“I don’t eat meat.”

February 2024 marked a decade of being a vegetarian.

Ten years ago, I was influenced by YouTubers and controversial documentaries to change my eating habits, my lifestyle, and my beliefs. And ten years later, I still feel the same.

The below article was published in the Daily Journal newspaper in February 2019. The article was posted on their Facebook page during an “off time.” Despite the less than popular time, the article gained some traction – but not for any good reason. I was faced with a slew of negative feedback in the comment section. The disgruntled and rude comments on my article weren’t anything that surprised me, but it did reinforce my beliefs. And it got me wondering–

Why do we get angry at our differences?

Five Years of Vegetarianism

I used to think I could never pass up chicken wings or a good cheeseburger, but Sunday marked five years without eating meat.

It’s not something I talk about much, though, mostly because I know there’s a stigma of annoying vegan people trying to persuade others that eating animals is murder. So, to avoid being seen as pushy or aggressive in my beliefs, I usually never speak about why I first became a vegetarian or why I don’t think I’ll ever eat meat again.

More than five years ago, I was scouring the internet as usual, and I found a random YouTuber who also happened to be vegan. I watched a lot of her videos about how to kick the habit of eating meat, and then I watched a few documentaries she recommended which discuss the meat, dairy and egg industries and their far-reaching effects on individual beings, the planet and humanity.

After researching the internet and reading every article I could find on vegetarianism, I decided I wanted to commit. By not eating meat, I reasoned with myself, I would benefit animals, my personal health and the environment, and in a less obvious sense, the world.

So, yeah, I still loved chicken wings, but I no longer saw them as a necessity in my life. For me, because I felt so strongly about the issue, removing chicken wings from my diet was simple, but it’s probably not something to decide on a whim, on a dare or just as a bored New Year’s Resolution.

It seems changing the way you eat — a habit that’s engraved in you since birth — requires some serious reshaping of the way you think and what you prioritize.

Prior to watching those documentaries, I never made the conscious decision to connect the animals I pet with the food I ate. Now when I walk into a grocery store and see chicken wings packaged into a plastic container, I don’t think about how good they would taste slathered in barbecue sauce.

If you’d like to get a glimpse into what I think about instead, feel free to research those documentaries yourself — but I’m not here to try and convert people. Like I said, I don’t want to seem pushy.

Then again … isn’t that how change happens?

If I never found videos of YouTubers voicing their opinions regarding the meat industry, I would’ve never been prompted to research it further. I probably would’ve never watched those documentaries, and I probably wouldn’t have made the decision to stop eating meat.

See, there’s the dilemma — I avoid talking about my beliefs because I don’t want others to think I’m acting aggressive or arrogant, but if no one talked about the things they believe in, change would never happen.

In the past, I’ve found it hard to voice my disagreements or doubts, especially if there are people around me who are literally and figuratively louder than myself. But maybe that needs to change.

The loudest voices aren’t always right, and it’s important to not sit back and be quiet.

If I disagree with a belief but never state my opinion, I am giving my voice away. So going forward, for these next five years and every year after that, I believe I need to speak about vegetarianism and my other opinions, both popular and alternative, both trivial and important.

My silence does not speak for me, and at this point in my life, I’d rather be defiantly brash than ignorantly compliant.

The Hives

It's been a while, but my mind stil wanders when I hear the word "hives."

I still shiver when I think about how those few months in 2016 made me feel. I went from taking a multivitamin once a day because I liked those flavored vitamins to downing a drawer full of allergy medications day and night. I went from dancing at a concert to struggling to walk downstairs. I went from paying attention in literature class to crying in the bathroom stall while I took too many Benadryl.

I woke up one day and started having invasive, intense, and incessantly itchy, red hives all over my skin. Then my face and body swelled up to the point where I couldn't recognize myself. It continued for months. I visited doctors, allergists, specialists, and they all told me they didn't know why my body was backfiring. They just told me to smile when I wanted to cry.

And I still haven't found out why, but my hands still haven't felt the same. The swelling made my joints swell up and they haven't been the same since. I can't make a perfect fist.

But let me try to look at this like an optimist. Please don't get me wrong. It wasn't that bad. I came out unscathed.

I wrote the following essay, "My Body Knows Something I Don't," in October of 2017. At that point, it had been just over a year since my body backfired. It's nearing the end of 2021 today, and all's been well since. I wanted to edit this essay for clarity and to clean it up a bit (I can be an overwriter). So, here I go:

My Body Knows Something I Don’t

When it all started, I thought I had bed bugs. I woke up one day to find tiny, itchy red dots all over my arms and legs. A Google search informed me that I probably had bed bugs. So, I washed my bed sheets and then the dots must have gone away, I think, because I thought nothing more of it.

