Restoring Hope;

Love is Louder

I am about to celebrate a very significant date in my life, and I am ready to share my story behind the date.

On March 1st, of 2013, I began my recovery journey.

Last January, I was diagnosed with panic/anxiety disorder and severe clinical depression. A large part of the story that nobody knew, though, was that I had been self harming for quite a long time.

I won't go into too many details, but I had been scratching, biting, punching, and pulling out my hair since I was a little kid. My self harm, depression and anxiety all hit me extremely hard my senior year of high school, and I started cutting myself. I didn't tell anyone for quite a while, afraid of the judgement and shame I would feel from everyone around me. So, I hid.

After a while, I finally told my best friend Andrew. He was/has been the best support, and didn't judge me. He tried to understand the best he could and was so loving and patient with me. I will admit, I felt extremely bad for him. He had to see me at my darkest, and he was the only one I would talk to for quite a while. On top of that, I was not always nice to him. If you know me, you'll know that I'm just a liiiitttttlllleeee stubborn. I often would get angry, and take it out on him. Seriously, this poor guy, I would have THE MOST irrational feelings and arguments. But the entire time, Andrew took the time to listen to me and tell me that I was wrong. He never yelled like I did at him, and he never faltered when I would get upset. The entire time, Andrew tried to make me see my worth.

I just wasn't able to believe him at the point I was at, unfortunately.

On March 1st (a Friday), I had a particularly bad panic attack. I had harmed myself pretty severely on my right arm, and was wearing long sleeves to cover it. As I was crying, this guy who went to my high school came up to me with a Sharpie. He said "Do you trust me? I want to write something on your arm.". Of course I was extremely hesitant. By the way he had asked, I knew he must have known I had harmed myself. I did eventually roll up my sleeve, and he took my arm. As he was writing, he said "Whenever you want to hurt yourself, I want you to look at this and remember that you are loved. You have so many people here on Earth who love you, and God loves you. Read this and know that you are never alone."
I put my sleeve down, and didn't look at what he had written until I was about halfway home. I looked at my arm, and on my right wrist I saw the word LOVE written in black Sharpie.

That night, I gave my razor to Andrew.
I had him take a picture of my arms that night, so that I'd be able to look back and see how much better my arms looked. I will not post this picture, but my goodness it's amazing how well I've healed. I'm so grateful for that.

The same night, I told my family about everything I had been doing.

One week later, I told my psychologist that I had began recovery. Immediately she told me I needed to be admitted to the psych ward in Thunderbird Hospital. I was terrified, but I knew it was necessary.

I was in the hospital for about 4 or 5 hours, with my Mom by my side.
I calmly told all the doctors and therapists that came to see me exactly why I was there, why I self harmed myself, and was able to describe everything I was feeling.

After all the evaluations, the doctor came in and he looked at me and said "I'm really surprised you're here. I'm confused, you are able to explain your emotions so well. Most people who self harm don't know how to communicate their feelings, but you are the exception. You don't need to be admitted, unless you think it would be best."
I told him no, and that's when I was referred to the best therapist EVER, Dina.

I know why I went to the hospital that day, it was so that I could begin therapy with Dina, who to this day is one of my favorite people. She and I are totally on the same wave length, and we both taught each other so much. I have found that art therapy is powerful and has been essential to my recovery.

I did relapse with cutting, once. It was after I had stopped someone from ending their life, and it brought up a lot of bad feelings.
You know what though?
I don't regret helping her. I am so grateful that she is alive and beside me in recovery to this day.
I received a Christmas card from her this last Christmas, and it turns out she also lives in Arizona! I cried when I got the card, because if I hadn't been online that night to help her, she might not have been here to write that card.

I am coming up on my year mark. My relapse happened April 24th. I asked my friends to take some pictures of me, to celebrate my recovery.

My blog is called "Restoring Hope" because that's exactly what I want to do with my story. I want to restore hope in the hopeless. I want to tell everyone that having a mental illness is not shameful. There is NO shame in it, and you are not the only one. You would be surprised how many people deal with different mental illnesses, I know that I have been.

I do have scars on my body. And you know what? I'm not ashamed of them. It shows that I was stronger than the thing that tried to kill me. I am a warrior, and they are my battle scars. My scars are a part of me, but they don't define me.

If you are reading this, and you are suffering, listen to me:
-You are loved more than you know

-I am proud of you 

-There is infinite hope

-You are NEVER alone

-Recovery is not easy. But it's worth it.

-There is no shame in mental illness. 

LOVE IS LOUDER.

With the help of Andrew, and all my other loved ones, I know that I have so much worth. I know that I am loved, and that I will never be alone.

All the pain WAS for a purpose. I've helped a few people that I know, just by sharing my story. That alone tells me that it has all been worth it.

Thank you, to everyone who has supported me through the years. I'm sorry I wasn't able to tell everyone while it was happening, and I hope you can forgive me. I know I was awful my senior year, and I felt I owed it to all of you and to myself to share.

I have so much love in my heart for all of the people who've supported me. Thank you, so much. I hope I can make you all proud (:

Here are the links to the different organizations that have really helped me through recovery, with the different messages and projects that they do:

-http://twloha.com/vision
-http://www.loveislouder.com/the-movement/

Thank you all, for taking the time to read this.
Have a wonderful day. (:

I will be posting pictures in a different blog post in a while! Come back soon!

“I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.”

I want to share a story, of what happened this afternoon to me.

