Abuse is something you can get away from but the memories stick with you forever. This is known as PTSD (posttraumatic, stress, disorder) It hurts about 7 to 8 % of the population, 7 out of every 100 people with PTSD is because of abuse, abuse is a thing a lot of people go through because they are in an abusive family or life whether it be emotional or physical. This is to let everyone know that is going through this abuse you are not the only one and we can find a way to help. This is a story of someone who succeeded but still lives with the memories.

One of my friends was abused for 10 years. His story may be like others of students who are just trying to make it through the day. As far back as he can remember is Christmas. He was four years old and his stepfather put him on a horse. As his stepfather walked away he muttered: “I hope you get stepped on”. At that point, he just wanted off the horse but as he was getting down the horse kicked him off and started to chase him. Another form of abuse he went through is physical abuse, he was hit with a fishing rod for not cleaning up his room.

I asked him what are some ways that you got over it, all he could do was hope. One way was just to not think about it and just leave it alone. nothing bad would happen. But it’s hard to just forget a hand shoving a firecracker down your shirt and your stepfather laughing as your skin burns and melts. Things that happen to you always come back and bite whoever's doing the wrong in your’s or their life. But just remember that you can always get away from the stuff that is happening to you bad or good. Things that happen always have consequences whether they’re good or bad just remember life is full of more good than bad. 

His mother stood up to his stepfather and got them out of a bad situation. She told him she wanted a divorce that happens two weeks from that day but he did not leave until four years after the divorce was filed so it kept going on he thought he was done with it. He tried to make sure that he didn’t get beat for doing anything. Four years after the divorce he finally left and was never coming back. Until he made a threat saying he was going to come and kill the kid's family.

Just remember you can always get away from abuse you just have to speak up. This is about a kid who took a lot and was never given anything that just shows you can get a lot from nothing. Life is what you make it make something good out of a  bad situation. How many times have you thought of just blocking it out, how many times have you just wanted out this is the moment when you speak up. Speaking up is a lot better than just sitting there and letting it happen.

Sometimes the people we love do things we don’t fully understand. Sometimes, we can’t always find them the help they may need. My friends brother and father battled with addiction, and because my friend didn’t fully understand, she lost both of them in the span of three months. She says she’ll never fully understand why they made the choices they made.

My friend's brother died three days before Christmas from a heroin overdose. A month before he died, he crashed his car into a tree so before the autopsy was done, everyone thought it was complications associated with the crash. However, they later found out he had overdosed on heroin. Nearly three months after her brother died, her dad was diagnosed with heart failure and was planning to get electrical cardioversion, which is basically where they shock your heart if it has irregular beats. Before that could happen he was found dead in his little sisters bed with a needle in his arm. She cremated both her brother and father but didn’t have a memorial for almost three months. At the time, my friend was suffering from both depression and anxiety.

Because of my friend's anxiety and depression from the loss of her brother and father, she made the decision to seek therapy. In her opinion therapy helped her get through the struggles she was facing. She still believes she has not gotten over what happened considering the fact that she is still affected by what happened on a daily basis. She says that she is and probably always will be affected by it because she will never stop missing them and will never fully understand why they made the choices they made.

Although my friend faced many challenges, her tight-knit family faced them together. Her grandma, mother, and deceased brother were her biggest influencers throughout these hard times. Now it has been nearly two years and my friend says that knowing her brother and father are no longer battling their addictions and knowing they are together somewhere is the source of her recent happiness.

My friend always says “you don’t overcome any struggles, you learn from them”. That's why I believe that many struggles can be put behind you but some leave scars that never fade. She says, “I definitely believe the struggles we overcome affect us and how we view the world in a good way”. She says that it affects us in a good way because we learn from it.

Being present in your child's life is more important than working all day.  At the same time, a parent does need to support the family. In today's world, stay-at-home parents are on the rise. Multiple studies show that in 1 out of 5 households have a stay-at-home parent. In relation to my family, I am getting involved with more and more activities, and with my father working, nobody would be able to take care of our pets, and no one would be able to be there for me all the time. So, as a solution, my mother decided to become a stay at home mom.

One of my mother's best qualities is wanting to take care of me. When my mother was still working at her job she had to change her schedule from time to time or leave work early so that she could go to some of my sporting events and other activities. If my mother wouldn't have taken off time for me, I wouldn't have ever had a ride home, because my dad was always working. When I got sick, my mother would either take off more time or see if my grandparents would watch me. My mom really didn't want my grandparents or anyone else seeing me more than her and my dad, so, after 11 years, my mom didn't want to work at her job anymore.

My mom decided to quit her job to be there for me. In 2018, my dad got a better paying job so it was easier on us financially.  A reason why my mother quit her job is because of past experiences. My grandparents worked full time, so my mom was either left alone with her sisters, or she was at her grandma's. My mom didn't want my childhood to just end up like hers, or spending my childhood with a babysitter, so she quit her job. But, this did create a financial strain on our family.

