The Yellow Ribbon

    If two girls fall to the call of death, do they make a sound?
    Yes, they make a sound.
     They don't realize it as they're dying, but they make a sound.
     An entire community hears the sound as their hearts fall, their breaths stop, and their souls fly.
    
     Kat and Abigail, high school students at James River and best friends. Both of them loved by many, surrounded by friends and family.
     Both of them hiding pain that ultimately broke them.
     In early November, news suddenly came that Kat had taken her own life. I was not directly affected by this, as I had never known Kat. However, most of my friends did know her, and were shocked and saddened by her death. One of these friends was Abigail. Since moving to NY, I haven't been in the best contact with a lot of my friends from high school. The most contact I had with anyone was usually a like or comment on social media. Abigail and I traded messages on Facebook a couple of times after I moved. However, I had no idea what was really going in her life. I still don't, because that information has been kept private. Whatever was going on was hurting her. When Kat died, she was hurt even more by the loss of one of her best friends.
   Four weeks later, I heard the rumors that Abigail was gone. On Monday, it was confirmed. The cause of death was not revealed, but the people who knew her didn't need to be told. I was shocked. Suddenly, I was faced with the realization that a girl who I had always known as bright, cheerful, and kind was dead by her own hand. I was shocked and in denial, and so was everyone who knew her.

    Suicide makes a bigger sound than people realize. It sends out a huge ripple effect that can stretch for miles. It is a serious issue. James River High School alone had 3 or 4 deaths just in my time there as a student, not counting Kat and Abby. Teen suicide is more frequent than many of us realize.

   So here's a tip: keep your eyes open. Pay attention. Smile at a stranger, it could make their day. Show people that you care about them. Listen.
   Watch out for signs of a possible planned suicidal - they may give you something that is important to them, like a favorite necklace or guitar chip or book, or maybe something larger like a trophy or an art project they were proud of. They may be distant, distracted, in a planning sort of state. They may show more affection then normal, hugging or repeatedly saying how much they care about you, and they may say "Goodbye" in a way that feels more final than just a daily farewell. They may do something dangerous that puts their life in danger. If you suspect that someone is planning to attempt, contact someone they live with, tell that person to keep a close eye on the possible suicidal. Talk to the person directly, ask if they're okay, remind them that they can talk to you. Make sure they know that you're there and you care.
  Another way to inspire awareness is by wearing a yellow ribbon. Just pin one to your shirt or bag.
   Suicide can be prevented if we learn to help each other.

Aftermath

So, Trump is the winner. America has exploded into a raging forest of hatred. Our national pride is being stained by protests and by hate.

I have a message for all of you. I don't care if your a Clintonese, a Trumperton, a #3, or a silent soul. I don't care if your black, white, yellow, or even blue. I don't care where you've been or where you're from. I don't care who you love, or who you want to sleep with. I don't care if you're male or female, young or old, sad or happy, rich or poor. I don't care who you are. I only care about the fact that you are all human. You all have a beating heart, a pair of lungs. You all have a skeleton to support you and muscles to move you. You all have a brain to control your world. You all fit into the category of homo sapiens. We are the only ones of our kind. Scientifically, we don't have different breeds, we don't have categories and sub-categories. We're just...humans. We are the supreme intelligence.
   We're abusing that. We take our advanced thoughts and torture ourselves and each other with them. A cat and a mouse can be friends if you don't tell them to hate each other. If we didn't have so much hate, so much judgement...we would all be so much happier. I understand that there have to be some negatives in this world, but I don't think we should be creating them as much as we do.
    Basically what I'm saying is...stop the hate. There's too much of it, and as a race we are destroying each other.
   This is a time when we need to stand together and love, not divide ourselves and hate.

Igniterroremophobia

   I now have a fear of the fire alarm going off in my dorms. It went of twice in a row on Sunday, once while I was still at my grandparents house, where I'd been staying for the weekend. The second time it went off, I'd been in my dorm for about an hour and was getting ready to clean the fishbowls. I was on video chat with my boyfriend when the alarm suddenly started blaring, scaring me half to death. I got out quickly with my tablet and phone in hand, but forgetting my room key.
    We stood outside for what was probably around 20 minutes just because someone decided to cook their mac and cheese without water.

    The alarm went off again at 5 in the morning. I almost didn't even bother going outside, but I eventually stumbled out of bed and made my way outside. This time the alarm was caused by faulty wiring in one of the alarms, probably messed up from going off twice the day before.

