If today someone gave me the opportunity to talk to myself four years ago, I would sit for hours and promise her that everything would be okay, but unfortunately she had to learn the hard way. High school chewed me up and spit me out like a piece of gum that lost it’s flavor. I met so many versions of myself, and the version I knew best was the girl who was only around because she wasn’t brave enough to do anything to change that. So I crept my way through high school, not looking when I crossed the street or wearing my seatbelt. I wasn’t suicidal, I just didn’t care about the future, or about myself.

Things got bad for me October 24th, 2013;  a boy brought a loaded gun into my class with intentions of using it. There’s a saying: “She was at the wrong place at the wrong time”, and if I have ever have a biography, that’s what it will be titled, because it perfectly describes my high school career.  I have the unspoken side of the story, the side most people in school shooting situations don’t get to tell, the one who prevented it. October 24th,  was a day exactly like the rest, and maybe that’s what scares me the most. I was in history preparing for a test and my best friend walked up to me and whispered “he has a loaded gun, I saw it”. My heart dropped, my body numbed and I got up and ran into the bathroom. At that time, I knew I wasn’t going to walk out of my high school alive, I knew I had to fight. I have sat through my fair share of lockdowns and heard about what to do in this situation, but nothing prepared me for this. I walked out of the school bathroom and there he was, my heart sunk. In that moment he showed me a loaded gun and told me not to tell anyone and he went to the bathroom. I walked to my classroom and told my teacher. Word quickly spread that I was the one who had told, and along with word of me telling many variations of stories came. My new nickname ‘Gun Girl’ began spewing out of people's mouths like spitballs I was trying to avoid, I wanted to be left alone, I wanted the world to forget about it and the world to forget about me.

By the time my sophomore year rolled around I had become a melting pot of antidepressants, part-time friendships, broken promises and self-hate. I didn’t know the girl who I saw in the mirror anymore, I had no motivation to go to college,  I barely wanted to get up in the morning. At school, I played a role; I was the girl who I wish I was actually, I smiled, I had friends, I laughed until my stomach hurt,  something was always missing though.  But at home, I knew the wrinkles in my blankets better than I knew my best friends, I knew the amount of time I could would cry before tears would stop flowing and I would just lie in my bed and shake. I could hear laughter roaring at me from the street beneath my window and I was glued to my bed.  My family finally acknowledged my downward spiral, and took me to a psychologist, where I was diagnosed with severe PTSD and depression. But being diagnosed only made me worse, because for some reason understanding what was going on with me, made it seem so much more real. I just remember always feeling dead, I was stuck somewhere between emotional and emotionless and trying to find the balance became impossible. By the end of my sophomore year, I didn’t even know who I was anymore. In reality I didn’t even picture myself making it college, I had zero respect for myself, my grades weren’t important, and neither was I.

Junior year was slow motion, I felt every second, every excruciating second. It felt like someone was drowning me and every now and then they ripped me back to the surface by my hair to let me catch my breath, and then threw me back in but for longer each  time. I met a new version of myself, a version I wish I could forget, but never will. A version who loathed the drugs she did, and promised herself she wouldn’t do them anymore, but always went back. The girl who blacked out at every party, who woke up without any memories of the night before, the girl who had no drug of choice other than anything she could get. To be completely honest, I barely remember that girl, because I spent so much of that year messed up, I lost myself.  It wasn’t a casual thing, it became my lifestyle, and I had planned on spending the rest of my life living that way, until I was hit with reality, hard.   I went to a party, and I blacked out, it wasn’t like the movies, it wasn’t cute and flirty, I am lucky to be here to even tell you the story.   I remember I was standing two stories up, looking down at the ground, thinking about how hard it would be to climb down the stairs I had just hiked up. I was staring and staring for what felt like an eternity but was probably just two minutes, and then I was leaning and by the time I realized it, it was too late. I blacked out, I blacked out before I hit the ground. I plunged down two stories, I took the worlds most painful belly flop, and I just lied on the ground until the next morning, nearly dead. I woke up swimming in my own vomit, my body hurt and, I had no memory of the night before, nobody helped me.. The next day it hit me, I needed to get my life together.  The next day, I stopped using drugs and alcohol,  it was the one of the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I had to feel things again, I had to cope with my problems again, I had to acknowledge the fact that I wasn’t okay. April 16th, 2016 was the day I woke up, the day I changed my life, the day I was decided I was sick of feeling sorry for myself.  That day I chose to put everything that I was struggling with behind me. I choose to move forward.

