Just Another High School Story!

"Hey guys, first let me properly introduce myself, I am Leah, and some of you are older than me, I'm 16 right now, or at least about to turn sixteen and most of you here are older than me. You might feel like, I have got no right to say anything, but despite that I will choose to be impudent for a while, and tell you my story, 'My Bulimia Story', I've heard that you've all read it. First of all, I'm really thankful and second of all, I want to say one thing: We are not the only ones struggling with this, people all around the world have their own struggle stories..." as Leah was talking, a boy, who looked to be about her age quietly slipped into one of the back seats, Leah had a mic on, and so she was not worried about him not hearing, she understood why the boy was sitting quietly and alone in the corner, Leah had talked to a guy, he was Erik's friend, he was running with Erik when she passed them, he immediately started following her, at first she had thought it was Erik, but then she turned around to yell at him when she saw that he was someone she wasn't familiar with. Erik was a little flirty, sure but he had that one adorable quality, he was loyal to his friends, Erik had wanted an opportunity of running with Leah, but his friend needed it more, so he had decided to let his friend have a tete-a-tete with Leah, his bro was in distress, and he could not just sit by and stand there; when Leah turned around, taking one of her, AirPods out in anger, she saw that the guy looked meek, and nervous, "Hi..." he was shaking, Leah understood that this was not some crazy 'chase', he was here to talk about something important, she was all ears, she told him to run together with her, she had started running 4 miles recently, and it was getting easier everyday, she took off her AirPods and tucked them away, "Talk comfortably, I'm Leah." The guy went on to tell her, how he felt the same way but could never admit his insecurities to anyone, not even himself, he had been brought up in a home where 'men didn't cry' and 'men weren't supposed to be weak', he obviously felt nervous talking to her but by the end of her talk she was gratified to have gained the perspective of a male who had the same 'food-problems' as her.

Leah told him one thing, and she'd love for you to know the same, "A person with no fears isn't brave, and a person with fears isn't weak, what you do to face those fears despite the hardships, despite the fear of failure, keeping at it, that's true courage!"

She continued talking to the group after seeing that another guy had joined the group, this seemed like his first time, he was fidgety, his eyes were restless, like a lost soul in a desert, looking for water, trying to figure out whether what he would hear today would really quench his thirst, or if it was just another oasis, another delusion. He looked like Ulysses looking for Ithaca.

"Every single person goes through things, but the issue is that many 'Struggle Stories' like ours aren't recognised at all, some problems are categorised as 'Valid' and some are trashed away without even being considered. Eating disorders are one of those problems, since not every single human is suffering, the pain of the many who are, is ignored, deemed unauthentic, not worth recognition, that is what society makes us feel like, like our problems are lies, lies that we live just to get 'attention' but I do not think that is true, we are humans who were given brains to think, I do not think that anyone has reason or time enough to make up stores anymore, we are too busy trying to make our lives work, in the midst of chaos, mental problems grow feasting on our stress, and before we know it, like a tumour, the problem has grown serious, life-threatening, where would we even get the time to make up stories, on top of that, I can't possibly tell you how many people have texted me telling me to shut up, tried to make me believe it is not worth doing this, talking to you, making me feel like my 'problem' is not a problem. That is why as you try to recover, please do not let anyone burden you with this thought, do not think that your problem isn't real, or it is your fault for being, as I have been called at times, pathetic, sensitive, senseless, drama-queens, I have been told that I should bury my head in a hole or sense should be beaten into me, but those things don't matter, people speak empty words all the time. You can not, should not let the voices of strangers or loved ones affect you negatively, if your thoughts did not matter, you wouldn't have been given the facility to think and rationalise, to reason, and review before you believe in something, blindly, your life is your story, if you do not make it work, you are at a loss and if you are flying, you will reap the benefits. If your parents do not understand you, do not blame them, I talked to my mother, and she told me that she did not mean harm, she was worried, and from her perspective the right thing to do, the correct way to make sure, I did not stray away, was by restricting, now that I know her side of the story, she does not seem like the villain anymore, neither do I, I am a human being and honestly, I hated my old self, I did not have any confidence to speak my ideas out loud, I felt worthless, unworthy of my own attention and then I realised that the reason why I did not feel loved and felt so alone was because I lacked the affection of the person most important to me, the person without whose affection I couldn't possibly feel loved, you might be thinking that I'm talking about my mother, but no, not really, my mother's affection was important, is important, but it doesn't matter a lot if I don't love myself, it wouldn't have made a difference on its own, if everyone in the world loves me and I don't, I will always feel lonely. Therefore, recover because you want to love yourself, not because someone else is counting on you but because you're counting on you, because nothing else in the world can keep you motivated as much as you doing this for you. The pain doesn't get easier but the desire to fight it, and come out the other side gets stronger, at first, I thought that I forgot my past self, but now I realise that I love myself, past, present, future, I love the fact that I was in a pit, I love that I could gather up the courage to crawl out, in essence, what I want to say is that there can't be valour if there weren't battles that needed to be fought, there wouldn't exist courage, if fears did not.

