How Writing Has Helped Me*

I will put a (*) next to the titles of my blogs that may cause triggers.

Everyone has bad days and everyone has good days. But imagine your bad days overpowering your life 78% of the time. Stressful and depressing, right? It's what people with mental illnesses deal with on a daily basis with no breaks. Over a course of time, you learn your triggers with people, places and objects you surround yourself with daily. It's all a learning process: from handling your anxiety attacks to battling them off so you can have at least one good day this week. It's beyond exhausting.

I suffer from three mental illnesses that have been diagnosed by doctors and psychologists: chronic depression, anxiety and PTSD. There seems to be a constant war inside of my head all the time. When I was younger, I wasn't sure how to deal with these illnesses. More times than most, I would turn to harming myself as a way to escape and feel anything besides angry, sad, and hopeless. It was hard for me to pick out my triggers mainly because I was living with my biggest trigger: my so-called father.

Ever since I could remember up until I was sixteen years old, my father molested me. As a young girl, I wasn't sure whether these secret acts were forbidden or normal although they felt wrong. He got into my head more than once saying that is was okay for us to be doing what we were doing; I never did anything. I sat or laid there letting him do what he wanted just praying it would be over soon. I despised feeling gross. As I got older and spoke up only to be shut down, it became my normal. Every day I would pray he wouldn't latch onto my younger sister.

When I was thirteen, I found a reading/writing platform which I still use to this day, called Wattpad. I began reading "fan-fiction" which basically means fans of anything from a TV show to a band can write about these people and make their own story however they want and can make whatever happen. I was big into the boy-band, One Direction and I started out reading fan-fictions based on them. Soon, it wasn't enough to please my emotions so I began writing these stories. It helped me tremendously. I wrote a story based around Harry Styles titled The Boy In the Basement which took off on this platform. Before I finished the one-hundred chapter book, I had already reached one-million reads and a huge fan-base.

Writing as well as reading helped distract my mind from the hell I was living in every single day. School became my escape. I would warm up to the English teachers and explain my love for writing and reading. My sophomore year in high school in Georgia, I met an English teacher named Ms Nicholson. The unique thing about her was she got married on Halloween and I loved that. She taught our class a special way to format and layout an essay. I got hooked. I stayed after class one day and actually asked if she could give me essay topics to write about so she could edit them and I could learn. She was surprised a student asked for more work to do. The papers I would receive back would be covered in red ink from mistakes she fixed. Slowly, they became less and less then soon, no markings.

That year in high school, my writing career could have taken off drastically. I got a letter from the school saying I qualified to join National English Honors Society. I was beyond excited and proud of myself. It would mean meetings after school and less time at home so of course I was all for it. The thing was, our car got repossessed. We bought a truck yet it had transmission problems. I ended up going to one meeting and that was it. It was kind of the end of excelling my writing career through school.

Fast forward to 2016. Writing was out of the window. Mainly because of a boy. He was my neighbor and I found him extremely attractive- teenage hormones. I wanted to be all about him. My parents didn't approve of that- they wanted me to be all about school. I was- I was passing everything. They always said I couldn't have a boyfriend until after college and always assumed they were joking. Nope, I got grounded for long periods of time if they went through my phone to see me flirting with a boy. I never understood why I couldn't talk to boys so it fueled me to act out.

This boy's name is Brandon- he is three years older than me. Yet for some reason, he swept me off my feet without trying. Throughout texting and hanging out, even getting drunk around a bonfire my parents created, even alcohol they bought, we realized that we had grown extremely fond of each other and noticed how real the attraction was. Brandon asked my father for permission to date me yet my father turned him down. Brandon stayed away. Not for long, though.

Moving forward, Brandon and I decided that it was us against the world and that's all that mattered. My parents did not like that. They banned me from seeing him. I had electronics taken away, couldn't go on my nightly walks anymore, I couldn't even look at his property without them yelling at me. Every day, they would have me work outside in the Georgia heat from 7pm-5pm with a couple drink breaks. I would rake til my hands bled. They made me pick up brush, clear out areas, anything that involved outside work. I grew depressed.

At night, I would write in a purple binder with loose leaf papers and envelopes in the way back, all addressed to Brandon. These letters would consist of my day and how I felt. Eventually, I had a good stack built up. My confidence grew and I woke up early one morning to deliver these letters to him. Thankfully, no one at his house was home. They never locked their door so I went in- they always said I was welcomed whenever- and placed them under his pillow in his room. Before I left, I inhaled his scent with tears in my eyes- wanting the pain to subside.

A couple years later, I began writing poetry while I resided in a group home in Dahlonega, Georgia. I read more books than I can remember and had notebooks filled with stories. After awhile, I started keeping all of my poetry together. Whenever I got out, I turned to Wattpad to transfer these poems on a screen. Before I know it, it's 2019 and I have more than enough poems to create a poetry collection. In June, 2019, I published my very first book through Amazon titled, Mountains which is a poetry collection.

As of now, I live in Mississippi, an hour from the coast with my husband who turns out to be Brandon. My second poetry book is half way completed, revision wise, and my third poetry book is about completed. You can literally do whatever you put your mind to- you just have to want it or else you won't get anywhere.