#thpp:written

[thehappiestpeopleproject]

When a panic attack starts, the fear and hopelessness you feel is impossible to describe. For me, I want to rip my skin off and run through a wall and sob all at the same time. My chest feels like a pile of bricks is crushing the breath out of me. I let out these intense, hoarse coughs that lead me to gag and dry heave and the hyperventilation makes me feel like I am either going to pass out or throw up.

I usually try to curl up in a ball near the toilet while fighting my hardest to get control and I desperately pray out loud, “Please.”

There is nothing happy about it.

While I was diagnosed with anxiety disorders about a decade ago and have had control over my illness for quite some time now, I am able to describe my panic attacks so honestly and vividly because I just experienced my first one in a year a few nights ago. No matter how much time passes, no matter how educated I become with my illness, when a panic attack hits the fear is as real and horrible as my first one all of those years ago.

Anxiety is difficult. It is draining. It is a never-ending nagging worry that sits in your gut until you are reduced to tears, until you are begging to be someone else-- anyone else. It’s lonely.

When I was asked to write for The Happiest People Project and to share my story, I was so honored and excited. But, at the time I was asked, my anxiety was consuming me on another level so as I was looking back, I didn’t have a positive light to shine on my story . This left me defeated. All the work I have done with my organization, Listen, Lucy (www.ListenLucy.org) and all of the self-love and talk of acceptance that I put out into the world, and I couldn’t find anything positive to say about myself. Then, I started thinking about happiness, what it is and how it means different things to different people.

My anxiety is a negative in my life most of the time. It has brought me many horrible days that I wasn’t sure if I could survive, but I have and I will continue to survive every panic attack and manic day that is thrown at me. It is who I am and, weirdly enough, I think my anxiety has made me that way. I am super resilient.

I am also determined and that determination led me to use my anxiety disorder and my experiences with it to create Listen, Lucy-- an anonymous online outlet where people are free to share their stories without worry of judgement. I have received stories from all over the world and read messages from people who have found courage and hope through my honesty and openness. When I think about what I have worked tirelessly to create and the impact it has had on people who have been searching to have their stories validated and their voices heard, I am so happy that tears literally fill up in my eyes and run down my face.

My story of dealing with my disorders is not over. It will never be over. It is inside of me and is a part of who I am. Sometimes, that sucks. Other times, I am so proud of what I have chosen to do with that struggle that I couldn’t imagine my life without it.

I don’t think I am one of the happiest people in the world. I don’t think I have it all together. I think I struggle a lot and even though sometimes I wish I didn’t have the issues I have, I am so happy with what I have decided to do with them. Maybe happy people don’t have the perfect life, maybe they find ways to be happy with the inevitable imperfections and major bumps in the road.

I may not always be the happiest person or the most positive person, but I will continue to fight everyday to make my health and happiness a priority and to make sure the outlet I have created is a safe place for people to fight along with me.

Jordan Corcoran. Submitted September 12 2016.

[thehappiestpeopleproject]

Semicolon (just a pause in my story)

I am 16 and a sophomore this is my story this far into my life. It started in 3rd and 4th grade when my cousins had come into this world, two of them born with a disease. After they died was when my depression really started. At such a young age the sadness hit me hard. That's when I started binge eating. I didn't even understand what depression was nor that I had it. Then after my grandma had left my grandpa it caused a split in my once happy family. Now my mom till this day refuses to see or talk to my grandma, someone I had grown a strong bond with. The last memory I had of them talking was them yelling at each other while I was locked in the car crying.

