Nicole Ahlstrand
Arizona State University, Undergraduate
Award: $1,000
August 15, 2018
We are pleased to announce Nicole Ahlstrand as the winner of The 2018 Life Coach Spotter Scholarship for $1,000. Nicole, an undergraduate from Tempe, AZ, was selected from a pool of almost 70 candidates. Candidates had to submit an essay and video, both detailing overcoming a personal challenge, and proof of enrollment in an accredited university.
Nicole produced an incredibly open and moving essay and video illustrating her personal journey with overcoming self-harm and depression. Nicole took us on her journey, explaining the multiple difficult events that were the catalyst for her mental health issues. Her story touches on the very things that many people with mental illnesses experience- bullying and fear of rejection due to ignorance surrounding mental illness. Despite the difficult events and the mental health issues Nicole endured, she decided to use her knowledge and experience to help promote mental health awareness and understanding. We find her courageous spirit, drive and ability to use a painful experience to promote wellbeing and mental health awareness incredible, and we are honored to award our scholarship to her. Well done Nicole!
A challenge is defined in the Meriam-Webster dictionary as “a task or situation that tests someone’s abilities.” We are all faced with challenges throughout our lives, and some challenges may be more challenging than others but all in all they are difficult periods in our lifetime that are able to provide us with an invigorating lesson and useful future knowledge.
I was 13 when I started self-harming. My parents had just gotten a divorce after 5 long years of an unhappy and unhealthy marriage and separation, I transferred school districts and attended my eighth grade year where I didn’t know a soul, I was bullied by boys who consistently called me fat and poor every day for a few months, my father was diagnosed with a brain tumor that was accompanied by seizures, my mom had a stroke and I was just starting to explore the world of love and heartbreak. It was a time that I felt like everything was hitting me all at once and when I finally resorted to cutting myself, I could not help but use it as a prime coping skill. I hid my scars from everyone as much as I could, I did not want to reveal my weakness to those around me, so I did everything I could to keep this side of me in the closet with the rest of my skeletons. Years passed, and I was still in the original position I had found myself in but even more sad. I started to become transparent. My mom could see that I was lifeless, and my friends could see that I was in pain. I could not understand why I felt the way that I did because many people around me could have had it worse. I was not starving, and I always had the most updated phones and other electronics. I was privileged no doubt, but I still found myself overwhelmingly sad. Teenagers around me were very uneducated and unaware about mental illnesses, thinking that a person was “psycho” or “crazy” if they had to deal with depression, or anxiety or any other mental illness. This made me apprehensive about telling anyone that I was feeling the way that I was because I had already gone through enough teasing and bullying that I did not want to give them another flaw that they could add on to their “to-tease about” list so I kept quiet but as soon as my mother caught on, there was no hiding it no matter how much I wanted to. At first, my mom was also very uneducated about mental illnesses and thought that it was something that I was doing to seek attention and that I needed to simply snap out of it, but I found that almost impossible. Not having the support that I needed was very hard on me, and eventually I felt like I was being pushed off the edge of a mountain that I had already been too close to in the first place and I tried to end my own life. I swallowed pills and hoped that they would permanently take the sadness away, but it didn’t. I ended up being placed into an adolescent stabilization center to address my mental illness from a serious viewpoint where I was nothing but supported. I was in the facility for 7 whole days in which there were many tears, laughs, hugs and anger but in the end, it made me a completely different person and I am happy to say that I have yet to self-harm since that day, which was over 3 years ago. I was 13 when I started self-harming. My parents had just gotten a divorce after 5 long years of an unhappy and unhealthy marriage and separation, I transferred school districts and attended my eighth grade year where I didn’t know a soul, I was bullied by boys who consistently called me fat and poor every day for a few months, my father was diagnosed with a brain tumor that was accompanied by seizures, my mom had a stroke and I was just starting to explore the world of love and heartbreak. It was a time that I felt like everything was hitting me all at once and when I finally resorted to cutting myself, I could not help but use it as a prime coping skill. I hid my scars from everyone as much as I could, I did not want to reveal my weakness to those around me, so I did everything I could to keep this side of me in the closet with the rest of my skeletons. Years passed, and I was still in the original position I had found myself in but even more sad. I started to become transparent. My mom could see that I was lifeless, and my friends could see that I was in pain. I could not understand why I felt the way that I did because many people around me could have had it worse. I was not starving, and I always had the most updated phones and other electronics. I was privileged no doubt, but I still found myself overwhelmingly sad. Teenagers around me were very uneducated and unaware about mental illnesses, thinking that a person was “psycho” or “crazy” if they had to deal with depression, or anxiety or any other mental illness. This made me apprehensive about telling anyone that I was feeling the way that I was because I had already gone through enough teasing and bullying that I did not want to give them another flaw that they could add on to their “to-tease about” list so I kept quiet but as soon as my mother caught on, there was no hiding it no matter how much I wanted to. At first, my mom was also very uneducated about mental illnesses and thought that it was something that I was doing to seek attention and that I needed to simply snap out of it, but I found that almost impossible. Not having the support that I needed was very hard on me, and eventually I felt like I was being pushed off the edge of a mountain that I had already been too close to in the first place and I tried to end my own life. I swallowed pills and hoped that they would permanently take the sadness away, but it didn’t. I ended up being placed into an adolescent stabilization center to address my mental illness from a serious viewpoint where I was nothing but supported. I was in the facility for 7 whole days in which there were many tears, laughs, hugs and anger but in the end, it made me a completely different person and I am happy to say that I have yet to self-harm since that day, which was over 3 years ago.
The hardest part about dealing with mental illness is by far the stigma that comes right along with it. It is often that people are unable to make the connections that mental illness is an illness of the brain and therefore is an illness. We often adapt schemas as very young infants on how the world works the way that it does. Overtime, from generation to generation these schemas can evolve piece by piece and can be a completely different schema in the difference of 100 years but still be related in a few aspects. Mental illnesses awhile ago were seen as demonic and apart of witchcraft. While thankfully, that is not the view in today’s world but there is still the stereotype of being “crazy” when a person has a mental illness which started centuries back when mental illness took crazy to another level. These stereotypes are often what drive people away from getting the help that they may very well need, and this is what made me struggle alone and in silence for many years which was by far the lowest point of my challenging mental illness journey.
I overcame my struggle with my depression when I opened myself up to receiving help and actually using what I had learned. Finding things, I enjoyed, like writing and psychology were a big part in helping me overcome as well as the support system that I have behind me. Including my beautiful two-year-old, Aubrey that makes me smile every single day. She is my biggest fan and thinks I am the best person ever! I love it.
I want to use my experiences with struggling through depression through my teenage years and even now to help others be aware of the better and brighter days that are ahead of them even if they feel like they are stuck in never ending darkness. I also want to consistently help spread awareness on the importance of mental health so that less people will be afraid of opening themselves up so that they can help themselves as well.
Through these experiences, I learned that an illness is an illness regardless of it being in your lungs or in your brain functions. Mental illnesses are almost always uncontrollable without proper treatment and help so having a mental illness does not make a person and can never make a person “crazy.” If it was not for me not caring about what other people say and being myself so that I can get the help I need, I might not be here today and that is something that is very important to me. Life is so important, and we need to take care of ourselves, even our mind.
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