Serious Stuff

Passionate People

Mary2 Comments

Passion has always fascinated me. Although I can’t say that I have ever been passionate about anything. I’m average in a lot of ways and I recognize that I’m slightly skilled in several ways but not enough in anything that I’ve discovered to be passionate in it. Yet those who are passionate make me so happy. I love passion and I love seeing what it does to people and what great things it causes in them. I love seeing the excitement in their eyes when they’re talking about whatever they’re passionate about, I love knowing all those little things about people that get them excited because it’s happiness. If you know what someone is passionate about you know the piece that keeps them going daily, you know the biggest part of their lives, the one thing they would do over anything else in an ideal world.

There are different types of passionate people and one of the most interesting to me is those who are passionate about everything. These are the people who are so full of life that they can just talk about anything with a sense  of life and passion. While socially I find these people very fascinating, I also find them particularly aggravating. Why it’s so amazing to be so passionate, what’s the point? I love that you love everything or hate everything, but everything makes you so excited that I can’t be around that without feeling so inferior and overwhelmed. Then it gets to the point where the passion becomes irritating, yes I get it, you love the grass, you hate the rain, you love the trees but hate the smell, and after hours upon hours of hearing about it all I’m annoyed. Therefore, I only like to observe those who are passionate about everything, you are interesting and keep to your own, those who are also passionate about everything. You do you.

I love the creative passionate people and I would say I’m rather partial to writers and filmmakers. Talk to a writer about their latest character they’ve developed and if they’re willing to share the details and thoughts are not only amazing but the light in their eyes is just beautiful. There is nothing more beautiful in my opinion than seeing passion in someone’s eyes. Filmmakers are some people that I have found on the internet, and although I do not personally know any I wish I did. These aren’t your average YouTubers, but I find them on YouTube. When a person who creates content because they find it fun and they are passionate about it, that’s wonderful but you can’t always see it in their content. Once they start to talk about the short film they created you see it. You see it in their face how proud they are, or maybe the slight disappointment. The disappointment however, proves the passion. They want it to be perfect because that’s how great they feel about it. Passionate people pour everything into their passion and then when it’s not quite right they are typically disappointed because it’s something they want to be perfect.

Finally there are the people like me, I’m assuming I’m not the only one, the people fascinated by passion and are searching for theirs. Although to myself my personal journey is rather dull and boring since I live it everyday but those other people like me are captivating. The journey a person takes to find out what they need to be passionate. We see that light in the eye of all those around us and we want that. We want to find the things that we want to pour our souls into rather than things we enjoy mildly. Our journey’s however different than those who have already found such passions, we all yearn for what they have, the sparkle of the eye, and the excited language use.

It sounds corny and I don’t know how else to say it, but never stop being passionate.

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Sexual Harassment and Sam Pepper

Mary1 Comment

So in case you weren’t aware, over the weekend Sam Pepper, a popular YouTube “pranker” received a very negative response of touching/grabbing women’s asses. I found out about the video because Jack Howard tweeted not to watch it due to the fact that it was offensive, and views are essentially part of Sam’s paycheck. I took his advice and did not watch the video because I did not want to contribute to Sam’s “success” with an inappropriate video. I was never actually subscribed, but I have seen some of his videos, I don’t think this was his first offense at sexually harassing women in the streets.

Sexual harassment is not taken seriously enough, our culture has recently been defined as a “rape culture” which is essentially a culture in which rape doesn’t affect us like it should because it is seen as a normality, while I don’t think this is quite true, it is far too common and is often shrugged off and made a joke, when it’s not remotely funny. Sexual harassment can be as simple as saying something inappropriate in a sexual manner towards a MALE or FEMALE. I think a lot of people fail to realize that sexual harassment can happen to males as well as females, and that’s just something important that should point out as well. What Sam Pepper did was sexual harassment, unless the women gave their consent (which they really can’t when a stranger walks up to you and grabs your butt) and people can support him, because he has potential to be genuinely funny, however he made a career mistake.