A few weeks later, on a Saturday in March 2016, I went to a concert at the United Center in Chicago with my best friend. It's still one of the best concerts I've attended. I was having a lot of fun until I felt like there was something in my right eye. It felt a bit weighed down and itchy and so I dug my hand into the corner of my eye, trying to dig out whatever thing was bothering it, but I couldn't seem to reach whatever it was. So I tried to just ignore it and enjoy the concert.

My friend and I went to IHOP after the show. My eye still felt funny. After ordering pancakes, I looked at my reflection in the mirror of the women's restroom and saw that my right eye was... swollen? It did not look like my normal eye, that's for sure. My top eyelid was puffy and the corner was inflamed and I couldn't open my eye up completely. It didn't hurt or anything, but it just looked really freaky. My left eye, however, looked as it always did.

I asked my friend what she thought, and she assumed I just got some makeup in it, and said to make sure that I wash my face really well when I got home that night. So I did.

And I woke up the next day, on a Sunday, and my eye still wasn't completely back to normal. It was still visibly swollen, but then it faded back to normal by the afternoon. So I thought nothing more of it.

Then a couple of weeks later, on another Saturday, the same thing happened again. I was hanging out with my same friend when my eye swelled up out of nowhere, except this time it was my left eye instead of my right. And, once again, the swelling didn't fade away until Sunday afternoon.

By then, I convinced myself that I was just having an allergic reaction to my makeup or my friend's pets. But that didn't make sense because I hadn't bought new makeup products recently, and I'd been hanging around my friend and her pets for years. Maybe it was a new brand of perfume I had recently bought?

So I stopped using that perfume. But that didn't work. Every couple of weeks, one of my eyes would keep swelling up.

Then I remembered the "bed bugs."

The bed bugs didn't come back, not exactly, but something else started happening. Red spots started showing up on my skin, on my arms, legs, shoulders, back, neck – all over my body. Sometimes they'd just appear haphazardly, singularly, on an arm or a leg, and sometimes they'd appear in groups, colonizing an entire area of my body. Sometimes they'd be small, about the size of a dime, and sometimes they'd be overwhelming, overtaking the entire width of my forearm or thigh. Sometimes the spots would be raised, and sometimes they'd be flat. Usually, they'd itch, a lot.

For a while, I kept what was happening a "secret" because I didn't want to go to a doctor's office, and I hoped that it – whatever it was – would just resolve itself on its own. So, to keep quiet about it, I wore long sleeves and pants every day. Even through my clothes, though, my skin would be itchy and irritated. Sometimes, depending on how raised the spots were, I could feel them through my clothes. I remember I would come home from a full day of college lectures and take off my clothes and look into a mirror at my reflection and stare in disbelief. What was happening to me?

Unfortunately, and despite my hopes, the situation did not resolve itself. It got worse. At the end of winter, I thought that I could no longer handle the situation by myself, so I finally saw a doctor. The doctor, a middle-aged woman who I had never met before, asked me if I was allergic to anything. I replied, "No. Nothing that I know of." She then proceeded to ask me if I've been doing or encountering anything new in the past couple of months. Again, "No," I replied.

After she ran out of questions, the appointment ended with her prescribing me prednisone, a corticosteroid that is used to treat diseases related to inflammation, such as asthma, gout, and arthritis. When taken on a regular basis, prednisone can cause some pretty serious side effects, so I was only instructed to take the drug for about a week. During that week, my symptoms subsided, but then simply returned once I ran out of meds. Prednisone was a short-lived solution.

She told me I had idiopathic urticaria. Urticaria, another term for hives, refers to the red spots that had been appearing all over my body. People with urticaria may also experience angioedema, or swelling of the face and joints, which accounts for the swelling of my eyes. Idiopathic means that the cause is unknown.

Since I still didn't know what was causing the urticaria, I had no way to prevent it. And it kept getting worse. By the beginning of summer, hives became a normal occurrence in my life. I had them almost daily, so I lived in a constant state of itchiness and comfortlessness. And swelling became more frequent, too, and more pronounced. Instead of just my eyes swelling, my mouth, cheeks, hands, fingers, ankles, and even my joints would swell, seemingly out of nowhere. There were so many mornings I woke and stared in the mirror at a face that wasn't mine.

I had to do something – I couldn't just live like that forever. So I saw a second doctor, an allergist. At the first appointment, I was required to talk with the clinic's nurse about my situation. When I showed up to that appointment, I had hives all over my body, and my face, fingers, ankles, and joints were swollen. My hands were so swollen that I couldn't make a fist. My joints were so swollen that I couldn't even walk without experiencing constant pain, forcing me to shuffle around at a snail's pace.

The nurse took my vitals and then asked me to describe my symptoms and concerns to her. Like the doctor I had previously seen, this nurse again asked me if I was allergic to anything. I had nothing substantial to reply. I felt miserable, looked horrible, and didn't know what was going on with my body.

Before dismissing me from her office, the nurse told me that I should smile more.

The allergist then asked me for a detailed medical history, a thorough explanation of my symptoms, and a description of my environment and any possible changes within my environment that could have caused the urticaria. Despite his exhaustive overview of my history, current symptoms, and environmental state, he still could not give me an answer to the question of what was happening to my body, and why.

He did, however, give me a small glimmer of hope through some proposed treatment options. He prescribed me two medications. The first was Silenor, an antidepressant drug that is most regularly used to treat symptoms of anxiety and insomnia. In some cases (such as my own), the drug can also be used to relieve pain and itch associated with skin diseases. The second prescription was Singulair, an anti-inflammatory drug used to treat allergies. He also instructed me to take three more over-the-counter medications: Zyrtec, a popular antihistamine drug used to treat allergies; Zantac, a stomach acid medication known to possibly assist in the treatment of urticaria; and Benadryl, another allergy medication. In total, I was instructed to take five medications.

But even with all these pills, the allergist told me, there's a chance that I could still develop severe, possibly life-threatening swelling. Since we didn't know what I was allergic to, there was no way to avoid it. And since I couldn't avoid it, there's a chance – albeit a small one – that it could kill me if it tried hard enough.

Due to the severity and unpredictability of my symptoms, the allergist also prescribed me an EpiPen, or an epinephrine autoinjector. The EpiPen is an extremely expensive medical device used to treat extremely severe allergic reactions. Basically, it's a shot that's injected into a patient's muscle (usually the quads) when they're experiencing anaphylaxis, a fancy name for an allergic reaction that is potentially fatal.

Before this all started, the only pill I took daily was a multivitamin. I felt like a walking pharmacy, except I couldn't know for sure that all the pills I ingested even helped at all, even mattered.

Even with all those pills, I still woke up with a swollen, red, hive-filled body. I still lived uncomfortable within myself, unable to find a reason, or find an explanation, or find an answer.

I wanted to give up and just accept my fate. From then on, that was how I was going to live.

The allergist had a different outlook. He wanted to perform a skin testing procedure on me to see if I was, in fact, allergic to any foods or anything else within my environment. There are several ways to perform this test, but in order for the results to be accurate, patients need to stay off all allergy medications for an extended period of time – I couldn't take those five medications for three days.

Those were an interesting three days.

On the second night, I couldn't sleep. My face was swollen. There were hives covering my entire body. I was an itchy mess. And, even worse, I started developing night sweats. I would sweat so much that I would wake up in the middle of the night, lying in my own sweat that had soaked into my sheets.

The next morning, on the third day, I had woken up at 8 a.m., sweaty and itchy. I walked out of bed, took a drink of water, and then fell back to sleep. I soon woke up again, an hour later. This time, my entire face and hands were unrecognizably swollen. I sat up in bed. Unable to muster the motivation to move, I sat there for about a half an hour. Eventually, I got up out of bed and walked a few feet across my room. Then I felt the world begin to slip.

My skin was sweating. My heart was racing. My vision was blurring. I started seeing dark spots, and then those spots became my vision. Everything went black. I sat back down in bed, but I could feel myself start to crumble. My legs moved me up off the bed and walked me towards the wall. I fell into a glasstop accent table and it collapsed onto the floor, taking me with it. Obviously, I must've passed out. Then I must've woken myself up after the glass broke, shattering everywhere.

My parents heard the dilemma, thankfully, and ran upstairs to see what was going on. I opened my bedroom door, barely coherent, and said, "I think I need to go to the hospital," before floating away again and falling over onto my floor.

In that moment, the extremely expensive EpiPen went to good use. My mom dug the device out of my bag, only to realize that she didn't know how to use it. Through my haze, I told her how and where to inject it. So she did, and then my parents walked me downstairs and into the bathroom so I could change out of my sweaty clothes. The EpiPen prevented me from totally losing consciousness, but I still did not have control over my body.

My mom drove me to the hospital. On that random day in August, I was checked into the emergency room for the first time in my life.

I hoped the emergency room would save me. They would make the swelling and hives disappear, and they would bring me back into full consciousness, back into the world. Maybe they would figure out what was causing this, and maybe they would give me answers to all the questions I'd had for months. I wanted so badly for them to save me.

They didn't. They asked me the same rounds of questions I'd been asked by other nurses and doctors for months already, and I gave them the same answers: Um, I'm doing okay, I guess. No, I don't think I'm allergic to anything. No, I don't know why this is happening. Yes, this is really weird. Yes, this is awful. Yeah, I hope I get better, too.

They had no wisdom to impart or answers to give. They administered me a standard dosage of Benadryl through an IV – only after a solid hour of two nurses, one on each side of me, trying to find a vein through my swollen skin, muttering to themselves about how difficult this was, jabbing needles into my body over and over again. Then, the ER doctor told me that I shouldn't have stopped taking my allergy medication. I told him I had stopped because I was supposed to have a skin test performed within the next day or two. The doctor had nothing to say in reply.

I stayed in the emergency room bed for hours, listening to the beeping and the screaming and the bodies rushing in and out of the area. My mom sat in the chair next to my bed, staring at me while I stared into space.

The Benadryl helped to decrease the swelling in my face, and also alleviated the dizziness, but the hives never completely subsided.

Since I was starting to look better, they sent me home that afternoon.

I still wasn't really "better," though. I saw the allergist a couple of days later and, because I had to begin taking Benadryl again to prevent another fainting attack, they couldn't accurately perform the skin testing. I still didn't know what was wrong with my body.

It kept happening. It never stopped. Hives and swollen skin became part of me. No one could figure out what was wrong with my body. No medication could successfully combat my symptoms. But my life kept unfolding in front of me, and I sat back and watched it, itchy and red and swollen and miserable.

About a month later, in September, I was sitting in class. I was only a couple of weeks into the first semester of my senior year of college. I was having an okay day, an okay time listening to my teacher drone on about the course requirements and the upcoming assignment. Then I felt my eye begin to swell. I escaped into the restroom to look at myself in the mirror. I thought I looked insane. I thought I looked like I had some sort of disease. I didn't want anyone to look at me. I considered just staying in the restroom, just not going back to class. But I couldn't. I had to go to class. So I took out the bottle of Benadryl that I kept in my bag, and then I took a couple pills, and then a couple more. And then some more. Then I waked to the vending machine and bought a bottle of Pepsi and drank some – for the first time in five years – because I figured that the sugar and caffeine would keep me awake, offsetting the Benadryl's sedating effects. I wasn't trying to fall asleep in class, I just wanted the night to pass. Afterwards, I walked back to my seat and sat there for the remainder of the lecture with my hands covering my face and my gaze lowered down towards my desk.

In that restroom stall, I took at least 150 mg of Benadryl. The standard dose, and what I received in the ER, is only 25 mg. I figured maybe it would at least knock me out so I wouldn't have to face this. I didn't want to feel. Thankfully, I didn't fall asleep at the wheel.

The next day, I had a different class to attend. The same thing happened – I was sitting in class when my eye began to swell. This time around, I couldn't handle it. I didn't want to sit in class for hours feeling self-conscious and miserable, staring at my desk. So I asked to speak to my teacher, who I never met before that semester, and walked out into the hallway with her and explained what was happening to me.

"...So I think I'm just gonna go home," I said, feeling defeated.

"That's alright, don't worry about it," she replied. "Are you going to be okay driving home?"

My eye was so swollen that I could barely keep it open.

"Yeah, I think I'll be okay."

She told me to be careful driving home and that she hoped I could figure out what was wrong with me. I thanked her and then I left.

I woke up the next day to a few missed phone calls and text messages from my best friend, the same one I went with to the concert seven months earlier.

"Come outside," a text message read.

I got out of bed and looked at myself in the mirror. My face didn't look like my face. Both of my eyes were swollen, as were my cheeks. And my body didn't feel like my body. My joints were swollen and painful, and my skin was itchy and red. I was defeated.

I walked outside to find my friend's car parked in the driveway. Seeing me walking towards the car, my friend got out from the driver's seat and hugged me.