Switching schools can be hard for 3rd grader and knew I wouldn't make any friends nor did I want to. I was so sad all of the time I just gave up. From 4-6 grade I would cry myself to sleep every night. I was known as the weird stupid blond girl that did plays. I would call my mom every day to go home because I didn't want to face lunch time when I had no one to sit with. Because of the depression my grades dropped. Everyone thought I had a learning disability so they put me through every test possible to figure out what was so wrong with me. After all that there was nothing wrong with me, which I knew, and they decided that I just didn't want to learn and that I was just lazy. When in reality I was just to depressed and sad to work. I was still binge eating at this point and was very overweight for my age. It was around seventh grade I was actually somewhat happy at this point but that all was about to change. I realized that my current friend group talked about me behind my back and we're starting to spread rumors about me. Most of this bullying around 7th grade was based on my weight. People would tell me that I eat too much and that I was a fat fuck who didn't deserve  to have friends. My mom is a skinny little thing and was not ok with my weight. She was constantly commenting on my weight. One day she gave me a bottle of pills telling me that they were just vitamins. When I looked it up I found out that they were weight loss pills and I had to take three a day also that you had to be 18 and up to take them. I was to afraid of her at this time to say anything. So I didn't and went through two bottles of pills. This made me feel so awful about myself so I told my mom if she made me do it again I would tell my dad. She knew if I did that my dad would leave her so she stopped. We stopped talking.

I had stretch marks all up and down my legs starting when I was 11. I went to a catholic school so we only wore shirts. One day a girl in my class asked me if I was cutting myself because she saw my stretch marks. This completely destroyed me. My eating disorder started. I was then throwing up every day. It got worse as time went on. Although I was happy for someone who was starving themselves. I hadn't told anyone at this point mostly because I had no friends. After drama happened with a guy I shut down again. But this time I didn't start throwing up instead I would just cry.

8th grade I was so depressed it was getting to the point where I didn't want to be alive anymore. So one night I took a bottle of the strongest pills I could find and locked my bathroom door. I then laid in the bathtub waiting for hours thinking every last thought to find a reason why I shouldn't do it. But I took the pills. Once a minute passed I found a reason to live. I threw them all up. I thought it was because wasn't strong enough to do it, but now I know that I was strong enough not do it. I was ready to restart at a new school. But when I was gaining weight back and depression set in freshman year turned to hell. My bulimia was at my worst and I started to burn myself constantly. I have so many scares hiding them was a problem it was like everyone was staring. I told a friend and thing got better, then I told more people who made a huge impact on my life forever. A lot has changed and now I help others who are going through what I did. I don't want to say that I am today 100% because I'm not but I'm getting there.

Tatum M. Submitted September 9, 2016. Catch up with them on Instagram.

[thehappiestpeopleproject]

It all started in 7th grade I was 12 . Before that I saw myself as happy confident and loving life. Then I started to become depressed I thought about killing my self and cut at least once a week. I was a miserable person and couldn't face anyone. Finally in 8th grade my best friend saw the cuts and asked me about them I cried broke down and told my parents. I now saw myself as a worthless ugly broken girl. But people still made me out as a girl who had everything going for her. My parents never got me help and eventually forgot about the situation. I was still cutting at the time but then turned to pills. I would take all different types in lethal amounts hoping that one day I just would go to sleep and would not wake up. Then my parents found two pill wrappers I told them it was my first time and they yelled at me and then brushed it off. They assumed because I smiled and covered up all my feelings that I was fine. Then in freshman year my sister developed an eating disorder. My parents got her help and we started to go to family therapy. I resented the fact that they got her help but didn't seem to care about me. I continued taking pills sometimes 5 days a week I would be drowsy and dizzy the next day and even sometimes fall down because I couldn't stand. I hid all my problems so well I guess because everyone still saw the happy strong girl. Then one day my parent found all the pill wrappers 52 in total not including the ones I took that didn't have a wrapper. I broke down again and they promised to get me help. But like the other times they had other things to worry about like my sister so they never got around to it. They hid the pills and let it go and expected me to fix myself.Then summer of freshman to sophomore year I started to cut again almost everyday util my mom saw the cuts at the doctors office. My parents confronted me about it and they again promised I was gonna get help. But now I'm in my sophomore year I'm 15 and they still haven't gotten me help. I have started to turn to friends who are going through the same thing they help me talk about it inside of turning to pills or a knife. Im 1 month clean. I'm still trying to fix myself but I want that happy confident girl back.