My brothers and I were coloring in the kitchen, and then we heard the mail truck. I asked my brothers if they wanted to go check the mail with Sissy, so of course they ran to get their shoes. I open the garage, and my brothers run off as fast as they can. As I'm mid-yell, Vincent (6) trips, and Tony (4) lands on top of him. Vincent just, starts SCREAMING, because he had scraped his chin on the sidewalk.
Naturally, I'm frustrated that my brothers didn't listen to me, but I felt bad Vince had gotten hurt. The 3 of us went back inside, and I cleaned up Vince's face.

After that, I decided to go back out and check the mail by myself. I had left the garage door open (since I was only gone for less than 5 minutes, and our neighborhood is generally a safe one).

I walk out, and I instantly hear shouting.
There is a man with 3 dogs, and he's yelling obscenities at his three dogs. His three dogs had gotten super excited when they saw this ladies dog, and they ran and got all excited and the 4 dogs all got tangled up. The lady who owned the dog that the other 3 had ran to was calm, and just trying to get her little dog untangled.

This man though, he was yelling "GET THE F*** OFF OF HER", "YOU LITTLE F***** GET OFF".

The lady finally untangled her dog, and she hurriedly picks up her dog, and starts walking away fast, because after that the man didn't stop yelling. He continued to yell these phrases at these dogs, and well, I really don't want to go into detail, but he basically started beating his dogs right there in the street.

This whole time, I'm standing in my garage in shock. I wasn't able to move, and was horrified about what I was watching take place in front of my house. I felt sick to my stomach, and once the man started beating his dogs I ran inside, shut the garage, and called 911.

Now I've never called 911 before, but they were very kind and calm. I told them where I lived, gave them a run down on what had happened, and described what the man was wearing and which way I thought he had gone.

Even typing all this up, I'm shaking, and feel sick.

I called my Mom, and she talked to me on her drive home. She told me that there were a couple of police officers, looking for this man, driving around our neighborhood.

As much as I am sickened and, honestly traumatized by what I saw and heard, the situation could've been a lot worse for me. It was a blessing that Vince had fallen down and gotten hurt, or else the 3 of us would've been out there as this happened. I don't know what the dogs, or my brothers, would've done had they seen what I had seen happen.

I'm grateful that we were protected, but I am still angry by what I saw.

The thing is, these dogs were bigger than Chihuahuas, but not as big as a miniature schnauzer. I have two 5 month old Rottie/German Shepard mixes, and these 3 dogs MIGHT HAVE been as big as them. Those dogs weren't attacking the little dog, or their owner.

The man had such bad rage, and just. I hate to think about it.

I have a feeling, though, this isn't the first time this man has done this to those dogs.
I don't know if the police ever found the man, but I will pray for the safety of those animals, and any other creature he may own.

I am so thankful that Heavenly Father kept my brothers and I safe, and that I was able to act fast after seeing the man beat his dogs.

It makes me think of how angry and upset I get, when I see those Sarah McLaughlin commercials. Oh, you know the one. "In the arms of an angel..."
Yeah.

NOPE.

Animal abuse is real. If you ever see any creature being abused, please contact emergency services. Any creature that God has created is precious, and are here to be loved. Not to be used as a punching or kicking bag.

“The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but "Can they suffer?” 

 Be kind to others. That doesn't only apply to human beings.


Thank you for reading this. I know this is a more serious matter than what I usually blog about, but I feel it's important to bring awareness to the real issues in the world as well.

"Hair is important"

I just feel the need to write about my journey that I've been on this past month.

My journey with my hair.

About, over a month ago, I was out with my close friend Mady, and I was like "Yo, I want to color my hair, I'm going to buy hair dye!"

Now I've been coloring my hair since 6th grade. I've had blonde, dark brown, bright red, dark red, nearly black, a vast majority of colors. At this point, it was dark with extreme roots showing up there.

SO, walking through Target's hair aisle, I see a hair lightening box, and I read it.
It said "Will make even the darkest hair light! Evenly distributes through all your hair!"

On a whim, I decided to buy this box. Normally I either do red or dark brown, so this was a major change.

First mistake I made: I didn't talk to anyone about the decision I would soon regret.
I consulted nobody about it, and went directly home and colored my hair. Or attempted to.

Want to know what happened?

My roots were blonde.
The rest of my hair was dark brown.


NO SERIOUSLY.

LOOK AT IT.


So that was awesome.
I spend the rest of the night FREAKING OUT and trying to figure out a solution.

My options were to go get a hair treatment to take all the color out, color over it and risk severe damage to my hair, or dealing with it.

Naturally, I chose to color over it. I went with red, and it was actually nice!

For a few days.

Then it became this ugly faded brown color, and my hair was fried. I felt so ugly, for the time that I had colored over the initial mistake color that happened.

WELL YESTERDAY I got my hair cut for the first time since June, really, and my stylist told me that my hair was damaged at the ends, but not overall terribly as I had assumed.

Again, on another whim, I told her to cut off most of my hair.

And then after I was given the go by my stylist, I colored it.

HELLO HERE IS ME WITH MY DARK BROWN SHORTER HAIR AND I DON'T FEEL NEARLY AS UGLY ANYMORE YAAAAYYYYYY.
(KAY I realize my haircut doesn't look that much different but she cut a lot off and it is actually styled somewhat and is super thinned out)

Hair is important.
If you're having a really rad hair day, you feel good about yourself and it is just a really awesome feeling.
When you're hair is a hot mess, you feel just like a hot mess.

It's been one heck of a year for my hair already. I plan on letting it grow out, and sticking with only dark brown for a long time.

So yes, you just read a blog post all about the hair on my head, and I really appreciate that. You must really love me to read through this! :P

Thanks for reading! Come back soon! (: