Essays

 In Bloom

From a seed, to a sprout, to a flower. My sisters bloom. Although, in my eyes it is sad to see them grow and change, it is also amazing. I will forever cherish these times of change. They can’t stay a small seed forever, every flower must bloom eventually. Through the dirt the seed will sprout. Some grow through tougher dryer dirt.. Some get it easy and grow through the most perfect soil. We all started the same, as a small seed. All flourishing. Blooming. Some bloom brighter and more vibrant than others, some bloom more dull, some bloom slower, some faster, but the good thing about this is that every flower is beautiful in someone's eyes. My sister flowers are two of the most beautiful flowers that I have ever seen. 

There has been plenty of wind and rain to try to break us all apart, but through it all we remain close in our garden. Our garden is full of love, which is to say, is essential in keeping us flowers alive and well. Along with showers of many things; support and kindness, encouragement and forgiveness, sincerity and patience…. As we bloom all of these attributes will stick with us, making us who we are as a whole. Carrying them with us on whatever journey life has in store.  

 One day we will get picked from our garden that we have known forever, and get to be planted into a new garden. A garden of our own flowers. When I get picked and begin my very own garden, I want my sisters to uphold our garden. I want them to be there for each other when I cannot be, and I want them to be the best version of themselves that they can possibly be. I will be sad to leave the garden, I dread that day. But, I know my sister flowers will blossom; to be even more beautiful, inside and out. 

Jaylyn Moore

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When I tell about events that hurt me, I tend to make them worse than they actually are. Not so people feel bad, but so they actually understand the feeling it gave me. The real heart-wrenching feeling.  The feeling that makes you believe you have no control over your life. Your actions don’t matter because nothing matters. The only thing that matters is that you make it to tomorrow. Or not even. Just that your inconveniences don’t matter. That you’re living in someone else’s world. 

The world is quiet. You don’t hear anything but your own, horrible thoughts. You feel sleepy and your eyes get heavy. All the yelling and the shouting turns into nothing but a mere murmur. A murmur that you recall in only dreams. That feeling when you can’t see or feel any real emotion. Your eyes begin to fill up with pools of tears all the way to the top. So much so that your eyelids overflow with tears and they flow down your cheeks without even a single blink. You’re able to look around at other people and find comfort in their presence. Even if it’s just some stranger at the airport. Wondering what their life is like and where they’re going and why? 

At night you look up at the stars and imagine it to be yourself. Unknown and distanced. The moon comforts you only because it’s so far away. The moon can never hurt you like the sun can. The sun can burn you and scorch your beautiful, pale skin. The moon can only watch over you. The moon lights up the darkness in the night. You can’t even escape anxiety and pain in dreams anymore.

You wake up in tears and terror. Worried about someone else’s disappearance. You wish it was you and not them. Sitting in the thought all day, knowing you could’ve saved them. Instead, you sit there and watch them die. Over and over again. Until your eyes bleed and you can’t take anymore of it. The only thing that’s keeping your life together is that there has got to be a treasure within the depths of the ocean. It may take your whole life to find it, but you will. If you try hard enough, the treasure you find may even be worth dying for.

                                                               Mavis Andersen

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War on Social Anxiety

Sometimes in class, I have to pretend that I'm not in a constant state of bewilderment. I watch my friends start conversations with teachers or other students. They'll somehow talk to each other for a long time and I’ll be sitting there, wondering how in the world they socialize so easily, and why I can’t have the guts to talk to someone no matter how hard I try. A wave of anxiety, guilt, and humiliation hits me when I get into any social interactions. I find myself ruminating over every little detail about every single interaction I have. I find myself thinking of little embarrassing moments I had literally over a decade ago, ones that don’t even affect most people. These mortifying thoughts caused my anxiety to crescendo during the majority of my life. Everyone went from describing me as “shy” to “extremely quiet.” I think back to when I was in preschool and kindergarten, the years when I was just a “shy kid”, and how in those years I had the ability to at least talk to people a little. In the last few years, I was able to improve my social skills and my ability to handle anxiety, guilt, and humiliation. I learned that the most important thing one can do to socialize is fight to lessen those negative emotions. I tell myself that I shouldn’t feel them. That they’re lies my brain makes up to stop me from interacting with others. Because I was always so scared of people, throughout my life I slowly developed a process that helps me, and hopefully other people, with being social. 

