Saving Myself

I look down at myself laying on the kitchen floor as my friends are huddled around me, screaming at each other to call 911 but no one doing it, they were trying to wake me up, shaking my shoulders and crying my name, soon they all vanished though, leaving me here. I cannot believe I am watching this happen to myself, I am watching and feeling as I slip away. I knew I was living my life in the fast lane, and yeah, I knew the risks of what I was doing, but I didn’t think it would come to an end this quickly.

I was taking pills before I knew it. My mom had always told me, “You never know what they are, they could make your heart explode and you could die.” I heard her, but I didn’t listen to her. That night as soon as I knew she was asleep, I snuck out my back window, hopped down onto the deck, flipped my hood up as cold breath started to exhale from my lungs into the air, and I started walking. I pulled out a cigarette from my pocket and lit it up, as I inhaled the smoke into my lungs I couldn’t help but think “How in the hell did I come to this?” I started thinking about kindergarten and pledging to D.A.R.E and thinking I was going to be a straight A student and never pick up a cigarette, let alone develop a pill problem. Shit, my finger started to blister up from the cigarette that burned all the way down to the end, yanking me from my haunting thoughts. I bundle my jacket up more as the cold air rushed down the spine of my back making me shiver reminding me of the cold thoughts I am thinking, leaving me confused if it’s really cold outside, or if it’s just me…

I see the lights on the house grow closer and closer, I can hear the laughs of my friends grow louder. My good friend meets me on the front porch, greeting me with open arms. After our embrace, my friend looks at me and laughs asking “What the hell are you doing wearing a jacket in 75 degree weather?” Well… that answered my question, it was just me. She laughs a little as I roll my eyes and unbundle my jacket, sliding it off of my arm, she put her arm around my shoulder and said “C’mon kid, let’s get you fixed.” My heart grows with eagerness for this next pill as a result of trying not to take them for a few days, I follow her inside the smoke filled house as we headed for the kitchen. I found a lot of my friends surrounding the table, playing cards, empty glass and beer bottles everywhere, and some pills laying around. My friend bumps this guy on the shoulder and whispers something then points to me. He soon hands her a little bag containing four little pills, she then hands me this bag. I pop it open and let the pills hit the palm of my hand, I clenched my fist with the pills in my hand at first, as if I was holding onto a rope that was keeping me alive, maybe I was hoping that there would be a voice in my head that might yell at me to stop, but there wasn’t. I tossed the pills back as they ran down my tongue, hitting the back of my throat, going down into my system. In 5 minutes, I automatically felt better, in fact, I felt unlike I ever have before, and I couldn’t decide if I should either be scared or happy about that.

As the time passes, I start to feel hot, my heart is starting to race, and I am losing the color in my face. My friend looks over at me and can tell something is wrong. I tell her I think I am going to throw up, she walks me to the bathroom, where my knees fall against the cold bathroom floor, like stones pulling me down, I bent over the toilet and started vomiting awfully. It freaked me and my friend both out, who was holding my hair and saying “Oh my god” over and over again, finally the vomiting comes to a stop, I weakly stumble up with my arm wrapped around her shoulder, she walks me to the kitchen and sits me down in the chair, she goes into the kitchen to get me a glass of water, and before I know it, my back is laying on the wood panel floor ground next to the kitchen table, my body start to yank and my heart starts to pound harder and harder, faster and faster. I can’t say anything though, everyone is around me and I can’t talk or scream or tell them what I need, anything, they are all panicking, trying to decide what to do, screaming and crying, people are running out even, and I am laying here, ”Oh my god, they are going to let me die.” People start clearing the drugs out, flushing them, putting them down the garbage disposal, and I am watching all of this. I can see me laying on the ground, my eyes are cold, and my skin has lost the color, I am watching as my so called friends are more worried about the drugs and alcohol then me laying here on the floor. Soon, the house clears out, well, almost clears out, I'm still here.

I bend down next to my lifeless body and start begging for me to just hang on, and begging god to just please tell my mom I love her, and tell my brother I love him too, and make sure he turns out nothing like me, dear god, please don’t let him turn out anything like me, then something sparks inside of me, for the first time, I felt the will to live, I thought about how I wanted to go home and tell my mom and brother I love them myself, and how I wanted to personally make sure my brother didn’t make the same mistakes as me, and do everything in my power to make sure he didn’t end up like this. As a final attempt to save my life, I leaned over my lifeless body, putting my mouth over mine, inhaling air into my own lungs. I saw as my eyes yanked open…

I bolted up straight in my bed, my heart was racing and I was shaking, but I felt so alive, I felt as if I just took my first breathe of life all over again. I got up and looked in the mirror at myself, and for just a quick moment, I saw everything good I could become, I saw all the good in me, and for once, I couldn’t see any sadness, I couldn’t see all the things I did wrong. I just saw me, and in that moment, I knew I could save myself.