My family started to have some financial struggles. My dad had to leave his job because wanted to see me more. He asked to be on first shift, and they didn't have the position open for another 15 to 20 years. So, he had to find a job quick. That put a lot of financial stress on my dad. Luckily, my dad found a good-paying job that allows him to see me more. However, when my dad was looking for a job, my mom was stressed too, because she needed to pay for my instruments, food, and other things. However, my dad did find a job, and everything sorted itself out.

Someone's decisions can change someone's life for the better. Some people don't get to see their children all the time. I am so thankful that my mom took this risk to be with me because she cares so much about me. Some parents don't care enough to spend time with their children, and their children get neglected. My mother left her job and took a risk because she wanted to be there for me. There were some significant rough patches, but in the end, everything worked out.

Some people have had the unfortunate experience of almost having to live without an eye, living with quite a messed up back, or having their entire life almost cut short from accidental poisoning. Most people can withstand pain, but there is a limit. People shouldn’t go past it, even if they don’t mean to. My peer is a victim of almost losing an eye, a back injury, and the near-death by poisoning. He is an example of how pain and sometimes near-death experiences can make one appreciate the life that much more.

My peer was at a friend of a family’s house. He was extremely young (about 3) at the time this “event” happened. He was running around carelessly, when he lost his footing, tripped into a glass table, and hit the space between his eyes. Blood covered his face from the impact since he was going quite fast. The large glob of blood running down his face didn't put the parents at ease and didn’t do a good job of signaling that he didn't pop an eye. Needless to say, he went to the hospital as soon as the parents discovered his blunder, and now has learned to be quite careful in life. Even if he didn’t remember the actual pain, he still has a minor scar on the area he got hit to this day. This doesn’t mean he didn’t get into any more trouble.

This next incident happened when he was also quite young, around the time of the first injury. However, this one occurred in the winter. It wasn’t an external injury. After getting back to the garage from daycare, my peer’s mom was waiting for her husband to get back home from work since he had the keys to the house and her keys didn’t work. Since he was quite far away, it would take a while for him to get back home. My peer and his mom were waiting and eventually fell asleep in the car. However, the car was still running, and the garage door was closed. They were in the car for quite a while, until the dad got to the house in time to save both of them from carbon monoxide poisoning. If they were there for much longer, they would’ve died from the fumes.

This last incident takes place about 12 years ago. He was in his attic, moving things into storage. He was with his mom and dad, who were done loading their things into the attic. He was about done placing one of the last items into the attic, and he was walking down the stairs. Thanks to the attic stairs being extremely narrow, he slipped down the whole flight of stairs. The stairs didn’t welcome him back with kindness, so he had multiple bumps and bruises on his back. Since the stairs were small, they weren’t well built. The stairs were wooden, so on top of the pain from falling, he also got splinters from the stairs too. After all of those impacts from the stairs, his back wasn’t acting as nothing had happened. He had to take a while for his back to recover. It’s not like he could have controlled his fall.

Those who experience painful scenarios do remember those experiences, even if they are young or otherwise. Sometimes, those incidents could be so bad, they could leave lasting consequences on the person in question. People who experience pain and near-death use those experiences to appreciate life, and my peer is a good example of that. He went through an injury that could have varied his life from losing an eye to dying from blood loss, fell down a big flight of stairs, and almost died of poisoning. People can withstand quite a bit, but that doesn’t mean one should be reckless. People need to take care of themselves and make sure they don’t go through too much at one time. They should take a step back and appreciate the life that they have got.

Sometimes you can get over your low self-esteem and sometimes you can’t. Low self-esteem can make you do or think about things that you would never imagine. The struggles that we go through change our life by affecting the way we look, the emotions we feel, and who we confide in.

In the years of 2018 and 2019, mental health has been somewhat of a newfound issue. During these years a girl I know personally started to have very low-self esteem. She started to eat less and less food. Even today she doesn’t eat on a regular basis. All of a sudden she started to look around her. Comparing herself to how she looks with her friends. Although I think she looks fine she is still comparing herself to others. After she got it in her head that she didn’t look good, she started to do work out obsessively.  She figured if she worked out she would get skinnier. This started to change the way she thought and felt.

As the days passed her emotions started to change. She felt like she would never be able to get away from her struggle. There were a lot of things that were going through her mind. “ I felt sad on a daily basis,” she stated.  The days passed and she kept being unhappy based on how low self-esteem was and she thought that things were only going to get worse. But in the future things slowly got better. As her emotions changed so did her thoughts of who supported her throughout the struggle.

Though this was always on her mind she had never told anyone about this situation. She had not even told her own family about the struggle she was having. She did, however, tell her best friend and they have been together for four years. Thankfully her best friend is supporting her and still is today. She had other problems as well. She also dealt with relationship issues. Her relationships aren't that good within her family since they didn't know anything that was happening. She only had one good relationship with her friend. Lucky they supported each other on a daily basis.