"I got you something," she said. She handed me a Pumpkin Spice Latte, a drink she knew I adored.

"Thanks," I said as I sipped the latte.

Maybe it was the latte that saved me. Or maybe it was my friend's emotional support, or my teacher's sympathy. Maybe it was just all the pills. Or maybe it was none of the above... I honestly don't know.

Whatever it was, that day in September was the last day my face swelled. My hives and bodily swelling went away, too. And as of today, they have still never come back.

I have even managed to wean myself off all the medications. And I no longer have a bottle of Benadryl in my purse at all times, and I no longer need to carry an EpiPen. My body is back to normal.

But I still don't know what happened, or why. Why did my eye begin swelling at that concert, of all places? And why did it stop on a random day in September after drinking a Pumpkin Spice Latte, of all things?

My body is back to normal, but the memories of those seven months still live in the back of my mind. I'll never forget how it made me look, or how it made me feel.

I will never know its cause. I will never know how to prevent it. I will never know anything other than what my body told me. There are no answers, only questions.

And since I'll never know why it happened, I can never really prevent it from happening again. It could still happen again. It could start again, anytime, just as suddenly as it ended. That's what really scares me.

On Writing Hard Words

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a good writer. I’ve been working at a local newspaper since May 2018, and some of my favorite stories published in the paper – both written by myself and other reporters – are the ones that required some sort of vulnerability, either from the author or the subject.

My favorite pieces of writing aren’t shallow, meaningless words that just talk about the goodness of the world and ignore all the bad parts.

Ever since I became interested in books and short essays or stories, the words that meant the most to me were the hardest to read. And ever since I started writing, the words I felt the proudest of required me to be the most vulnerable. Because of that, I’ve neglected to post some of my more vulnerable essays on this website.

I want that to change… if only slightly.

I wrote the following essay, “What Ned Vizzini Means to Me,” in December 2017 as a college admissions essay. I never published it anywhere else, online or otherwise, not because I wasn’t proud of my writing, but simply because I wanted to keep my guard up.

But as I state in my essay, and as I still truly believe, the most meaningful writing requires vulnerability. If no vulnerable writers existed, I don’t think good writing would ever be published.

Good words can change the world. If just one person is ever inspired by my own writing in the way I have been inspired by Ned Vizzini and other authors, then I’ll have already won.

What Ned Vizzini Means to Me

If you’d like to know, here’s my story: I was never diagnosed with depression. I didn’t want to see a doctor. I thought I could handle it on my own. I didn’t want to talk to an adult about my feelings or lie on a couch to discuss my problems or take a pill just to feel okay.

I was never clinically diagnosed, but when I was 13 years old, people looked at me and said, “You look really depressed.” I looked down at my shoes in reply.

And I guess I probably was, even though I’ll never know for sure. I still don’t really know if I was just experiencing that stereotypical teenage angst or if I actually could have benefitted from seeking help. But I do know that most of my early teenage years were wasted feeling like hell.

When I was 13, there were three things that helped me feel something vaguely resembling happiness amid all the incessant misery controlling my thoughts and body and mind.

First, listening to music made me halfway happy. Not just any music, though. Music with a purpose, as I liked to define it. I didn’t enjoy all the hollow pop songs that cluttered the radio, so I searched the Internet and found musicians who sang about things I thought I could relate to. They sang about pain, about heartbreak, about loneliness. I found myself dancing to clever beats while singing along to lyrics that echoed my inner demons.

Writing made me almost happy, too. I had this journal, a spiral-bound, wide ruled notebook with a black cover. In this notebook, I wrote down all the thoughts that clouded my mind and sketched out all the images that engulfed my brain. Writing didn’t make my problems go away – not even a little bit. But with every word I wrote in that notebook, the hell in my head became something more tangible, something I could see and speak and scrutinize. The hell I felt became words I wrote, and within those words, I found myself realizing there lived a small glimmer of beauty among the pain.

And then sometimes, listening to music wasn’t enough. Writing down my thoughts wasn’t enough. Sometimes I couldn’t dance to my demons and sometimes I couldn’t find even a sliver of beauty in pain. So, when that happened, I needed a distraction. So I read books.

I read a book called It’s Kind of a Funny Story. The novel revolves around Craig Gilner, an overly ambitious and clinically depressed teenager living in New York City. To begin the book, Craig explains to readers: “It’s so hard to talk when you want to kill yourself. That’s above and beyond everything else, and it’s not a mental complaint—it’s a physical thing, like it’s physically hard to open your mouth and make the words come out. They don’t come out smooth and in conjunction with your brain the way normal people’s words do: they come out in chunks as if from a crushed-ice dispenser; you stumble on them as they gather behind your lower lip. So you just keep quiet.”