This little stunt that Sam pulled, again, isn’t in my beliefs his first case of video captured sexual harassment that have titles such as “Instawhore Prank”, “Licking Strangers”, “Fingering Strangers”, “How to Make Out with Strangers” and “How to Pick Up Cougars” I think just capture the type of person Sam is. While he may make interesting content otherwise (not that I would know) these titles really just put me off, and it makes me even more upset that most of his audience (like most YouTubers) is teenaged girls, this is not what they should be seeing as acceptable behavior, it’s not. No girl should see this and think that it’s okay for a guy she doesn’t know to sexualize and touch her, because it’s not.

Those in support of Sam point out things like “he uses a fake hand/finger” that doesn’t make it okay, he is still controlling the fake object. If you put a knife in a fake hand and use it to stab someone, you will still be charged with murder, and if someone wanted to press charges they would still go against Sam, not the fake hand.

Let’s think about our actions towards others, and let’s not give our time and support to someone who sexualizes women he sees on the streets. Let’s find people who take a stand against these actions, this isn’t appropriate and no one should view it as appropriate. Thankfully Hank Green has released that he will not be invited to VidCon, however, let’s see if he sticks to it. His video has also been removed from YouTube, he has yet to release any kind of statement, and rumor had it his channel was suspended, but that was either not true or was only temporary. It’s sad to see someone supported through this, he was the one in the wrong, I guess we can only help that he changes his way. Only time will tell.

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The Quarter Life Crisis

Mary3 Comments

If you know me in real life I have probably freaked out about this to you about a million times, it’s something I like to call a quarter life crisis, like a mid life crisis, except I’m not there yet. Hopefully. I’ve heard this referred to as a existential crisis as well, however, I made this term up before I really knew what that was. In exactly two months and one day I will be turning 20, approximately a quarter of my life will be completed, and what do I have to show for it? A high school diploma. I’ve spent over two thousand days in school, countless more if you add up the hours spent on homework  and studying, and I still have three more years left. In that three years I will decide what I’m going to do for the last three quarters of my life, and after I graduate I will get a job, and I will work for approximately the next fifty years, then I will retire, maybe with a husband, maybe not, maybe I’ll have kids and grandchildren, maybe not. When you think about life this way it’s really unappealing and it makes me ask the question why most of the time, and to be quite honest I think a lot of people my age are feeling this way.

So I go to college about 7 months of the year, and while I’m there I would say the majority of my friends have been on a path since day one, me not so much. I had a path and wasn’t sure, thought some things through, still wasn’t sure, I’m still thinking things through, and I’m still not sure at all, and what I fail to remember is that there are other people like me. There are people like me who know that they don’t want to sit in an office approximately 260 days a year, but they don’t want to teach either, there are people like me who just want to see what the world has to offer them and they aren’t sure how to do it. These people are having quarter life crises, we’re just trying to find our places when everyone else around us seems to know where they’re going. We’re the people who you ask them what their major is and we might just start to cry, because honestly, you can’t major in “seeing the world” there’s no way to make money that way. We’re the people who if you ask them, do you have any plans for after graduation, the stare is blank, although, I don’t know why I should have an answer for that when I’m only going to be a sophomore anyway.

The other 5 months of the year are spent working and seeing old friends and family, the old friends and family that ask us all of the above questions. The jobs and internships supposedly preparing us for what we want to do, when really we just have no clue. We look forward to vacations and weekends because they’re the escape from the madness. Sometimes. Other times they’re just another way into more madness and more stress. The worst is when someone tells you that “you’re really going places!” and you just want to say “Do you know where? Because if you do I’d love to know” but instead you just smile and say “thanks.”. Oh how put together the quarter life crisis can look when that’s what people expect.

