stop cutting. Since I had stopped, I didn’t have an outlet to let out the frustration I felt, and in time it built up and started to become social anxiety.

This past semester at school, I contemplated suicide almost everyday. They were the toughest months of my life.

I remember sitting in the bath tub with razor in hand, just staring into space.

Throughout these years I visited two different psychiatrists but would always fail to take the anti-depressants they prescribed me due to lack of trust.

In my family, as in many south Asian families, mental illness is not something that is acknowledged nor something to be talked about. My father told me to stop taking the medications once he found out and forbid me from seeing my psychiatrist. I thought he was right so I stopped going.

After a few months I started seeing another psychiatrist, without my father knowing. I took the anti-depressants for a while that he prescribed but just like before ended up stopping. I started to see him again since the beginning of this past school year and I have been taking medication non-stop.

I thank God for this, because I am a totally different person because of them. I know what it feels like to look forward to the day, to feel happy, to feel loved, to have self-worth and self-respect. I believe the people I surrounded myself with as well plays a huge role in how I am doing now. I surround myself with people who love me for me. Who don’t judge me or carry negative vibes with them. I would credit these people with saving my life. I just want whoever is listening to this to:

1) Understand that there is nothing shameful in taking medication for mental illness, no matter how it is viewed in your community. Mental illness is something that is real and exists, and it is about time it is looked at that way.

2) Surround yourself with people who genuinely like you and make you feel worthy. Life is too short to be around people who only bring you down. I know this has probably been said a million times, but it is the absolute truth.

3) Love yourself and everything falls into place- literally. I went from having depression,anxiety, doing self-harm, having suicidal thoughts  to being able to love life again and BEING HAPPY. The key to this is to love yourself unconditionally. You are an amazing human being, and should not think of yourself any other way. Life will knock you down more times that you can handle, so please don’t knock yourself down.

Last but not least, If you see someone who is not acting “normal” socially-please accept them and make them feel like they are okay. The biggest thing I have learned from having social anxiety is that love and acceptance makes a huge difference in helping that person out. It might come off as “off-putting” when a person acts awkwardly, but judging them and making them feel like shit about it only makes it that much worse for them. There is way too much hate and negativity in this world for a person as it is, please don’t go out of your way to add to it.

Thank you.

Relationships-Anon

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What is my story that half of everyone I know hasn’t gone through at some point already?

It’s a long story, which I find hilarious, because who knew that in half a year my life would change a lot more than it has in all of the years I’ve been living.

Okay, anyway, just starting college, I made a mistake. What mistake did I make?

I fell in love.

And of course it was your typical cheesy romance where I believed he loved me too, but of course I never said a word because I was afraid, afraid of love. Yet, he made me feel safe, so I let myself fall for the first time. And I was right to be afraid because I’m still falling and he isn’t here to catch me. Yes we both knew our relationship was wrong, frowned upon by the religion, but we thought it’d be okay. I never did want to start dating really, but I didn’t have the willpower to say no because he made me happy, and we were happy, for a while.

Then one day he just up and wanted it over, and I just went along with everything he had to say, yet some hope lingered that maybe he’s only ending it because religiously it’s wrong, and his faith is what I find the most attractive.

“Maybe he still likes me” a small voice in my head said, but recently I confronted him, and now I know.

He does’t feel the same way.

And so now I’m empty. I still remember the feeling of his arms around me, the feeling of falling asleep next to him, the feeling of his lips pressed to mine, and the feeling of joy I felt whenever I saw his absolutely beautiful smile.

Maybe I’m being punished because I did something I shouldn’t have I don’t even know, but the worst thing in my opinion is just not knowing. I can accept it’s over, but part of me is dying because I have no idea what went wrong, what finally pushed him away. I guess I’ll just have to live with the fact that, as usual, I wasn’t good enough, and so I’m sorry to him.

I’m sorry that I couldn’t be good to him, and that I never will be.