So, right from the start of the book, Craig is in pretty bad shape. He’s feeling depressed, seeing a shrink, and taking Zoloft. None of his friends understand his troubles and when he tries to talk to his parents about it, they don’t really get it, either. And he puts so much pressure on himself to get good grades, to overcome his depression, to be normal.

When I was 13, I wasn’t diagnosed with depression, I wasn’t seeing a shrink, and I wasn’t taking antidepressants. I guess it seems like I didn’t really have too much in common with Craig, but despite our superficial differences, I connected with Craig. I found myself in that book. Craig’s thoughts mirrored my own, and that helped me realize that I wasn’t as alone as I assumed. Reading about Craig’s life didn’t make my own problems go away, but it made me realize that my problems were shared by other people (albeit, in this case, fictional people). So, Craig’s story gave me hope.

As the book continues, Craig thinks he gets better. The Zoloft starts working. So then, thinking he’s cured, he stops taking his medication. And then he gets worse. And then one night, he decides to kill himself. He’s had enough. Craig tells readers, “I’m going to do it tonight. This is such a farce, this whole thing. I thought I was better and I’m not better. I tried to get stable and I can’t get stable. I tried to turn the corner and there aren’t any corners; I can’t eat; I can’t sleep; I’m just wasting resources.”

So he decides to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of the night. Before he leaves, though, he calls the suicide hotline. The person on the other end of the line tells him that it will be okay; things will get better. They tell Craig to go to the hospital. So, instead of biking to the Brooklyn Bridge, Craig bikes to the hospital in the late hours of the night. And then he checks himself into a mental ward.

The story continues to develop during the five days Craig spends in the hospital. Throughout those five days, Craig talks to doctors and patients about his own problems and what can be done to alleviate those problems – not cure them, not necessarily, but make them more bearable, more controlled.

Craig leaves the hospital on a Thursday. Despite the book’s somber beginning, the story ends with hope. Craig is out of the hospital. He’s going to go home. He’s going to hang out with his friends. He’s going to go on a date. He’s going to live.

This story meant a lot to me when I was 13. And it still does. The book shows me that sick feelings aren’t permanent. Depression doesn’t last forever. Things will eventually get better.

After the story, an endnote within the novel states, “Ned Vizzini spent five days in adult psychiatric in Methodist Hospital, Park Slope, Brooklyn, 11/29/04—12/3/04. Ned wrote this 12/10/04—1/6/05.” Ned Vizzini, the author of It’s Kind of a Funny Story, was inspired to write the novel after he was admitted into a mental ward for five days – much like his character, Craig. And, much like Craig, Ned was diagnosed with depression and was prescribed medication. Just like Craig, Ned battled with mental illness and suicidal ideation and won – he won so well that he used those struggles to write his novel, to further his career. He didn’t let his mental illness control him. Instead, he used his experiences to instill hope, to inspire others.

So I really looked up to Ned Vizzini. I felt connected to him. Even though I was never diagnosed with depression, even though I was never prescribed medication, and even though I was never admitted into a hospital, I thought of Ned Vizzini as someone like me. I mean, he even made a career out of writing, which is something I have always aspired to do.

Since I was 13, Ned Vizzini meant a lot to me. He was living proof that mental illness does not limit a person. Mental illness does not define a person. Mental illness is not the person. Ned Vizzini was not just “depressed.” Ned Vizzini was a writer. And a husband. And a father. He was so much more than his depression. And, from what I could see, he was living a great life, despite his depression.

But then again, maybe he wasn’t.

On December 19, 2013, Ned Vizzini committed suicide.

He was 32 years old. It was nine years after his stay in a psychiatric ward, nine years after he was hospitalized for suicidal ideation. It was nine years later, and he still wasn’t “better.” His depression wasn’t “cured.” He was so much more than his depression, but on that day, it consumed him.

I don’t know why he did it. I mean, no one will ever truly know why anyone commits suicide. I don’t know what his last thoughts were. I don’t know what his last day or week or month felt like to him – did his life continue on as normal? Or was there something slightly askew, something that tipped the scales, something that sent his mind over the edge?

