2025 Diandra Partey Viewmont HS

Rollercoaster

Since I arrived in high school, I knew all my potential and all I could live up to. Taking 2 AP classes my freshman year and all honor classes, continuing to up my workload every year. This caused me to burn out fast; it really began to take a toll on my mental health during my sophomore year, about halfway through the year. That winter break was my first suicide attempt. It was the stress of an honors English class and my success at playing basketball. I remember the fight that arose with my parents because I was afraid, I wouldn\’t achieve the A in my English class and instead of comforting me or trying to help me, my parents had blamed me for my bad grade. Saying I was focusing too much on sports and not enough on school, I remember crying so hard I almost couldn\’t breathe. The thought of death seemed like the only option, and after I took a handful of pills. I felt so at peace and calm.

I know now that was a misguided feeling, that those thoughts I felt were justified, but my actions were not. I\’m a much healthier and stronger person, and I\’m so happy I\’m graduating this year. It took me a long time to heal and better balance my course load, and I\’m only now feeling the benefits. The biggest resilience skill I have is my voice. Being able to vocalize my thoughts and how I felt to others helped me to feel less alone and know that there was hope. Sharing my story is important for me because I still struggle with suicidal thoughts and have dark themes in my life, but being able to talk about it makes me feel a lot better. Knowing me on a surface level many of my colleagues were surprised, but I think vocalizing how I feel shows that anyone can struggle with depression. The next resilience skill I have is my drive; I took the same drive I had in school to succeed, to live, to fight for my rights, and to want to live every single day of my life. I know that it\’s important, being one of the only black kids in my school, in my advanced classes, to show up and show out. Representation matters seeing someone who looks like you do the things you\’d dream of inspires you, and even more, when you know they also go through tough times. The drive I have in other aspects of my life is used to channel the drive I have to keep living. My last residence skill would be my sense of humor, this is probably not an often thought of skill or a common one to be brought up, but it\’s mine. I use humor as a coping mechanism when things get really bad, but this has helped me immensely with being a stronger person. Being able to laugh at the really tough times is what allows me to keep my life balanced. I never realized that balance was a thing I could actually achieve as well; I was so stuck on the notion that I was either not doing enough or doing too much and finding the “sweet spot” within my academics would be impossible. I now know it\’s not, but I also know there is no \”sweet spot.\” Throughout every time or stage in my life, things will be tough, and it will be harder for me to get through than others but living with depression isn’t a reason to stop living. I used to get caught in the idea of life being a roller-coaster, that it has its ups and downs, and that I didn’t want to go through the ups and downs, I wanted to simply just get off the ride.

Except I didn’t realize life doesn’t have to be like that, life doesn’t have to be a rollercoaster, it can be anything you want. For the rest of your life, you get to choose what kind of life you live. That doesn’t dismiss or brush away the tough days and even months I will go through, but knowing I have my tool bag equipped with drive, my voice, and humor I know these things will be okay. I have the tools to fix my life, to get out of the roller-coaster and fix the ride.