My parent chuckle when I talk about this quarter life crisis, but I swear it’s real. I’ve counted the days spent wasted on learning for a standardized test, counted the hours spent studying for the next, and all I’ve gotten from this nearly 20 years of life is a high school diploma. A high school diploma could get me a general manager position at McDonald’s. Maybe. However, no one told me what I could get with a high school diploma, all they told me was what I couldn’t get without a college diploma, and as I’m getting further into my education, what’s next is what I can’t get without a master’s diploma, what’s next? What I can’t get without a PHD? I’ve spent so much time learning and getting an education, and it’s great, and I don’t take it for granted, however, what’s the most useful thing I’ve learned? How to find the length of a side of a triangle? That hippos sweat pink? What causes leaves to be green? What am I going to do with this information? I haven’t learned about mortgages, renting, loans, credit cards, stocks, anything that will help me in the very near future and the fact that I can’t tell you anything about simple life tasks, but I can tell you about different Presidents that had affairs (too many).

I think when it comes down to it, I’m experiencing this existential crisis, quarter life crisis if you will, all because what I’ve done for the majority of my life is learn pointless information that I used for one test, maybe two, but after that I’ve hardly thought about it again and none of this information has helped me to come to any sort of conclusion of what I want to do with my future. Hell, I picked writing because I did well on the writing portion of my ACT’s and it’s not something I hate doing. So maybe a year from now I’ll feel better about turning 21, but maybe I won’t, and I honestly don’t know if that’s okay or not. I’ve grown up in the world of planning for the future, and I don’t have a plan for the future, and I think that’s why so many of us feel so lost because it’s we don’t see it as accepted to not know.

There’s so much pressure to have the next ten years of your life planned to a tee, at least that’s how I feel. So yes, I am 19 years old experiencing a quarter life crisis and I don’t think I’m alone, let me know how you feel about this in the comments, please tell me I’m not the only one!

XOXO,

Mary.

I wish I was, I’m glad I am.

Mary5 Comments

I think there are always things we think that we wish we were. I wish I was thinner, I wish I was more athletically talented, but I wish I was still more girly, I wish I didn’t have anxiety, I wish I could break the rules without feeling absolutely terrible, but I’m none of those things. I’m curvy, I’m lazy, I only do makeup if I feel like I’m obligated to, I can hardly go a day without feeling at least a little anxious, and if I even consider breaking the rules I freak out, but those little things is what makes me who I am.

We’ve grown accustomed to focus on all these things that we wish we are, maybe it’s because we have the ability to change things about us, maybe it’s because we see so much of what we could be. Technology is so developed that not only can we change what we don’t like about ourselves via surgeries, but we can see all of these people that we want to be like or look like on the internet, people we never would’ve known about without the mainstream mediums of media. We see all these “role models” of the “perfect” people that are nothing but photoshopped or displaying the perfect parts of their lives. We model our lives after the people who we think we want to be, but I think along the way we lose who we really are.

It’s okay to change habits so that you’re a better person, like to be healthier or fitter, but it starts getting weird when we start modeling our whole lives after other people’s. People will change their style, their beliefs, their thoughts all based on what a famous person does, or maybe even a friend or just some stranger on Instagram. There’s so much going on around us and I think we get way to caught up in all of it, I know I do sometimes and I hate that sometimes I really forget to be my own person.

As a kid we’re all individuals and as we grow up we lose that individuality that sets us apart from the rest, we like to think we’re different but really everyone is trying to fit the mold of who people think they’re supposed to be. Somewhere along the line all we want to do is fit in and fitting in isn’t being your own person it’s being the person your friends want you to be, your parents want you to be, your teachers want you to be, and that just gets clouded with the person YOU want to be. This whole idea of “I wish I was” doesn’t really just come from yourself and media it comes from the pressure around you too. The pressure of, “You could eat healthier, you could work out, why are you wearing leggings and a sweatshirt AGAIN? Put some makeup on, why don’t you just calm down? Seriously just move on, live a little.” can all get to be a little too much sometimes, especially when you think all of those things to yourself too.