There can't be a strong you, without a weak you, the weak one has to aspire to be stronger, your goal, as most people want to know should not be to imitate someone else, the point of my story is to tell you that, there is only one person you should try to become, your best self, the stronger you; you can not really get a diamond without having furnished the coal, having tortured it, the brilliance of the diamond is the beauty of the pain.

Remember that all the time, every time you feel like life is not worth it, or your efforts, your hard-work will pay off, but you can't stop, once you feel good, try to be better, the bar that you initially set gets raised higher every second, because the you yesterday did not do what you did today, the you right now needs to be better, it all works out in the end, I know that there are times when we just want to lie down, feel tardy and lazy, we feel like there are invisible hands holding us down, that is the voice of fear inside you, the one scared to unlock your potential, the one unwilling to let you fly too high, but you have to stop listening to it, if it wasn't hard, it wouldn't help you grow, it is similar to learning something like piano or a dance piece, you don't know it initially but you want to, so you practice but you act lazy and then if you do not get it, you blame the heavens and the divinity, when inside you know you are guilty, if you do not put in the work, how exactly do you plan on becoming the best, every time, you do something that was hard to you, your confidence shoots up, you realise that the thing fretting you earlier has become easy. Something that you now know. But you wouldn't know it if you did not go through the process of getting to know it, right?

Lastly, I would like to say that life was never a path of flowers, it won't be easy, trying to set things straight and become strong is really hard, it is just like sharpening a pencil, you sharpen it but with every turn, the lead might break, but you have to try again, after practice you will realise that you stop at the perfect time, when the nib isn't blunt, neither too sharp to the point where you risk smudges; all you need to do is keep at it. You will feel like you are alone, like there is no one who could possibly understand you but you can not let that get in the way, you have the power to turn your life around, you can make a plan and make it work. If you make a mistake, start over. Through mistakes, your understanding of yourself and who you really are, why you make those mistakes, all becomes clear, after the work is done, sleep peacefully and let yourself be blessed.

There were times in my life where I felt too alone, and hence the suicide attempts, the will to stop became stronger than the will to go on, I felt like I was just being a gloomy burden to everyone, I had thoughts that sometimes scared me, what I was willing to do to hurt myself, to end the pain, but I kept going, lived through the panic attacks, the times when I felt like I couldn't breathe, I had to hold on, in those moments, I did not know whom I was holding on for, but now I know, for myself, I was the girl who thought to herself, she was better off dead, I was the girl who thought she was worthless, and useless, who did not know anything, who did not know her purpose but she found her purpose because she chose to survive, I feel really grateful that I am alive, so even thought sometimes it might be too hard to keep going, try to visualise the person you will be and what you will feel like when the struggle is over, though the path that you are walking on might seem like it doesn't end, you will see that it does, the end does come, but you need to keep walking, and don't be scared as to what about after the end, through the process of getting to know yourself, trying to love yourself, you will find the answers to other things as a bonus, like who you are, what you like and who you want to be. I know I've been talking for so long but thank you for listening to me, it will all come to fruition one day, your story will be meaningful. Don't ever give up! Live life to love and laugh!"