Anonymous. Submitted August 23, 2016.

[thehappiestpeopleproject]

Ok so I have never told anyone this...Not one soul not even my best friends but, I felt this was the right place to share my story with a little thing called Trichotillomania. so it started when I was in 5th grade and progressed until 7th grade. If your wondering what this is, its a mental illness where the victim copes with circumstances by pulling out their hair. Now that may not seem bad and it didn't seem that bad to me either until it had got so bad that i had no eyebrows or eyelashes mid-6th grade. It all started with an in class essay in 5th grade where I was compelled to pull out one eye brow because it was bugging me, the action of pulling out the eyebrow was surprisingly soothing in this stressful time. It only escalated from there. In my family not one kid had ever gotten a B in any class. Living up to this expectation, and the expectations to always be happy, and to always be like my siblings before me was tough. It only got worse when people in my life like my family got mad at me for this" illness" constantly telling me to "grow up" and "just stop". I couldn't stop. I felt so exposed all the time as well because everyone could see what I had done to myself. I would tell people that I had accidentally burnt them off and other crazy excuses. No one ever found out somehow but, everyone could see how imperfect I was and the silent judgement of others really hurt. This only sent me down a worse spiral pulling out more hair to the point that I literally had no more. I got more depressed, stressed, and hurt until I met my best friend ever. I never told him what had been happening but, he still accepted me and it just felt amazing. I started getting happier and made more genuine friends this way. People who saw me for who I was on the inside not on the outside. At this point I started becoming happier. I started noticing that clothing, getting a  girlfriend, and being popular, amongst other things weren't the most important things in life and I slowly recovered. My family began to accept me more and by high school I had a brand new start as well as a brand new face. Nowadays I am quite happy all thanks to my friends and their acceptance no matter what.

Kyle Dimick. Submitted August 22, 2016.

[thehappiestpeopleproject]

I have had a long fifteen years of depression and anxiety disorders. When I was eight years old our family had a bit of a crisis, with the recession booting my dad from his job. We had to move and all, but that wasn’t the worst of it. During that same period my father, who has, like his mother, my uncle, and my grandfather, Bipolar Disorder. Shizophrenia was thrown in to the mix as well, and eventually his doctor went wrong. My father was prescribed the wrong medicines for his condition, and on thing led to another until we had a big issue. At the same time, as if the recession and all else wasn’t enough, I was diagnosed with Autism. A few years later, after we had regained a foothold, my depression, which had poked at me my whole life, came back full force. soon after that, an anxiety disorder or two hopped on board the fun and joy express. this year I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and have been given medications.

Even though I have medicine for my anxiety, I have found that friends and family, along with a hobby or two, can give me the lift I need to get out of a rut. Friends are there for you, and if you let them, they can help you through anything at all.

Mateo Pelissier. Submitted July 30, 2016.

[thehappiestpeopleproject]

I'm 15 years old, going to be a sophomore. I was a competitive gymnast from second grade, until eighth grade. When I quit, I gained a lot of weight. I was not overweight, still conventionally "skinny", but due to the intensity of doing intense gymnastics for four hours a day caused me to be so small for my age, I had never experienced being of "average" size. I honestly didn't know what "average" was. Because I experienced this just before I started high school, I was highly self-conscious of my body and began to form bulimic habits to make myself feel better. A few months later, I finally realized it was bad and that I needed to stop, because I had nothing to worry about, but I couldn't. I was so used to throwing up five times a day, my body couldn't process a full meal without throwing most of it up. I'm mostly okay now, but it took several months to gradually ease back into it. Sometimes, I still throw up out of impulse when I'm feeling fat or ugly, or anything bad about myself.

The worst part through it all was when my friends thought it was stupid and said stuff like "shut up you're so skinny!!" It was even worse when they thought I was making it up for attention.