Since moving onto college and learning more about myself I think I need focus more on who I am rather than what everyone thinks I should be and maybe even changing what they expect me to be. I want to be myself. I don’t want to be afraid of what people think of me when I don’t leave my room for the day because I just feel anxious or I just feel lazy. I don’t want to feel bad when everyone only eats one cookie at dinner and I eat two, even though I skipped the fries. I don’t want to feel weird when my hair is in a messy bun and I’m wearing sweats. Honestly, I just want to be content with  who and what I am without letting others influence that decision. My little insecurities, my differences, my peculiarities are what make me who I am, and the same goes for everyone. Those insecurities drive us to hide away from what we really want to be, it’s what drive people to be miserable their whole life. I don’t want to be miserable my whole life. I want to be content, why doesn’t everyone strive for happiness instead of the standard cookie cutter human being they’re expected to be? I will never understand.

Here’s to standing out my friends.

XOXO,

Mary.

I Won’t Do That

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Today is super late because I went to visit my friend at the job I don’t like so much and I ended up working and just doing like the fun part of working there for twenty minutes, so that was an unexpected thing that happened today. And I guess it’s not really super late considering I used to post at like 1 or 2 in the morning but for now it seems late since I have to be up early in the morning. Also, I had a good post planned for today but now I will save that for a day when I don’t feel like I’m rushing.

Okay, so I just changed what I was going to blog about last second because something on Facebook sparked my mind. The other day I blogged about how anxiety won’t stop me from doing things I really want to do, yet today I got kind of discouraged because there are some things that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do. My friend posted a video at a crowded restaurant watching the extremely good game of the World Cup today (to be honest I don’t actually know I just heard about it all over twitter) and it was everyone chanting and screaming after what I assume was someone scoring a goal. I watched this video and I thought to myself, I would’ve had to leave way before it even go to that part. I will never be able to go clubbing or go to a sports bar during the World Series or anything like that because my mind wouldn’t be able to tolerate it. I can’t even go to a crowded mass without having to sit outside or leave because it’s either too hot or just too many people freaks me out. That sucks.

I was before writing this I was going to write about wedding and that made me think, what will happen when I go to weddings? Will I freak out then too? What if it’s so bad that I miss one of my sister’s first dances or a best friend slap her spouse with cake? Things like that are harder to control than talking on the phone, because the phone I can hang up. I don’t have to answer, I can ignore it. I can hold going to the bathroom if the place has one that’s only a one person bathroom. I can remove myself from situations, but I don’t want to remove myself from memories. That sucks. It would really suck and that’s what scares me with anxiety. I have no control over what I do or what happens to me. I never want to be in a place where I’m going to miss something important because of anxiety, but it’s going to happen and I really hate that. I really hate that at where I am today, I’ll never be able to go to one of those crazy bachlorette parties that you always hear about (I mean I’d be the DD anyway, but whatever) or for what it seems like even go to a party. When I think about missing that sort of thing, that’s what makes me want to get help, yet even the idea of going to the doctor makes me anxious. Adding to my list of summer goals, I think I want to try and see someone to figure all of this out. I am at an age where I’m supposed to be having the time of my life and instead I’m just trying to have fun without having a panic attack so I skip out on things and I don’t like that.  Hopefully I can get to that point.

XOXO,

Mary.

My Anxiety Won’t Win

Mary4 Comments

No matter how long you’ve been following me, you know that I suffer from anxiety. For whatever reason today has been particularly bad, I’ve had a few small panic attacks, but I’ve had this general feeling of anxiousness all day. Sometimes I don’t know what’s worse, feeling anxious all day or having one bad panic attack, at least then it’s over with, but then I feel really sad just because I feel mentally and emotionally weak. I’m not sure if that makes sense that’s just how I feel.

However, today I had a meeting with someone at work who works does PR for the company I’m working a for the summer. I had two hours from the time I started to the time the meeting began and I felt so anxious. I was afraid I wasn’t going to know what to say or how to act. It turns out I had no reason to be anxious because we hit it off! We talked the whole hour without a single moment of awkward silence. I acted like myself, told her about myself and my interests. I think that’s a great thing to do in situations like that because anxiety only builds with lies and pretending, or at least that’s what I think. She actually has given me the awesome opportunity to write a press release which is an awesome experience to have at 19. I’m so excited.

