McKenna+S’s+Final+AmEx+2015+Speech

=To Hell With It=

On January 20th of this year, the night before Semester 1 finals, life threw me into the deep end. Like three times prior, it had to do with the same woman and the same conflict. Unlike those three times prior, I had to act as the adult… the ‘hero’ to an adult that is supposed to be my hero. ‘Hero’ is a word that does no justice to how I felt- I lacked courage and bravery… I was simply acting out of desperation. That night, I felt Death looming next to me as I fought to keep my Mother from departing this world and moving to the next. His work was nearly complete by the time the lock was finally broken. The person I fell on my knees beside and pulled to my chest, was no longer one of the woman who gave birth to me, the face I was looking at wasn’t recognizable. All I could see was a child- vulnerable and frail. There was a sickening familiar frigid dampness that hung, suspended in the air- as I coaxed her away from Death's embrace and back into the body she seemed so determined to leave. I had felt it before- I had felt it each time that I discovered that she had overdosed on the medication prescribed to make her better... Every time she has tried to kill herself, a chunk of me has died in return for her existence. Each time it is reaffirmed that my family isn’t good enough to keep her alive. That I am not enough. The familiar feeling of dampness settled into my bones and the unshakable frigidness became prominent once more. That night, I questioned my strength to endure a life that seemed as pointless as the one I was living.

In no way do I hate my Mom- I love her with all my heart. What I hate is her mental illness. As the years have come and gone, it has become clearer that suicide isn’t necessarily a choice. It’s something that hurting, sick people are pushed into because they can no longer hold the tremendous weight they carry on their shoulders. People don’t choose to be depressed, just like it isn’t someone’s choice to sink when they have two anvils stuck to their legs and they are in quicksand. By telling them to ‘snap out of it’ or stating that they ‘just need to let go of all their problems’ is like telling them to start thrashing around-- IT ONLY MAKES THINGS WORSE. Depression is something that many people interpret as ‘ temporary sadness’ or a ‘state of mind’, which is quite frankly the biggest BS I’ve ever heard. If depression was a state of mind, we wouldn’t have mothers of five trying to take their lives. Some people are born with a chemical imbalance, and it begins to develop in others who have been exposed to a great deal of stress over an extended period of time. In my Mothers case, she was the daughter of an neglectful alcoholic father, and a physically abusive, alcoholic Mother. She had a rough upbringing, to say the least.

Right now, many of you are going through some rough stuff as well. You might be fighting against self-image, self-harm, or self-hate. Perhaps your parents are getting a divorce, the God you thought you loved is dying, or your depression is getting so bad that you can barely muster up the strength to breathe... It gets harder and harder as the days come and go, and as these problems are brought up, resolved, pushed aside or still raging on- we question our strength to endure the difficulty they present. Although we have been through and continue to trudge through the warzone of conflict, why the hell does life keep launching problem after problem in our direction?

The pessimist in me wants to say that life is unfair, that we have a cold God that would much rather watch us suffer than intervene with the horrendous things we think and go through. The optimist, however, wants to begin discussing what we have been taught in class this year. That- without the terrible moments in our life- we wouldn’t be able to differentiate the good ones from the bad. We would be living in a boring, mediocre world where people always get what they want, and they get it with ease. My optimistic side says that we were born to overcome the odds, fail a few times, but ultimately find a place where we meet problems with an eager attitude to defeat them.

I’ll use AMEX as an example. We signed up for this class knowing it would be difficult- we were told by a lot of people that we would struggle and maybe lose our minds a little bit… that we were little flowers whose roots would be brutally ripped apart and then suffocated in fresh new soil of intellect and wisdom...But we’ve made it through the year… haven’t we? Some of us lost the perfect instability that we constructed in our heads… but we are still here, and we are almost done. We have hit wall after wall, whether from the issues at home or in our heads- but the majority dug their heels in and pushed forward. A few of us hit a wall and never quite recovered, try as we might to get out of the rut… we couldn’t find the strength or motivation to do so. Now, as I look back, I kind of wish I let go of my hard-shelled visage and had some people help me over.

My biggest regret is not telling more people why I was hurting, and why I was angry- it could have helped me and perhaps someone else as well. I use to walk into class feeling alone, but now I realize I was looking at the faces of some of the strongest people I will ever have the pleasure of meeting, some of who deal with nightmares of their own on a daily basis. This year has been rough… and I don’t know why I didn’t look to you guys as an inspiration to keep going. I wish I could have overcome my fears of weakness and emotion to open up to anyone... It could have helped me become the girl I wrote about at the end of my first blog. Better late than never, I guess...

I feel like we walk through life believing that we are alone, when we are in fact not. So, I suppose that, when I grow old in the country, I want everyone to know that they are born with the ability to overcome anything… and that we will always be surrounded by some of the strongest people struggling to be alive. I hope we can learn to be open about things that we would normally hide from each other, so we can prevent some of us from becoming the bad side of my Grandmother or Mom. I hope the next generation is growing up in a world where they acknowledge the problems in their life, and share stories to spread the knowledge of how to overcome all these difficulties that they will face. I can guarantee that they wouldn’t feel as lonely as a lot of us do now, and the leaders of the future would be filled with enough wisdom to prevail in the face of their challenges. To do this, we just need to open our mouths and start talking. We could thus heal and teach future generations to no longer be ashamed about the secrets they keep, but rather be open and inviting to share what we have hidden.

Now, I’ve probably made more progress in the past five minutes than in the last five years of off-and-on counseling, and it might have looked easy to stand up here and give a little speech about a problem- but it was anything and everything but that. Clinical depression and suicide are both things that people normally don’t like to talk about, including me, so when I tell people that I have a mother with a mental illness… I don’t normally expect anything but to get an ‘oh’ followed by an uncomfortable silence… which is to be expected. Since I was a child- I’ve ashamed to admit it… but now I’m not. I’ve come to a point where discomfort makes more sense than comfort. All the troubles that I have faced are a blessing, not a curse- because, as cliche as this is, how I've overcome them has helped define who I am. I can gladly look back and see how strong I was and how strong I continue to be, and be happy that the past is melting away into just that… the past.

So, When you feel alone, when you feel like you have no one- just remember… in the world I grow old in, I want to exist for you, because you have provided me with a reason for existence. If you or someone close to you is struggling with depression, self-harm, a completed or attempted suicide, alcoholism, drug addiction, an eating disorder or a panic attack from this speech--- I have experiences pertaining to each of those things, and I know many kind people who have struggled with it themselves…. so… let’s talk about it sometime.

=SOURCES= "Life of McKenna Sullivan." Interview by McKenna J. Sully. n.d.: n. pag. Print.