    So here's how my brain works: if something scares me enough to get my heart freaking out for over 5 minutes and to set my brain on overdrive, whatever caused that panic is going to sit in my brain for a while and cause a lot of anxiety.

   I won't use the sink in the hallway outside our bathroom in the dorm very much now because our room's fire alarm is right on the opposite wall. I also hate the noise, because loud noises, especially like the ones fire alarms make, make my anxiety shoot through the roof. So standing with my back to it while I'm brushing my teeth is very similar to how I feel when there's a spider sitting on the bathroom wall while I'm trying to take a dump(I have arachniphobia).

   Also, the word for a fear of fire alarms is my new favorite word: igniterroremophobia.

If He is Gone

He asks me to keep him alive
And after his voice has faded away,
I close my eyes, and imagine him gone
My soul is immediatelying torn to shreds
I do not wish to see him dead,
For his voice to be absent from the world
If I could not see those great brown eyes,
Well how could I live, if not here for him?
If he is gone, who am I?
Empty, lost, alone
I would be a shell of me, and that's if I could even go on
No, I do not wish the see him dead
The simple thought tears my soul to shreds.

In The Night Sleep Won't Come Calling

    I feel like every night it gets harder to sleep. My anxiety is getting worse, and I don't know why. I should be fine...things are going pretty well. I'm healing well from the accident, I'm doing good in my classes, and my relationship is slowly improving as we start to communicate and listen more.
     So why can't I sleep anymore??? Why is my anxiety suddenly kicking up more frequently even as the shock from the accident wears away more every day? What's changing???
     I don't know. I honestly don't know. All I do know is that I need to get some sleep, but it's getting really hard to do that successfully.
     Stupid caffeine bars.
     Oh, wait.

     It doesn't help that other people in the dorms are awake and rowdy at all times of night. It seems like the only time anyone is quiet around here is during the actual daytime. Are college students nocturnal? And am I turning into one of these strange creatures??
       Yipes.
       I think I'd rather be a zombie, thanks.

       Another thing: every day, I look at the graffiti in the elevator, the trash in the halls, and I wonder how the heck people actually do that without caring. Like, seriously? People actually do that? It makes me glad that I was raised to be an actually decent human being. I'm amazed by some of the things that people my age do. I mean, the craziest thing I've ever done is go to a movie at 9pm. And I'm obviously not doing that again, because the one time that I did, I got hit by a motorcycle while walking home. No, thank you.

     I really don't know about people. Honestly, 85% of them just suck.

Dreams, Please Don't Come True

   Dreams are strange. We run through our heads and see scenarios that we may or may not want to happen, or scenarios that are just unreal. When we wake up, we pray for a dream to turn reality, or fervently hope that it will stay safely in our heads.
   Last night I had a dream that a good friend of mine died from some kind of complication in one of his organs. When I received the call, I was at some kind of lake or beach, with my boyfriend and a couple of other people. I heard the words, said by a voice that was oddly robotic, and collapsed to the ground screaming. The rest of the dream is a blur.
    That dream is one of the maybe five remembered nightmares that I've had in my entire life. I've been luckier than most with nightmares. If I do have a nightmare, it rarely scares me bad enough to leave a mark on my psyche.
    Some people aren't so lucky. A guy I know has had bad nightmares his whole life. Some are stupid, random things that he forgets in the morning. Others are deeper, with friends and family being killed or tortured right before his eyes. None of them are things he wants to see happen in real life.
    These nightmares are most likely rooted in the harsh impact that many bad childhood occurrences have had on his mind. He has a wide variety of fears, and good reasons for them. Sexual abuse, bullying, constant moving, seeing good friends struggle with depression and lose, and many more events have shaken up his soul so much that it's barely stable anymore. I've been on the phone with him late at night, and he's fallen alseep and woken up screaming five minutes later multiple times. It's terrifying to hear the fear in his voice when he wakes, to know that his brain just deceived him again.
   I'm not really trying to make any point with this post, I just wanted to randomly talk about nightmares. My friend's case is the worst I've heard of (not that I'm really an expert, but I know my stuff). Almost every night he has these nightmares, and they're never the same. It's odd, because usually constant nightmares are the same or similar things. But, like I said, I'm hardly an expert.

Late Night Randomness

To sleep...or not to sleep? I can't tell if I'm awake or falling asleep, and I am unable to count the fabled sheep. Twisty eye tricks simply make my head ache, and thoughts of growing darkness makes my whole body shake.
I shouldn't have drank that soda, oops; I really don't want to wake up with the poops.
I don't think any of this makes real sense,
But I'm posting it anyway, because stupid poetry is my best defense.