This really great opportunity brought with it anxiety, well maybe not with it because it was already there. I had to find the information for the press release, which meant I had to use the phone that has been sitting on my desk, used once to set up my email. For some reason making phone calls to people I don’t know makes me really nervous. I think I would actually rather meet someone face to face or even like skype them over a phone call. I don’t know why that is, but it actually caused me to have a small panic attack. I set little accomplishments so that I could do it. I retyped all the information I was given into a way that it was easier for me to understand. I then took out the questions I had to ask and typed those all up. I practiced reading them so I wouldn’t stutter, and to make sure that they made sense. After a lot of deep breathing I picked up the phone and dialed the extension. Let me tell you five rings in cruel to a person with anxiety, he didn’t answer and I had to leave a voicemail. The rest of the afternoon I’m waiting for him to return my call just working on some more powerpoint stuff and I think I’m in the clear at 4:50, but no, at 4:53 the phone rings. It went well, I asked him my questions and now I’ll arrange all the information tomorrow.

It might take me a little bit longer to do some things, but I’m not about to let my anxiety to stop me. There are so many things in life that I want to do and I don’t want to stop because I’m feeling anxious. I know there are going to be times where it does get the best of me, heck it gets the best of me a lot, but it’s not going to stop me. Even if something takes a hundred tries, or if I have to pick up the phone and put it down a few times before I’m not going to let this win. Today just justified that I can accomplish something great  a simple everyday task that makes me anxious if I set my mind to it. If I can do it, so can you.

XOXO,

Mary.

 

Hello fellow bloggers or readers that suffer from anxiety. I’m trying to a post on how to explain anxiety to those who don’t experience it and how they should handle someone having a panic attack. If you have any advice on this I’m trying to compile a list, so if you want email me at marysaverageadventures@gmail.com please it would be really helpful! You can stay completely anonymous as well.

 

Insecurities.

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I’ve blogged about weight and looks numerous times and have always touched on insecurities but today I thought I would really expand on why they’re such a problem for more women and even men today.

Growing up I don’t know if I ever heard anyone say anything positive about their bodies, not just those in my own house but even on TV. You never hear anyone say “Wow I love the way this top flatters me.” or “Oh my gosh, I look really beautiful today.” I think the closest I ever heard to any of this was “This is better than nothing.” I’m not quite sure why this is the way it is. Why can’t a woman get up on tv and say nice things about herself? Why is it so much more common for a woman to degrade her body? I was watching Boy Meets World before work today and Morgan who at the time of the episode was probably 5 years old, put her doll in the microwave, took it out all melted and said “I don’t care what she looks like, Debbie’s my doll and I love her.” To which her mother responds, it’s okay we’ll buy you a new one. I know it’s a messed up doll but still, that’s teaching your daughter two things, if you mistreat your toys you get new ones and to not love something because it’s different.

Now that I’m older I feel all of those things about myself. Last night I wrote about my hair. I hate my hair so much. I hate that I don’t know what to do with it ever besides put it in a messy bun because at least that’s okay when it looks frizzy. I hate the stretch marks on my inner thighs. I hate that I have a weird posture because I used to slouch too much and never listened to my mom to sit up. What if instead I sat up thinking about how great my boobs look in a shirt. Or how my waist is a good thing to accentuate because it’s a good shape. What if I examined the way my glasses complimented my face. The thing I hate most is hearing my little sisters saying the same type of things about themselves. We went shopping the other day and I hated my sister saying “that makes me look fat” or “I don’t like how pale this makes me look.” I understand that some things may not look flattering, but I felt like we were ignoring about how good something made her look.

I’ve read a lot of posts that inspired this that I will be linked below. I just think it’s important that rather highlighting the parts of our bodies we hate we concentrate on the parts of our body that we love. Imagine some you love telling you about how much they hate themselves, wouldn’t you want them to stop? You should stop too. Insecurities are a part of life. They are a part of looking in the mirror, putting on a bikini. I can almost guarantee it that no one is one hundred percent content with themselves, everyone has insecurities it’s part of life. However, just because you have those insecurities it does not mean that they need to hold you back or anyone else for that matter.