Somewhere within my junior year, I wanted to change my life, I guess I just didn’t have the willpower to stick with the commitment at that point in time. Regardless, my attempt to change my life, changed my life forever. The first time I tried to quit everything I lasted five days, but during those days, I applied for a program called the Student Conservation Association, since the program has a daunting 8% acceptance rate, part of me always assumed I would never get in. But I did. On May 17th, 2016 I was accepted, and I was going to be traveling to Arizona for a month to work on a trail crew. I stayed sober for the rest of my junior year, and senior year, I started caring again, I felt like I had a purpose, I felt like myself. By June of my junior year, I went off of my anti-depressants, I opened the curtains in my room, I hung out with people outside of school, I knew the girl in the mirror, it felt like a switch was turned back on within me.

On July 25th, 2016 I said goodbye to my family,  hopped on a plane and flew across the country. The next four weeks of my life, I became alive again, I worked 13 hours a day in Arizona’s 115 degree heat, and I never have felt happier. The 28 days I spent there, my crew and I hiked almost 600 miles and cleaned up and built trails in two of Arizona’s most beautiful National Parks. The nine others in my crew were the most genuine people I’ve ever met, and creating real meaningful connections with people is one of the most beautiful, underappreciated,  and refreshing things in this world. Since I spent my junior year hurting myself, I wasn’t associating with the right people, but in Arizona I met people with goals, aspirations, people who had futures bigger than partying everyday. On my birthday we got hit by a flash flood, and since we were living in tents it wasn’t really ideal to stay, so we spent a night in a hotel. That night was one of the best nights of my life, and maybe it’s because I was sober and I could tell you everything about it, maybe it’s because I didn’t hate myself anymore or maybe it’s because I laughed like I hadn’t in years but, regardless it was spectacular. That night I had one of those conversations that you see in the movies, sitting at an outdated patio set at three in the morning, I threw my life story on a kid called Jayden, and he threw his right back at me, like we were playing catch, and in that moment for the first time in years, I was proud to tell my story. I told him about the gun, the year of my life I don’t really remember. I hit him with a list of all the drug’s I did, and all the drugs I quit, I told him about every time I tried to kill myself and how I regretted it directly after each time, and how switching to drugs was easier than admitting I was suicidal. He knows that a part of me prayed I overdosed each time I used drugs, and he knows I pulled myself out of it. To this day, some kid called Jayden, is one of my bestfriends. 3 weeks later, I climbed onto a plane and flew home, a new girl.  A girl who is more than a name, I was a person again.

My senior year I reconnected with high school, and on October 24th, 2016 three years after I thought I was going to die in a classroom, I sent my college application to Plymouth State University. Now when I sit and think about my high school career I have no regrets, sure I made mistakes, I’ll be the first to tell you I made a lot of mistakes. But my mistakes built me, and to be honest with you, I am proud of the person who I am today. And so, I think I am in college to prove to myself that I am worth a good future, I am more than the girl who did too many drugs, I am bigger than Gun Girl, I am here to prove myself and everyone wrong. So if I could sit myself down four years ago, I would tell her that high school will be rollercoaster for her and she needs to hold on tight, I would tell her to proceed with caution, and I would promise her, that no matter how much the world feels against her, she will need to be there for herself, and she’ll need to stay strong for herself. If I was given the opportunity to change or redo high school, I wouldn’t. high school made the person who I am today, and I’m pretty damn proud of her.