This is what happens when I'm online late at night.
I'm so sorry to have exposed you to the horrors of my slap happy brain.

Meow.

Suitemates and Sorrows

  Here's an interesting thing about us four girls in the suite of 215: we are all struggling. Four weeks into our first years of college, and it is clear that we are all having a hard time with it emotionally.  All of us have anxiety and depression, so tossing us into this little piece of life called college is pretty harsh on our aching souls. Three of us came here with a boyfriend to think of. Now, one is in an extremely unstable relationship, one just cut the ties, and the other (me) is struggling to improve so she can keep her long-distance love flowing strong.
   Stress is pressing down on us like an abnormally shaped 50-ton weight. There's just no way to get comfortable. Our sanities are being stretched, and we are begging for any form of comfort; we want our pets, our boyfriends, our families. We try to find ways to cope, but it's hard. I bought a couple of betta fish to take care of, an adult male and a baby female. They're definitely a huge help. Taking care of Hetfield and Astrid helps me have something to focus on that isn't just school or grocery shopping.
   I bring up this topic today because I found out last night that on e of my suitemates has decided to move out, because her depression has gotten  so bad. I was sad to learn of this, especially since we've already had one girl kind of move out (she spends all of her time either in class or with her boyfriend, and only comes here at ungodly hours of the night and decides to be as loud as possible with said boyfriend). So now, it's just me and one other girl.
   I had a lot of thoughts about what college would be like.
   I never imagined any of this: getting hit by a motorcycle, watching suitemates leave, struggling to bring a shaky relationship back to stability.
    It's hard.
   But, as my fencing teacher said on Monday when I told him about the accident: "Sky is unbreakable."

That Moment When Reality Literally Crashes Into You

 Link to Local News Article

   Ever been hit by a motorcycle?
   It sucks. I would not recommend it.

   Three weeks into my first year of college, almost 2 weeks ago, I was hit by a motorcycle while crossing the street. It wasn't the biker's fault. I wish I could say that, truthfully, it wasn't anyone's fault, it just...happened. But it was my own fault. I wasn't paying attention. I walked when there was a bright blaring sign that screamed at me, "Don't walk, you dumbass!" I was deaf to the sign's cries, and so I got hit by a motorcycle.
    I never thought something like that would happen to me. I've had a pretty lucky life. I'm told stories by my friends about getting hit by cars and being in car accidents and breaking backs and cracking skulls and somehow surviving to be a (mostly) well-functioning human being. My worst story was that I had to have surgery to fix a weird muscle in my eye when I was 9.
   When I was hit, it was like being mentally  struck by lightning. It was a shock to my system that I had actually just been hit by a freaking motorcycle. Once I had stopped tumbling and rolling all over the road, I sat up and screamed for two minutes straight. In my head, I was shocked. I wondered if I was dreaming. Sadly, I was awake. Maybe not wide awake, but I was definitely awake.
    Fortunately, there were no major injuries to me or to the biker. I just had a spine contusion in my lower back (bruising and swelling), along with a couple of other scrapes and bruises. Oh, and, of course, some mild psychological damage. I have a slight fear of the dark now, because it happened at night. I can't walk on a street by myself at any time of day. My anxiety, which was already bad before my body was rammmed by a motorcycle, has increased. The worst thing is the sound of screeching tires, because that was the last thing I heard before I was hit. If I hear screeching tires, I literally flinch.
   The accident was a wake-up call for me. Since starting college, I hadn't been as careful as I should have been. I wasn't used to having freedom. I wasn't used to being able to walk around town freely, and buy whatever he hell I wanted at Wal-Mart. My family was getting annoyed at me, my boyfriend was getting annoyed at me, but I didn't realize what I was doing. I didn't realize how much I was abusing my freedom.
   I learned the hard way that what I was doing was dangerous. I wasn't being careful. I wasn't being thoughtful. I wasn't being aware.

   I was lucky, Very lucky. I could have been paralyzed. I could have been killed.
   But I can walk and talk and function. Walking is currently difficult, but it's easier every day. Every day, the pain is a little bit better.
   I've realized that I need to be careful and aware. I'm changing how I live to be safer.
   Do you know how hard(and painful) it is to take a shower when you can barely walk or even stand up straight, and there's nothing to hold on to to make sure you don't slip and fall?
   Very hard.
   In other words, lesson learned. It's time to wake up.