Relationships -Anonymous

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I used to think being with someone would be the greatest feeling ever.

 

“You have beautiful eyes”, is how it started. My stomach would do cartwheels every time I saw him or got a text from him.

 

I guess they give guys classes on what girls like to hear.

 

Because he chased the butterflies away. And fast.

 

I would wait for him to text me, to reach out to me, like I had done so many times. The nights would be long, my tears for what felt like forever drenching my shirt. Sometimes I had to run to the basement so my parents wouldn’t hear me.

 

Maybe I expected too much, maybe I thought our relationship was more than it was.

 

Whatever it was, I grew resentment in my heart.

 

A year past and we had our ups and downs. More downs than ups. I was so eager to have someone there that I was blind to how I was being treated. I was being used for when he was bored.

 

Waves of sadness would hit me randomly as I knew I had to stop responding to his messages and hanging out.

 

The amount of sleep I lost and tears I shed for this person, he will never know.

 

I questioned Allah’s [God’s] ability to help me through this situation. “What did I do to deserve this?” I thought I was all alone in the world.

 

But I am here to tell you that I was wrong.

Allah [God] was there all along, watching me and guiding me.

 

Its been two years since we first started talking and I am living and I am happy. This boy probably will never know how much he meant to me. But I forgave and have forgotten. I don’t know how, but Allah [God] got me through it. He taught me so many things throughout this process, slowly, but surely.

 

If you ever feel helpless, allow your legs to hit the floor in prostration and pray.

 

There is nothing that Allah [God] cannot get you through.

 

Nothing.

 

I am living proof of it.

 

Sometimes it has to get worse before it can get better.

 

Bullying-Anon

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I never had a great middle school experience. I was a quiet and awkwardly shy girl who mostly stuck to reading and wouldn’t really take part in conversation. I got made fun of often and was continuously picked on during the bus ride to and from school. I wouldn’t know how to react to these insults amid the laughter and always ignored it. I would occasionally come home crying because of this and my parents would often console me and tell me that it gets better in high school. It kind of did.

In high school it got better but not really. I decided to take higher level classes and in these classes, I was surrounded by people who never really made me feel wanted. I would keep being nice and I would go out of my way for others but I only felt used. I thought i was friends with this group but it turns out they were only using me and it felt horrible. But I never stopped being nice to these people, and it does get better though.

College really changed me. I learned to stick up for myself and I met a lot of nice and caring people who made me feel good about myself. It gets better. It really does. I was even approached by a few people I saw after high school who apologized to me for mistreating me.

You just need to surround yourself with people who make you want to smile, not people who make you judge your friendship. And don’t feel bad when this don’t work out. Always know that in the end, you should stay a nice person because that is what the Prophet (pbuh) did. And it works out. I promise you. It gets better.

My Story [cont’d]

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A person’s story doesn’t have a time-out or a pause button. It shouldn’t be restricted to being shared for only 24 hours. My Story is about giving others a glimpse into the lives of others. The goal for My Story was to allow people to share their stories and allow others to find comfort in them as well as take away a sense of understanding for what some people are going through. We never know how a person feels or what they’re going through. All it takes is one kind word or even a smile to change someone’s day.

You can see physical pain. You can understand physical diseases. But what about what happens inside the mind. What about what you don’t see, is it difficult to understand? If a person’s inner pain was reflected on to their skin as scars and bruises..would people still be able to ignore them?

I’m hoping My Story changes that. Let people share their stories, whether they want it to be anonymously or not. And let others learn and understand that all it is not what it seems. That everything is not as black and white as you may think. That mental illness isn’t always ‘Crazy’. That self-harm isn’t always ‘attention-seeking’. That it isn’t as simple as ‘just be happier, it’s all in your head’.

Read the stories of others and Submit your own. Find comfort and give comfort.

Submit Stories Here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CxsMwDWHp9o-TOL9ZOgFsALGv-OR7xdRGQXjayPByeU/viewform