What Builds and Breaks Us Alexa Neumann

Link to Full Essay: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T9YxxsVeCZ007YRZirFyt9xjbV5DVi9cABqCJAgdYho/edit?usp=sharing

Sometimes the people we love do things we don’t fully understand. Sometimes, we can’t always find them the help they may need. My friend's brother and father battled with addiction, and because my friend didn’t fully understand, she lost both of them in the span of three months. She says she’ll never fully understand why they made the choices they made.

My friend's brother died three days before Christmas from a heroin overdose. A month before he died, he crashed his car into a tree so before the autopsy was done, everyone thought it was complications associated with the crash. However, they later found out he had overdosed on heroin. Nearly three months after her brother died, her dad was diagnosed with heart failure and was planning to get electrical cardioversion, which is basically where they shock your heart if it has irregular beats. Before that could happen he was found in her little sister's bed with a needle in his arm. She cremated both her brother and father but didn’t have a memorial for almost three months. At the time, my friend was suffering from both depression and anxiety.

Because of my friend's anxiety and depression from the loss of her brother and father, she made the decision to seek therapy. In her opinion therapy helped her get through the struggles she was facing. She still believes she has not gotten over what happened considering the fact that she is still affected by what happened on a daily basis. She says that she is and probably always will be affected by it because she will never stop missing them and will never fully understand why they made the choices they made.

Although my friend faced many challenges, her tight-knit family faced them together. Her grandma, mother, and deceased brother were her biggest influencers throughout these hard times. Now it has been nearly two years and my friend says that knowing her brother and father are no longer battling their addictions and knowing they are together somewhere is the source of her recent happiness.

My friend always says “you don’t overcome any struggles, you learn from them.'' That's why I believe that many struggles can be put behind you but some leave scars that never fade. She says, “I definitely believe the struggles we overcome affect us and how we view the world in a good way”. She says that it affects us in a good way because we learn from it. What we learn is that although a bad thing happens, we still can find happiness.

The stress of being a high school student can at times be unbearable when you’re not only a student, but also a student-athlete. Being both at once is hard because you have to get good grades to play in your sports. Not only is it hard to be a student-athlete and get good grades, but it is also hard for my best friend.

Her parents are always busy and can’t make it to any of her events. Her mom doesn’t know how to drive so she stays home cleaning all day and taking care of her younger siblings, her dad is always working late so he can’t make it either. Her family members are always busy and no one from her family supports her. Sometimes her sister that lives in Chicago comes in and supports her in cross country but she’s also busy.

My friends and I support her as well because we’re really close and she’s a great student and athlete. Even though band and cross country is really hard we always support her in her decisions. Every week she goes to cross country practice and every Monday we have to go to band practice and that ends around 7:30. School, on the other hand, is just starting so it’s getting more difficult.

When she gets home she has to clean and get everything ready for the next day. This is what she’s doing every day, going to school, cross country practice and band is really stressful because there’s a lot of commitment you have to do and get better at. She never fails at what she does. She really loves doing the events she’s in because she can spend more time with her friends instead of being home and doing nothing. Sometimes, she makes mistakes like not running the best or not getting the correct notes out in band but she always learns from them and tries to improve. She has friends that help out a lot and always has her back no matter what.

Most of the time our friends want to hang out but sometimes she doesn’t have a ride to get there and that’s where my friends and I come in and help so we can hangout and make memories together.

I really love helping her out because it makes me happy to see her happy. Even if I'm not delighted I always try to make her happy and making memories with her are the best. It’s sad that her parents couldn't make it to her events because they’re always busy but that’s okay because they’re are still helping her out. Today, September 28, 2019, we had a cross country meet and we got a new pr  (a new permanent record). We got twenty-three minutes for three miles and we were really happy because we dropped four minutes from our old time. We were glad that we did it together and that we never gave up because we know we can do anything. We have been struggling in cross country but we’re getting better because we both work hard and are happy to be where we’re at right now.

Everyone at some point deals with loss. Someone I know has lost their uncle recently and it changed their view on life forever. This person has found out first hand we all need time to heal after things happen. Even when we don’t deal with loss on a daily basis, it still hits us hard when it comes to mind.

Naturally, we all have fears, but for one particular person in Bangor High fear was the thing that was holding them back in school and in life. This individual was in a time where his uncle was on the verge of death, and they were afraid of losing him. Their fear was on their mind almost always, it kept them up at night, and was on their mind at school. They just couldn’t shake the thought of losing someone so close to them. Taking care of their uncle was the thing that hurt them the most, only looking at him gave them a terrible gut feeling that something was going to happen that could change everything in an instant. But even with all of this happening at home they were still achieving things elsewhere.