Low self-esteem can affect you in many ways and cause many problems. I feel like she should talk to her parents. She doesn’t know if they could be causing a small part of her low self-esteem by not giving her the attention she needs. If you see someone struggling to try to help them. You never know if you are going to have a struggle in the future. They might help you in the future for helping them in the past. She is still going through the struggle today. But she is a strong enough person to smile and laugh every day.

Struggles. Everyone has them. Abuse. Depression. Poverty. Some struggles are harder to deal with than others. Our struggles have the potential to break us, but sometimes they can make us better. One thing that can greatly affect our lives is the death of a loved one. My mom has experienced the death of her mom, and it has affected her, causing her to remember the good and bad memories.

Death causes you to remember the times you spent with the person you lost, both good and bad. My mom, Lacey, has many good memories with her mom, Alice. Alice told Lacey about the concerts she went to as a kid. Lacey doesn’t remember all of what Alice told her, but she does remember the recipes Alice taught her. My mom tells me about her mom’s recipes a lot. Peach cobbler. Broccoli casserole. Spaghetti. Shepherd's pie. Chilli. There are lots of recipes. Another good remembrance that my mom told me is when Alice would play dolls with me, even though I couldn’t respond. These, however, are just good memories, there’s always the bad memories as well.

With the loss of a loved one, comes regret. The regrets could be just not talking with them or visiting them frequently. Regrets can put a lot of weight on your shoulders, especially when you know you can’t do anything about it. My mom has regrets, but they are surprisingly different. When Alice got sick, she was put on medications. “I thought she was taking medications to purposefully make her sleepy, but that wasn’t the case. The case was that she was actually sick” Lacey stated. My mom told me she would yell and scold Alice for taking the medications because of what she thought. Lacey said that if she could tell her anything, she would apologize for screaming at her. She never got to do that. Another thing she regrets is Alice not meeting my little sister, who was born later the year she passed, 2010. With these regrets, comes the way all these events affect you, and sometimes it disturbs your everyday life.

Losing a loved one changes us. When Alice died, we moved to Michigan to get away from all the memories Mississippi held. My mom didn’t talk to many people or make many friends because she didn't want to be hurt like that again. She didn’t even talk to her brother or sisters. She just stuck with her daughters and boyfriend. She doesn’t have any close friends outside the house.

The death of Alice extremely changed my mother. Death can lead to many things like memories and regrets. It also affects us in many ways. My mom lost her mom, and with that, a part of herself. She regrets things, but she still has her memories. Death can have a huge impact on our lives. My grandmother’s end may have completely changed my mom, but she pushes through it all and is still thriving. When something bad happens, don’t give up, always push through. Everyone has problems, even if it’s not noticeable. You are not alone.

Neglect and How it Can Affect Us

Having an absent parent can change your life. Neglect is an issue many of us face and sometimes the story has a happy ending. My foster sister Ray dealt with the loss of a parent. She’s one of the strongest people I know. My sister has gone through a lot, but one thing she had to deal with was neglect. My sister has struggled with a parent leaving, having to deal with constant reminders of her loss, and dealing with the situation emotionally.

My foster sister’s mom left her when she was four years old. Ray was left with her triplet siblings and her father. Ray didn't know why her mom left her, and she was confused. She still to this day does not know why she left. Ray went through many emotions, from blaming herself to confusion and depression. Ray didn't know what was happening to her, and this came at a time when she had to take care of her siblings. Ray’s siblings relied on her for emotional support, because they were younger than she was. In a way, she relied on them too.

Ray found herself reminiscing about the past while helping her siblings. Ray told me, “ I don't think about it often, but whenever something reminds me of her I tend to reminisce about how we’d all hang out together and watch movies.” Even though it was hard for her sometimes my sister remembered the good times with her mom.

Ray took good care of her siblings, and if they needed her she was there for them. Even though Ray had trouble opening up, she encouraged her siblings to do so because she wanted what’s best for them. Ray’s siblings relied on her for many things and that put a large amount of pressure on her. Ray didn't bother her younger siblings with her problems, she had to deal with the situation by herself emotionally. Ray didn't want to talk about it because she didn't quite understand what was happening to her. As Ray grew older, she began to understand what was going on in her life. Ray finally began to open up because she felt that she could talk about her situation in more detail because she understood what had truly happened.

Sometimes the struggles we go through help us to mature. My foster sister’s mom left her when she was only four years old. Ray had to take care of her siblings while wrestling with her own demons. As Ray grew older and realized her situation, she shut down. Ray fell into a deep depression and eventually began to open up when she understood what had happened to her. One way we could prevent what happened to my foster sister from happening to anyone else is to provide more resources for future parents. Ray felt some parents aren't truly ready for a child when it gets here, and they don't know what to do. More help and resources need to be provided for anyone who is a parent, or plans on becoming a parent so that they can succeed.