Without music, I wouldn't be here

I have been in a not so good place since the sixth grade, and a lot of people don’t understand a thing that I am going through or am feeling, but they do, the artists, the music streaming from their voice and finger tips, I can tell they understand. When talking to friends and family around me failed, Music was there at the end of the day. The one good thing in my life that I have control over, if a song is making me too sad, I can change it, Life isn’t as easy as skipping a song on the playlist, and it just gives me a settle feeling of control and when their words of similar experiences and similar feelings, fill my ear drums, it’s comforting, it’s so comforting to know that you’re not the only one that feels like this and it makes it easier living with depression, knowing that it doesn’t make you any less of a person, and seeing that these people, these famous, and wonderful people, have been in your shoes or know someone who has, and they put their story out there wrapped around in beautiful melodies and in that moment, I know I am going to be okay, if they can come out on top, so can I. Music has saved my life in countless ways that I can’t even begin to describe, I wouldn’t be here without music.

At the end of a long day at school, or a long night at work, the first thing I do when I get home is plug in my phone to my speakers and let the sounds of their voices bounce off the walls in my room and it doesn’t matter who made me mad that day, it doesn’t matter how many rude costumers I had at work, and it doesn’t matter how sad I felt, the music makes all of that go away. As I dance around my room and listen to the music flowing out of my speakers, it’s like I am not even here for a moment, I’m not stuck in a town I hate, I’m not a stressed out senior, I’m not a depressed teenager, I am just me, and I am happy, and I feel so lost in all of the best places. Losing myself to music and just feeling it as the words fall off their lips is one of the best feelings in the world.

Music has a lot of powers, has the power to make you dance, the power to make you cry, the power to make you angry, the power to make you laugh as you think about some memory, but more than anything it can heal you. I know it can from my own experience, and I am sure that the rest of us can think back to a time when nothing else could make us feel better except that one song. The moment when you are really angry and you just got in a fight with a friend, parents, significate other, and then that song comes on and you can’t help but crack a smile and bump your head to the beat of it and then by the time the song is over, you don’t remember what you were upset or angry about to begin with. Music helps us release all of those negative emotions, almost in a “cleansing” type way, and doing that it heals us, just one of the many beautiful things music does for us all.

Without music, I feel that the world would be full of bad vibes. Why do you think all the hippies gather at music festivals and not a carnival or something? Because music just fills people with good vibes. I feel that if it wasn’t here, too many people would take out their emotions in the worst ways. If music wasn’t here, no one could dance, because music has the rhythms that make people want to move, and if it wasn’t here, those rhythms wouldn’t be here, if the rhythms weren’t here, we wouldn’t be very good at humming or making some noise to the beat of some song that gets you dancing, and all of this rolling back around to the fact that if music wasn’t here, no one would dance, and dancing is a good way to release energy. Dancing is also just fun and inspiring, and the music makes it that way, so without music, the world would be dull with bad vibes.

So let’s dance.  

Keeping it real

 7.  I dont think you know if you "love" someone in three days, but I think you can tell if their different. You can tell if someone is going to be worth your time or not, I mean, anything can change and they could be prince charming for three days and then turn into your worst nightmare on the fourth, so just be careful when it comes to the whole love thing.

9. Someone with gauges and tattoos and a pretty smile would be my defention of a hottie. He would be really sweet and really funny. He would be laid back and be okay with just spending days inside watching netflix and eating food. He would take cute couple pictures and my family would love him, and he would get along with my brothers and everything would just be perfect. In my dreams though, right? Hahahah.

17. My perfect day would probably be getting food and then curl up in bed and watch scary movies. I love watching scary movies and laying all twisted up in my big comforter and pop in a scary movie and just lay there and watch movies all day long with some food and snacks.

15. Something most people dont know about me is I have depression. I mean people in here know because I write about it alot, but as for my friends outside of this class and stuff, many of them dont know that I have depression because I come off as this happy, positive, upbeat, class clown but Im really not.

20. Yes because that way you cant get to know someone. You have to ask them questions if you want to know what their about, then that way you can get to know the things you want to know and they can ask you questions back so then the next time you guys talk, you will have conversations to stem off of.

16. My special talent, as you all know, is braiding hemp and all of that good junk.

Memorable Passage

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. —Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)




The reason why this passage has stuck out to me more than others is because I can really relate to it. I only want nothing more in life then to come out ontop of my own story in the end and say "And then I did it, I woke up one day and decided I never want to feel like that again, and I haven't since." that would be amazing, but if someone else ends up saving me before I can, then that's great too. I just want my story to show, whoever saves me, I want my story to be known, no matter how the ending turns out, the story itself doesn't change. The ending to the story is irrelevant to me, I have made it this far, I know I am only going to go further. Some people wish that they could forget the past, but I never want to forget the past, I want to always remember what I went through and how strong it made me, and so then when I get upset or mad over little things, I can tell myself "Hey, atleast its not as bad as it was that one time when you were 14." My mental battle wounds are not a burden, I wear them as a shield of honor and nothing less.