Shortly after his suicide, the Internet was filled with grieving fans and sympathetic writers posting their thoughts and condolences. Some people said that at least he’s in a “better place” now. I don’t think he is. I think the “better place” would have been his own life, free of the depression that suffocated him, free of the thoughts that destroyed him, free of the pain that crushed him.

But sometimes, I guess, you can win a battle against your demons and still lose the war. So now I’m just left wondering – what’s the point in fighting?

I idolized Ned Vizzini. I connected with his characters and, more importantly, I connected with him. He taught me that darkness is always followed by light. I am never as lost as I think I am. Hope incessantly exists.

And I still want to believe that. I still want to believe in his hope. I want to believe in It’s Kind of a Funny Story. I want to believe that depression may be scary and dark and cold, but it will always get better. It has to get better.

Books have the power to shape minds and change lives. When I was 13, Ned Vizzini’s book changed my life – even today, it is still changing my life.

Ned Vizzini taught me that… yeah, okay, I admit it – I can still lose the war. But I need to keep fighting because my story only ends when I do. I need to keep writing my story.

Mental Gains

Everyone talks about exercise and how it’s so obviously beneficial to one’s body composition. It’s no secret that exercise of pretty much any variety has a lasting impact on one’s overall physical health. So, because exercise is so good for my body, I’ve been going to the gym every week for the last 44 weeks (and counting). I perform my own self-created weight lifting regime an average of 5 days per week. At its most basic level, I pick things up and then put them down while listening to music.

I started weight lifting because of the physical benefits I knew I would receive. Exercise of any kind is obviously better than wasting away on a couch, binge watching Netflix, shoveling an entire bag of Doritos down my throat. Having no previous knowledge of the activity, I found out about weight lifting while deep diving through Google. I started watching fitness channels on YouTube and following bodybuilders and powerlifters on Instagram. I wanted to become like them. So, I became dedicated to weight lifting.

I officially started in July 2017, though before then, I did go to the gym semi-consistently, but never strayed very far from the cardio machines and didn’t really view what I was doing at the gym as highly valuable or worthwhile. Weight lifting changed that viewpoint.

The first couple weeks (or maybe months) of weight lifting were scary. I felt awkward and weird and I felt like I didn’t belong there amid all those bulky guys in cut off shirts and Under Armour gear. When I first decided to try weight lifting, I used to take two lightly weighted dumbbells and walk them down to an obscure corner of the gym and do my entire workout there, in that odd corner where no one else went, because I felt too unsure of myself. Eventually, though, I got used to it all. Eventually, I started lifting right next to those guys in cut offs and Under Armour. I realized they weren’t going to do anything to me. And I realized that I deserved to take up space in the gym, too. I mattered. I didn’t have to confine myself into a corner.

After months of consistency and dedication to weight lifting and to eating (somewhat) properly, I started noticing changes in my body. I started growing muscle. As a female who has been lazy and unwilling to partake in physical activity throughout much of my life, muscles are still a highly foreign concept to me. I remember the first time I felt my tricep muscles in my arms and my quad muscles in my thighs. If I’m being honest, they all still surprise me sometimes. Weight lifting, as one would expect, has undoubtedly changed my body composition and appearance.

I’ve became noticeably stronger, as well. Each month, I am consistently lifting heavier weights. My increased strength has also become beneficial outside of the gym. Things are just easier to do – I can prop open a door with ease, I can carry in more groceries in one trip, and I can even open jars without anyone else’s help.

But I’m beginning to realize that weight lifting has more than just physical benefits. Weight lifting has made me stronger physically, yes, of course – but it’s also made me stronger mentally. And I think those mental gains are more important than the weight of the dumbbell I’m lifting or the size of my biceps.

Weight lifting doesn’t just make me look better. It makes me feel better about myself. It helps me realize that my body does more than just look a certain way, and the strength of my legs matter so much more than the size of my thighs. As a society, we tend to put so much pressure on ourselves to look a certain way. Females in American society are expected to be small and frail and take up less space than males. Weight lifting has allowed me to realize that the ideal American female – the small, frail girl – isn’t what I need to be.

Weight lifting allows me to feel better about my own body, and it also works as a positive way to reduce stress. I wouldn’t exactly call it “therapy,” but there’s still something weirdly therapeutic about picking things up and then putting them down. Most days, when I’m tired or when work is hectic, going to the gym is one of the few things I look forward to. It heightens my mood and it makes me feel like I have accomplished something significant. Even on days when I’m feeling tired and sick and angry, weight lifting is usually able to calm my mood and give me a sense of purpose and fulfilment. Sure, maybe the feeling it gives me is only temporary, but I’ll still argue that it’s cheaper than traditional therapy and safer than prescription drugs. I don’t think the elation I feel from weight lifting is all made up in my head.

