From Sadness to Strength - a story of healing
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
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“There's something truly magnificent about being sad, and that is that everyone can be sad. Some people are sad sometimes, other people are sad all the time.”
I have been a senior photographer for over 4 years now, and have had the pleasure of meeting and working with so many inspiring, beautiful young ladies over the years. Each one has a different story, and unique things they have been through in their lives. Some of them have shared bits and pieces of their stories with me, and I am always honored that they feel comfortable being honest and sharing those pieces of their hearts with me.
This particular story is one I am beyond honored to be able to tell. It's one young woman's story of going through unimaginably difficult experiences, but how she has come out stronger on the other side, and how she now wants to share her story so that it can encourage and inspire others who may be dealing with similar struggles.
It takes a lot of strength, grace, and bravery to be so vulnerable and open. And I can't express enough how honored I am that she asked me to capture and tell her story, and to share it with you now...
But before I share her story, I want to share something very important and dear to my heart:
This story is from one such young woman who has decided to embrace that truth.
Shannon is a high school senior who, when we initially started talking about her senior photos with me, shared how she wanted to do something completely different than the average session. When she walked into my studio for the first time, I met a girl who radiated warmth, peace, and beauty. Just by talking to her, you would never guess the things she has gone through that brought her to where she is now.
Shannon has dealt with some hard things in her past. She has struggled with doubt, anxiety, depression, and sadness and these things ultimately lead her to mental and physical harm.
Self-harm is something so many young people today struggle with. There is such a stigma surrounding it, and often it is a taboo subject that no one talks about, but so many people secretly struggle with daily- ashamed to talk about it or to admit they need help dealing with it.
It takes real courage and strength to be honest with others and with yourself, to seek help and to realize that you are not alone, you are not "bad," and you have nothing to be ashamed of. This is exactly what Shannon came to realize, and what she wanted to beautifully capture through her senior photos.
The scars she bears on her legs from what she has been through are not something to be ashamed of or to hide. They represent her journey, her strength, and her healing process. Her determination, hope, purity, love, freedom, and endurance. They are a reminder of how beautiful and strong her heart is, and something that she now uses to encourage others that they too can find healing and wholeness- no matter what they have been through.
This is Shannon's story, in her own words, and the photos we captured that represent her journey and what her scars mean to her.
-Samantha
SHANNON'S STORY:
“There's something truly magnificent about being sad, and that is that everyone can be sad. Some people are sad sometimes, other people are sad all the time.”
That is a song lyric that has been in my mind ever since I first heard it, and it has become very meaningful to me. Being sad is normal and being really sad is also normal, some people just go through a lot more than others. But once the sadness grips ahold of you, it won’t let you go until you do something about it. Constant pressure rises in your chest every time you think about it, breaking you down until you can no longer do anything about it. Sadness is magnificent because it teaches you that you can either be sad in the moment, or be sad your entire life.
From personal experience growing up, I realized what true sadness was to me.
I grew up wanting to be like my father, to be in the line of police work and possibly join the military. I wanted my parents to be proud of me. It was all I wanted. During middle school, I matured a little and I started to take things a little too personally. My relationship with my sisters wasn’t the greatest, that it was enough for me to dread going home to face something that would lead to my own guilt. I was constantly telling myself that not only did they not care for me, but that no one does. At the young age of twelve, I started to seclude myself from my family and the things I loved; the thought of making things worse with my own presence increased daily.
Because of this, I took a dive into the deep end of something that would later burden me for the rest of my life.
Where I was emotionally, was so far under that I was too scared to ask for help. My consciousness was too blurry for me to realize the actual damage I was making. I believed it was the only way for me to get my feelings out and to make me feel something again, I wanted to feel something other than sadness so I made myself feel pain. It was a relief mechanism for me and I didn’t know any better; all I knew then was that I had disappointed someone.
In a world full of standards and expectations, I was beneath all of it. At least, I thought I was.
When my parents found out that I was hurting myself, I felt the worry and love I hadn’t felt for a year. For a moment, I thought that everything was okay with them by my side, but only to slip back into the same routine not long after. When middle school finished, I was on the road to high school and a more difficult setting.
To be brave is one thing, but to be alone is another.
Even when I did make friends, I felt alone. I fell into a crowd of friends immediately and went into an even deeper part of myself that wasn’t me. I wore black, a lot of black, I cut my hair to have bangs, and I wore a lot of eyeliner. It wasn’t attractive and I wasn’t me. Even now, I still cringe whenever I think about it. The sudden change in my appearance and attitude lead me to believe I was more broken than I thought. What made it worse was that I continued to hurt myself and think such absurd endings to my own being. During my freshman year, I learned that because of my depression and lack of doing something about it, I had adapted social anxiety. Which seemed a little weird to me to have then because I didn’t understand what I was doing to myself that was causing the anxiety.
I jumped into the deep end, and this time, I didn’t know how to swim.
When summer came, I started with my second therapist and I attempted to better myself. It was a slow process for me, but I did end up becoming clean of hurting myself for two months before school started. When school started up again, I was a lot more prepared. Once again, I changed my appearance and attitude, but this time to how I liked it, though I was still struggling with urges, social anxiety, and minor depression. I saw the school therapist daily, but I didn’t go to class. I was afraid of walking into a pit of stares, judgement, and laughter. That was what my year was, but my anxiety only increased when I went under suicide watch after I had a small episode of panic sadness. I had an idea of what was happening, though I had no idea how my parents were going to take it. It was the first time I saw my father cry in front of me. I saw how emotionally distressed he was and it broke my heart to see him like that, to see the man I adored break down in front of his daughter.
Days later, because of my therapist, I was hospitalized when it got worse. I remember it was the week before Thanksgiving at two in the morning when I was officially apart of the hospital. I remember how afraid I was to be there and how much I was shaking. I remember all of it; what I ate, what I saw, what I did in there. There isn’t a day that I don’t think about it and take inspiration from it.
One memory that’s very clear in my head, even while writing this, is seeing my younger sister run into my arms for the first time after four days in the hospital, and hugging her so tight that I didn’t want to let her go. It all taught me a lesson that I couldn’t forget. Even as the year finished out, I still struggled to get back into the groove of things. During that time, I met wonderful people who support me every day without fault, and who helped me when I returned to school. I couldn’t be more grateful for them.
In the three years of my journey, I learned what it took to want to recover and sustain a life that I wanted. Even today, I am still recovering and adjusting to my coping skills because I will never be one hundred percent okay. I still struggle with my anxiety, abundant urges to hurt myself, and the fear of falling back into depression. I don’t have a perfect life now that it’s all over, I still argue with my sisters, I still reflect on my past, and I still regret. I know that I will never be able to change my past and I am grateful that I can’t, because I wouldn’t be the person I am today. My story may be vague, but it has taught me so many things and it caused me to come out of the other side even stronger than I was before.
The scars on my legs are there as a reminder to me of what I’ve endured, and what I’ve done to overcome what caused me to put them there. The journey I walked left scars, but scars can heal and reveal just where you are in life. I am able to embrace my scars as apart of myself and as a beautiful creation. Sadness is magnificent in the end, because it will show you who you’re meant to be.
-Shannon
IMAGES: Samantha Jane Photography
MAKEUP/HAIR: Styles by Sophie
xoxo,
Samantha Jane