Wassily Kandinsky

My artist's full name is Wassily Kandinsky. He was born on December 16,1866, and died on December 13,1944. He was born and raised in Moscow. His fathers name was Vasily Kandinsky and he ran a tea factory. His mothers name is Lidia Ticheeva and she worked as a musician. He had one sister and her name was Vsevolod Kandinsky together they did homeschooling throughout their years.

Wassily married his cousin when he was middle aged, then later on in life when he was a 50 year old music teacher, he married one of his students who was only 17. Also during his life time he taught at a German school, when he was younger he graduated from college to be a law student but painted on the side before pursing his career in painting, he went to Munich Academy of Arts and was alive during World War 1. Some of the struggles he faced throughout his life involved his parents getting a divorce in his late teens, he was forced to go to college for something he didn't want to do, and when he got older, after he had two children, one of them died at age 3.

When it came to his work though, Wassily used oil paints majority of the time and did his art works on canvas boards, cardboards, and other materials. When Wassily was painting, his painting associated with the time periods of the following; Expressionism, German Expressionism, Modern Art, Der Blave Reitr, Abstract. Wassily had many different paintings but a few of his most famous ones are Landscape with Two Poplars, The White Dot, and Transverse Line.  

Everything Is Going To Be Okay Town

The town where the sky was blue

The flowers blend together in a sea of color

Laughter filled the air

Beautiful sounds from the chamber choir did as well

The children gathered in the field

Words of wisdom filling their hearts

Smiles curving upon their lips

The weight is lifted off their shoulders

Some say home is where you live

Others say home is where you're happiest

Calm sea of Chaos

Waves are crashing

They are crashing all around

The boats shake from side to side

Peoples screams grow silent

The boats float bottom up

The once sea of chaos

Is now a sea of calm

The gray in the sky cracks and light blue peeks from behind

Waves are crashing

The calm sea of chaos

Art/Walk "Instead of killing myself" poem

“Wait until a year from now

When you say,

“Holy shit, I can’t believe I was going to kill myself before I etcetera’d…

Before I went skinny dipping in Tennessee,

Made my own IPA,

Tried out for a game show,

Rode a camel drunk,

Learned to waltz with clumsy old people,

Photographed electric jellyfish,

Built a sailboat from trash,

Taught someone how to read,

Ect. Ect. Etc.”

The red washing down the bathtub

Can’t change the color of the sea at all.”

 

This poem helps me a lot when it comes to myself. It helps remind me that if I end my life, if I let things get to me so bad to where I am at the point when getting out of a bed is a pure struggle, that no matter what, the world doesn’t stop spinning. If you end your life, tomorrow will still come, people will still go to work and school, everyone in the world will wake up and get ready to start their day while you’re laying six feet under because you thought that this would make your problems stop and make everyone pay for how awful they were, well, yeah you’re problems are gone, cause you’re gone, and yeah people might feel bad for how bad they treated you, but most of the time their indenial and don’t even want to think they played a part in someone ending their life and usually, continue to be as shitty to everyone else just as they were to you. So with all of that cold hearted, but true, statements being said, why not just stay on earth, know that tomorrow will be a new day and better day, and if you hang in there, it will get better. I know its hard, and easier said then done, but I promise it is all worth it. I know by the things I write and say, most probably think “Wow Katie, you talk about it getting better but you seem just as bad now as you were then.” But I can honestly say I have come a long way since then with depression, I am not as hopeless about the future as I once was, I realized that everything gets better and anything worth having doesn’t come easy, and happiness is worth having, so I will continue to stay on this earth and strive for that every single day, because I now know because of this poem that ending my life wouldn’t fix anything, as it wouldn’t if anyone else did.

So, as a survivor of suicidal thoughts for four years, I can tell you it gets better. I know you may be thinking “You are a survivor of suicidal thoughts? That doesn’t even make sense.” Well if you have depression and suicidal thoughts, you know how hard it is, but imagine how hard it is, and everyday for four years of your life. It’s the thoughts that drive people to ending it, and having those thoughts for four years and still being here, and better than I once was, hell yeah, I am a survivor.

To whoever may feel like this, it gets better. To whoever may have felt this, let people know it gets better.

Circles of life

All kind of art, braiding hemp, writing, coloring, painting and they all help me in different aspects in my life in a different way.

Braiding hemp and writing helps me with my depression, its positive ways of getting the negative feelings out of me and doing something positive with the bad vibes. Coloring helps me when I am feeling angry or stressed, or when life in general feels a tad bit out of my control, I color and it makes me feel better because for once it is like I am controlling something in my life and that puts my mind at ease and helps me not be so stressed or angry anymore. I paint when I am feeling really open minded and have a lot of thoughts and emotions going on because I just let those vibes be in control of my paint brush and it’s just basically something I do for fun.