From start to finish, we all have things to accomplish even when the worst is happening. An achievement is something that someone puts great effort into. Even though this individual was going through a tough time they still managed to keep their grades up and earned straight A’s. Even though not thinking about his family and uncle’s condition was becoming tough for them, they still managed to focus on school. School was very tough for this person because they were in school for so long and only got to see their uncle for a few hours every other day.  School was very hard for this person because they felt as if they had extreme stress in and out of school. Commonly grades can be a big thing in someone’s life, but throughout the situation they were going through it seemed as if that were the least of their worries.

Coping with the loss of some can be harsh on someone mentally and physically. Unfortunately, this individual’s uncle did perish. Something that helped the individual cope with the death of his uncle was music. Music for them was the thing that took their mind off of the situation and was the thing that helped them get through that time. Eventually, the music wasn’t enough to keep them going and they had to talk about it with someone. They sat down with their parents and explained how the situation made them feel anguish on another level. The sadness that you feel when you lose someone is terrible, and sometimes the feelings can be amplified when you were especially close to the individual you’ve lost.

Sometimes things happen that we have no control over whether it be losing someone close or trying to multi-task with two things on your mind. Fear can be the thing that breaks us down but can also be the thing that builds us up into the people we are today. Our achievements can be the thing that distracts us from our fears and gives us hope that we are doing sufficient in school and other things. Dealing with things that change in our family and life can be the hardest. All of these things can change our outlook on stuff we do in our everyday life.

Everyone wants to be happy. The key to happiness is family. Sometimes family can’t stay together and that's okay to admit. However, family is the most important thing to most people. Not seeing a family member like a mom or dad can be hard. Children are inspired by, and look up to their parents. Growing up without a mom or dad is a common struggle many children face.

Whenever a family member gets a job, the expectation would be for them to come back home. In some cases, it doesn't happen like that. Sometimes, a family member can be gone for long periods of time. One student who started high school this year doesn't get to see their dad and it is hard on them. Their father has to work many hours just to earn enough money to provide for his family. This student is someone who has dealt with this problem and at the end of the day, family is what is important to them.

It can get scary when your dad doesn't come home before you go to sleep. This is a daily reality for my friend. She is a genuinely good person, whose dad leaves and she rarely gets to see him. When she does get to see her father he brings gifts as a sign that they will always be his number one priority and the first thing on his mind. It does get hard, especially if the dad cries when he sees his children. Tears that are probably unexplainable. Tears that say everything will be alright.

Because of the absence of her father anger and frustration became a big part of her life. Some people take their anger out on themselves, and some on the other. My friend's anger pushed people away. She didn't want people's presence in her way. With other people constantly being annoying it got to a point where she lashed out. She was sent to the office for hitting someone. These problems caused her to get sent home for these behaviors.

There's a point in life where we all go through hard struggles. Things get bad, but at the end of the day a smile can't be that hard to put on. When a family member is gone it gets hard. Healing is a hard process. Sometimes letting go isn't the problem but trying to start over. Keeping a family together is a hard thing to do. Family is what helps us keep on going. Learning from our struggles help us shape into better people. My friend had to deal with her dad being gone for a long time but eventually things did get better. Her family are good people. They go through

several struggles that we could possibly relate to. Growing up without a father figure in your house is a struggle. Children without their father have a few people to look up to. A wife without her husband makes it hard to take care of her kids by herself. Everyone needs a role model. If one is not present, a child may choose the wrong person to look up to.

She may be gone but to him shes still right there. Death happens to everyone somewhere along the lines. We all deal with it in various different ways, sometimes it's harder once you're used to them being there for such a long time on a daily basis. Some struggles that we go through tend to stick with us longer than others.

Anthony’s mother had gotten into her car after she’d been drinking. She had never put her seat belt on and nobody stopped her nor did they tell her to put her seatbelt on. As she was leaving the party. She was going 50mph and hit a tree. Her body flew out of the passenger side of the window.

His mom's death led him to thoughts of suicide. He wanted to be with his mom. At the age of eight not knowing why she died or even if she wanted to made him feel neglected like he wasn't good enough to be her son. He also felt like he wasn't good enough without her because she was the only one that he really had. It made his life harder that he even tried to commit suicide multiple times.

Not having his mom to talk to made having nobody else to talk to even harder. His dad got remarried a short while after the accident, he never wanted to acknowledge that his 1st wife his son's mother is really gone. Anthony never really had anyone to talk to before his mother died and now there is nobody for him to talk to, besides me, he’s never really talked to anyone about this. Nobody beside his dad fully wants to accept that she's really gone. At the same time of all of this going on, he can't trust anybody. He has been bouncing back and forth between different schools meeting people, then leaving not having a bond with anyone to be able to tell things like this to.

Losing his mother has opened his eyes and made him realize anything can happen at any time. The struggles that we go through can be either long or short-termed. It just so happens this incident came with long term struggles.