One thing I’ve always hated is when a thin friend says something like “I hate how fat I look,” all I can think then is how fat do I look? If they look fat I must look obese. Instead I think we should compliment ourselves. Please write your favorite thing about yourself in the comments today to help inspire others to feel good about themselves as well as helping you to feel good about yourself.

XOXO,

Mary.

Check out these posts and articles that you may enjoy as well:

Positivity.

Mary2 Comments

positive-minds-quotes

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Naturally people view me as pessimistic type of person  however, I like to see myself as a realist and because of that I see the bad as well as the good. I know it’s not good to think about bad things but I think it’s part of life. I really admire my friend Alex who is such a positive person and being around her just makes me happier in general. She’s just one of those people that you can’t help but smile when you’re around. This actually leads me to my first point of positivity, people. If you surround yourself with positive people you are more likely to be a positive person. I notice that when I am around my people who make me laugh and spread a positive energy I am a lot happier. I think this is so important, you shouldn’t be around people that make you feel miserable or put you down or just try and put their burdens on you aren’t the people you should be hanging out with. Also, don’t be that negative person that takes the cloud of gloom with you everywhere you go, taking down every person you greet. It might take a lot to make someone smile, but it doesn’t take much to tear it all down.

Another point I’d like to make about positivity is that it’s a choice. Again I’ll tell you about my friend Alex. One day we were having a conversation and I said “How are you supposed to be positive if you find out that you have cancer?” just as an example, she responded something along the lines of  “But you can still stay positive and fight it.” That made me think very hard, she always makes me do that, but really positivity can change the outcome of terrible things. If you stay positive even when it’s really hard, better things will happen to you, I can almost guarantee it. No matter how bad something is, positivity will make it at least a little bit better. I would like to thank Alex for this lesson.

My final point of this post is to help spread positivity. I want people to stop thinking about me as a pessimist and maybe more of a realist, I think it would be a bit of a stretch to try and change my image to an optimist. Instead of saying about how bad your day think about how good it is. In the comments today I would like you to say one great thing that happened today and I’ll reply with a great thing that happened to me and why I’m glad that good thing happened to you! I really want to try and spread positivity. Also when you sign your name use a positive adjective to describe yourself that starts with the same letter as your name, like for example I could be Merry Mary. One last thing, if you get this far and you have twitter go tweet my friend Alex who basically inspired this post her username is @alexk710 and tell her that she’s the best. She is.

Go be happy my friends!

XOXO,

Mary.

#YesAllWomen

MaryLeave a comment

The quality of posts lately has been absolute crap and I am apologizing for that right now. I’ve been in a real pissy mood because of the aftermath (I can’t really explain because it has to do with work and my boss and a bunch of crap like that) of burning my hand, and I’m afraid that this has definitely impacted the clarity of my thoughts and ability to write well. I’m one of those people who always let stupid little things like that ruin my day, and I have now let it ruin three days so that’s fun. Let’s just say I almost quit on the spot on Saturday and the only thing stopping me is my better than minimum wage pay and the fact that I need money all keeps  me there. Today I am apologizing for my crap posts and I’m going to give you a better post because I’m writing it (mostly) before work so I’m not in a terrible mood.

Yesterday #YesAllWomen was trending on twitter. This was used to promote the rape culture and how we shouldn’t be teaching women to defend themselves, but we should be teaching men to not rape. Before I get into my thoughts and opinions on this I’m just going to give you some of the tweets that I found just by searching the hashtag on twitter.

 

To be honest, yes I think it’s important that we teach men and women not to rape, however, are we teaching murders how not to murder? No, if we’re worried about that we buy guns, take self-defence classes.  So I’m not saying that we should stop teaching women about how to prevent rape because there will always be deviant people, but that doesn’t mean in school we shouldn’t talk to boys about boundaries and what no means.