And I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way. Research has consistently displayed a link between exercise and positive mental health benefits. Studies primarily revolve around those who perform cardiovascular exercises, such as running – after all, everyone has heard of a runner’s high. But there are also studies that specifically find strong mental health benefits associated with weight lifting.

Studies have shown that weight lifting can help all types of people cope with stresses, manage negative moods, and feel better about their overall selves. In 1994, Mirella P. Auchus and Nadine J. Kaslow conducted a study of five females with mental health issues which confirms that weight lifting can help an individual’s sense of well-being and create a feeling of normalcy. As published in the Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, when individuals with psychiatric disabilities participate in weight lifting therapy, “Clients’ abilities and strengths are focused upon instead of their disabilities. Furthermore, weight lifting gives these individuals an opportunity to experience a ‘normal’ activity, and some semblance of normality in their lives.”[1] As the study finds, weight lifting has an obvious positive impact on those with clinical mental health issues.

Weight lifting can also help “average” people cope with stress related to their jobs and personal lives. A 1993 study conducted by Nancy Norvell and Dale Belles and published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology finds that male law enforcement officers benefit from a consistent weight training program. The controlled study looked at over 40 males who maintain moderate to high levels of stress, as expected by the demanding nature of their jobs. The study required participating officers to begin a strict weight training regime for 16 weeks. At the study’s end, most officers felt less stressed and showed more job satisfaction. Norvell and Belles explain, “Circuit weight training appears to produce symptom changes beyond such typical symptoms as depression, anxiety, and self-concept. In this study, changes were also found in self-reported hostility, physical symptoms, and job satisfaction.”[3] The officers’ workout sessions were only “three times per week, with a prescribed duration of 20 min.”[3] Adults with even the most busy, hectic schedules can surely find time to weight lift for at least 60 minutes spread throughout the week. If they’re willing to try it, everyone can gain from the mental benefits of weight lifting.

In a recent study conducted in 2015, Ceren Doğan interviewed several working adults who state that going to the gym allows them to maintain control over their lives, cope with stress, and ultimately become better versions of themselves. In Europe’s Journal of Psychology, Doğan writes, “Stress, depression, bad moods and frustration are expected to be combatted by the gym regime. […] Exercise, so the thinking goes, is purgative; it releases stress and frustration by relocating it to the exteriors of the body and soul.”[2] As Doğan’s interviews confirm, people may feel less stressed after a workout because they are releasing their stress into whatever they are doing – whether it is running, yoga, or weight lifting. Stress escapes through the gym. Doğan also states, “[F]itness training at the gym can be considered a means by which transformation of and control over one’s life is achieved. One of the reasons why this may [be] the case is that exercise in gyms itself requires discipline, self-surveillance, and ambition.”[2] Within the gym, people can change their lives. And every day, as they continue with their workout regimes and become stronger beings, they are reminded that they can change their lives – that they are changing their lives.

Weight lifting has not drastically changed my life. I am still the same person – I have the same job, I drive the same car, and I listen to the same music. I am still myself, but I am stronger than I was before. My physical strength reminds me of my mental strength. Picking things up and then putting them down reminds me that I can conquer anything I want, if only I pursue it with dedication, determination, and discipline.

I started exercising because it is so good for my body. Now, though, I exercise because it is so good for my mind. Out of all the muscles weight lifting has allowed me to develop, I cherish my mind the most. It’s not about the size of my triceps or my quads anymore – it’s about my mental gains.

Works Cited

1. Auchus, Mirella P., and Nadine J. Kaslow. “Weight Lifting Therapy: A Preliminary Report.” Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, vol. 18, no. 2, Oct. 1994, pp. 99-102. PsycARTICLES, doi:10.1037/h0095510.

2. Doğan, Ceren. “Training at the Gym, Training for Life: Creating Better Versions of the Self Through Exercise.” Edited by Vlad Glăveanu. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, vol. 11, no. 3, 20 Aug. 2015, pp. 442–458. PMC, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951.

3. Norvell, Nancy, and Dale Belles. “Psychological and Physical Benefits of Circuit Weight Training in Law Enforcement Personnel.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, vol. 61, no. 3, 01 Jan. 1993, pp. 520-27. ERIC, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/....