First, before going into a conversation, think of as many things as possible to talk about—as if you’re doing a presentation in class. Something that has helped me with that is to pretend you have an index card. Imagine several bullet points on your index card that lists out a handful of subtopics that relate to the main topic of the conversation. If a group of people are talking about cars, for example, your bulleted list could have: “racing, gas prices, and radio stations.” Now you know what to talk about when the conversation goes dry. Next, just simply calm down. Breath slowly. Relax your muscles. Think of positivity and tranquility. Smile. A bunch of anxiety in you is going to attempt to take over. Your brain might tell you that no one deserves to talk to an inferior creature like you. Stomp on those thoughts. Let it know how sick and tired you are of having the inability to talk to people. Think of all the people that you look up to, the ones you want to be friends with, and how horrible it feels that you are too scared to talk to them. Kill all thoughts that will get in your way and confidently tell them “I. Will. Not. Hide.” And when you say that, make sure you mean it. Now, raise your chin up. Try to avoid looking down at the floor. No one is in the floor. I hope. Now, enter the conversation. A good way of joining, or starting, a conversation is by asking an open-ended question. Now, you’re in. When you talk, make use of pauses. By pausing, you can breathe and think of what to say next. Pauses also give other people time to not only process what you said, but also the opportunity to talk next. Remind yourself constantly that you’re doing great. When you run out of things to say, think of some of the things you talked about with the other people and ask yourself: “what does this remind me of?” That will give you more ideas of things to talk about. When that no longer works, think of things that you, and the other people present in the conversation, are all passionate about. Again, make sure to remind yourself how amazing you are doing. You are a new person.

The process gives some ways to prepare oneself before entering a social interaction. It also tells us examples of what to talk about when conversations go dry. The process; however, is quite long and hard to remember, especially when in an uncomfortable situation. A possible threat to its success could be things people mentally go through. Some of my issues when it comes to socializing doesn’t even come directly from social anxiety, but other mental disorders, so depending on what someone goes through mentally could mean they need a whole different process. What has helped me and other people probably the most is just getting experience with socializing. It lets everyone get more comfortable with interacting and notice what they need to work on. When I was really young, the only step of my process was just to socialize as much as possible no matter how uncomfortable it made me. I didn’t really combat the humiliation until more recently. I realized that I shouldn’t be embarrassed because there was no reason to feel that way as long as I’m nice to everyone. Even though the same humiliation and embarrassment never left, I was able to slowly get out of my comfort zone again to talk to people.

My process is a good way of overcoming social anxiety. It could be better if I had ways of increasing confidence. I could’ve used steps like: dressing nice, having good posture, being proud of yourself. It would also be a good idea to include methods of ending or leaving social interactions, such as telling the reader to say something like: “thanks for talking with me.” I could also give steps of what to do after an interaction. Usually, I immediately feel a wave of negative emotions. I have to force myself to ignore them and to forget how something took place. Steps I could’ve used for that is to focus on what I did well or what I could’ve done differently for next time. 

Social anxiety is difficult to deal with. Watching other people socialize so well is mind-blowing to me. It takes a lot of mental work to push through. Socializing as much as possible, preferably with people you don’t usually talk to, is a great way to improve. It lessens those negative emotions and also strengthens your ability to improvise stuff to talk about. Having confidence is important, and avoiding the mindset that you’re not good enough to talk to certain people is equally as important. When you have these struggles and work hard to fight them, every good conversation or interaction you have will make you feel amazing.

Christian Carter

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