I'm not entirely sure how to end this, so i'll just say if someone has the courage to tell you about depression or an eating disorder, or any kind of mental illness, never accuse them of making it up or lying. It feels awful and like nothing will ever get better, but it will.

Anonymous. Submitted July 30, 2016

[thehappiestpeopleproject]

It started in September of freshman year. I was at a new school with new friends and a completely different environment. It wasn't hard at first, I was accepted by my classmates and liked my teachers. I loved high school. The pressure to succeed from my parents started to increase, and I grew more and more unhappy as my family became more cold and oblivious to my emotions. I was so new to all of this, I'd never been this unhappy and I didn't know how to cope. I turned to cutting. My scissors were a material thing, something I knew wouldn't disappear or leave me like some of my family could or bend me till I break. I did it whenever I was sad, or angry, or hopeless. It became an addiction. I started seeing the school counselor, who didn't really have the power to do anything for me. It was nice, feeling like an adult, someone other than my best friends, cared about how I felt. I felt better around new years. One of my best friends had become something more and I had an amazing group of best friends. I still cut, but it was less frequent. The school counselor recommended therapy for me, my parents said they'd look into it. It seemed like everything was going to get better. Then my parents, who ended up doing this four more times, decided I didn't need therapy and I was all better. Little did they know that I wasn't, I won't ever be the same as I was. Having that pulled on me hurt, I needed help, I wanted help, and it was hard to ask for it. Thats why when I started being sexually harassed, I told the counselor, not my parents who still to this day, don't know. It was around May that I tried to kill myself. I tried bleeding out. My friends were scared for me, they called the counselor and were trying to get me hospitalised. I didn't feel like there was a purpose to being here, and simply moving on from this life would fix everything. Sometimes I still think suicide would be a good option, but I can only hope it never gets as bad as it did then. I wrote letters, for my friends, for my parents, for the people I loved the most. I guess I wrote my suicide notes. I recently went to the doctor, who again recommended therapy. Recently I've developed some body image issues, but I'm working through it. It’s hard, it all is, but I'm four months clean of cutting and it’s still an urge, but I feel stronger than ever. I have hope that my life has great things in store for me.

Anonymous. Submitted July 30, 2016.

[thehappiestpeopleproject]

So, ever since kindergarten, I've struggled with Trichotillomania, which is when you have the compulsion to pull out your hair. At first, I thought it was a normal thing, but then, after people started to make fun of me for my lack of eyebrows and/or eyelashes, I just thought it was me being stupid and just having a habit. It kept getting worse and worse with stress and I had been silently dealing with it for about 5 years when I had decided that I wanted to tell one of my friends about it because I felt like that would help. However, instead of being the caring, sportive person I thought my friend would be, they just kept asking me all of these questions as if to pin it on me. They just kept telling me to "just stop", as if it was that easy. The thing that most people don't understand, is that it hurts, it gives me such phycological pain that I'll scream and I'll be in tears if I decide "just stop". And once I give in, I'm left with this shame constantly eating away at me, and once again, I'll be in tears. I could never look people in the eye, or even consider myself beautiful, at the least. It was totally wearing me down and taking control of my life. Then i found it was actually a mental disorder, just knowing that it wasn't just me being dumb made me feel better, but it had it down as a method of self harm, which while i don't personally buy, concerned me. Sadly, it also said that, since it started so early for me, I'll probably be struggling with this for the rest of me life. I still felt so isolated and weak for so long until recently, last year, my 9th year of Trichotillomania, I finally found something that somewhat worked, which was keeping myself busy with friends, or once I felt this pain and urge, to just sleep, or distract myself with something involving my hands. While it wasn't full proof (as I can't just sleep anytime I want, or just stop studying or doing homework whenever) I've definitely felt better and I don't experience it quite as much. Another thing that I've found incredibly helpful, is to surround yourself with friends you know you can talk to, even if you know you wont, to just have that option out there is so comforting.

Noa C. Submitted July 30, 2016.