I slowly learned to love myself in ways I never had before

I grew up mostly in this town where there’s a lot of sadness. There’s a lot of bad things that have happen. There’s crime, poverty, drugs. I grew up at the hand of abuse in a lot of different ways, moving not necessarily with my parents, and it was really hard on me moving across the country and back, and being immerse in sadness and depression the majority of my life.

There was substance addiction problems. There was self harm problems and then one day I realized, it was as if I woke up, and I wanted to be happy. I didn’t want to be sad. I didn’t want to be stuck in this cycle that this town had put me in, that this area had put me in, the circumstances that I was born in. I wanted more than what was placed in front of me. I started working in trying to become better, whether it would be happier, be inspiring. I slowly learned to love myself in ways I never had before and it in turn helped me love others around me which helped me be successful. I admire the alternative in my style, in my preference of everything from piercings, to hair colors, to tattoos, to arts, creepy things, to weird things. I thinks it’s beautiful.

And that has actually played a big part in things going against me. I work in a very professional career. I’m a journalist, a writer for an award winning paper and I know when people first see me they think I’m a hoodlum, that I’m a degenerate, that I look like a teenager dirt bag, but then they talk to me and they realize, wow this girl has actually something going for her. She’s smart. I feel like breaking down that stereotype that people who are different can still be brilliant. People who are alternative, who have piercings on their face or tattoos all over their body can be successful. They can be happy. They can be contributing members to society and help the world grow. 

My goal in this life is to teach my daughter to be happy and to love and to give and to be more than what I could have ever hoped to be. I want her to do more than I did. I want her to always know no matter who she is, what she is, she can achieve anything she believes in.

I have this little purple bear. I got it for Christmas when I was 12 years old. I had just moved across the country. It was when I first realized that I was kind of depressed. I was almost a teenager and I called it Sunshine. My daughter still has it. And she plays with it. We tell Sunshine that she needs to be happy because that’s her name. It’s one of the few things I have from my childhood, actually. When I felt like I was alone I had this little bear that I could just cling to and hold onto and it made me realize that not everything in the world is bad. If I had one good thing that I could focus on I could use that to make myself happy or try to at least.