I think we also need to teach people that it is NEVER  the fault of the woman who was raped. A women should be able to wear whatever she wants in public, if she wants to wear a bikini to the store, to each their own, if she wants to wear a dress that goes to her ankles, to each their own. It doesn’t matter what she is wearing, unless you asked her if she wanted to have sex and she said yes, it is not her fault. Also, if you ask her that and she’s intoxicated, it’s not the same thing as saying yes.

I believe schools should teach more of what rape actually is rather than just teaching that it can happen to everyone. I mean it’s more than just men raping women, it is possible for men to be raped, I think people need to know that. It should be taught not only how to protect yourself, but what else other than “no” means no. If someone is unsure about sex in any relationship or hookup situation it’s best to just say know because “blurred lines” do not mean “yes” it means talk about it.

Just because you are in a relationship or even marriage does not mean you owe someone sex. Ever. If your personal decision is to wait until marriage, wait until the third date, or whatever your decision is don’t let someone else change it or pressure you into something else. Also, don’t try and pressure someone to change their mind either. Don’t try to make blurred lines. If you are in a situation that you don’t want to be in say NO. Scream it if you have to, no matter how many times you have had sex before you don’t have to have it again. Once you say no and someone ignores your wishes that is rape, no matter their relation to you.

If you think you have been in a sexual abusive relationship or are or you have been sexually abused here are some helpful resources:

  • America– This site is really good if you’re at home because at the bottom you can click leave this page and it redirects you to Yahoo, making it easier to hide if necessary.
  • Internationally– This site has a directory of every country and their resources. So you can go here, find your country and find how to report it.

I hope that if you need help you seek it. Thanks for reading my views and opinions on all of this!

XOXO,

Mary.

My Choice to Stay Sober

Mary3 Comments

To stay sober, or not to drink in college was one I decided as I grew up that if I chose to drink I would wait until I was 21. This has nothing to do with my parents, they drink, we have a bar in our basement, so no this is not religious based or something being forced upon me if that’s what you were wondering. I’m not sure where exactly it started, I think it was the people in high school I saw going to parties and I knew I didn’t want to be like that.

Getting to college this decision became a lot harder. It’s hard to find people who don’t drink, and that’s okay. It’s okay to experiment and drink, I would even say that’s more accepted than making the decision not to. I have yet to go to a party, even though it’s on my goals for the year, I just can’t. My anxiety has made it hard for me to be in rooms with more than six people. I have however been to places where drinking does occur and there are a few people there. I think being around this has made me think about my decision. So far I’ve stuck to my promise to myself, but is underaged drinking something I want to try to get the full college experience?  I don’t know. Sometimes I think it would be something to try and other times I think it would be a mistake. Obviously it’s illegal but most people do try it.

I think part of the reason I don’t want to drink is because I’m afraid I won’t be in control of myself, and that’s not something I want to happen to me. I also keep finding new triggers to my anxiety, add blisters to the list, so what if I had a panic attack while drinking? That’s really scary to me. I think that’s just another deterrent. I’m also very afraid of getting caught, a huge reason that I haven’t been to any parties, I’m afraid of getting arrested.

For the moment I am choosing to be sober. I am choosing to live my life without alcohol. I know this isn’t the popular thing to do, but I think it’s the best decision for me. Maybe this will change over time, maybe it won’t. I think this is a decision that everyone should think about before college or while at college. I think there’s a best decision for every person and you shouldn’t let other people influence that decision, if you want to drink, go for it, if you don’t, don’t let people talk you into drinking. When it comes down to it everyone is responsible for their own decisions and you can’t blame people on “forcing”  you into something. Okay well there are certain instances where you can blame people, but if you are making a decision you can’t blame someone else for your decision. Does that make sense? I hope so.

This just hit me today because it’s a huge drinking weekend here because of May Madness or Spring Fest at a lot of other colleges and it was just on my mind. Thanks for reading my opinions.

XOXO,

Mary.