Thank you for this contest!!!!
Sob or success story?? You can decided after you read this..
The past few years I have been dealing with self-harm tendencies.. It started after I stopped practicing Marital Arts (black belt in Tae Kwon Do).. The self-harm got worse when I started college because at that time I could not handle going from a small 300 student private high school to a public state university.. Right before I graduated from high school I lost a classmate of mine in a car crash and that same year in December, my cousin was gunned down and murdered in front of his home.. Around this time my only brother was arrested and sent to jail for 6 months.. We have never been apart for that long before, so it was extremely hard to deal with.. I have been in and out of doctor's offices because I was getting sick all the time and they could not figure out why, so they just kept putting me on different medications.. All this caused me to become very overwhelmed and which caused my self-harm to become worse.. After some time I was able to stop self-harming and found other things to help me deal when things got to overwhelming.. I started to draw, build models, and do more volunteer work; all this actually helped take my mind of self-harm and onto something positive.. I hadn't self-harmed in years but in 2012 something happened that caused me self-harm once more.. One of my closest friends from high school was stabbed to death in broad daylight by her ex-boyfriend.. She had just turned 24 years old, 13 days before she was killed.. The saddest part is that she had a 6 month old daughter at the time of her death, so now her daughter is growing up with out a mother.. When I found out that she had died, I thought it was all a dream.. What I remember the most about her is her smile and her contagious laugh.. Her death hit me hard and I started to self-harm again.. After a few months I went to a new university, a private one, and I met some new people.. They helped me a lot with getting me to stop self-harming.. I was able to stop and have been self-harm free ever since December 2012..
The past couple months have been hard on me, especially since I am trying not to resort back to self-harm..I was recently diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder (Hashimoto's) after years of doctor appointments and blood works.. Having this diagnosis mean I have to be on medication for ever and I have to be on a strict diet; no dairy, no soy, no gluten, and no wheat.. I can deal with being on medication but the diet is another issue.. One thing that I hate about having this is that I can get sick a lot.. Any kind of stress can make my symptoms flare up and if I do not eat the right thing, I can get sick too.. This is going to take some time to get used to and learn how to avoid flare ups..
Anyways, thank you for the contest!!!