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Author: Julia Vasquez
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poetry assignment
Crunch crunch crunch
I feel the pebbles beneath my feet as i transition off
concrete
Caught by surprise, something’s not discreet.
A big ol trunk of a tree, branches sparring in the wind, still
holding its ground. making me safe and sound,
sirens fade as i gaze it’s way
Mother nature has paved its way
Scars of past lovers and chipped bark, rings of history
makes it wise, after years of standing, its a prize
Ol wise tree, ol wise tree, you make strength look graceful
with ease.
And I feel fully at peace.
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assignment 1 essay
Julia Vasquez
Have you ever been singled out? Or felt like you didn’t belong in a world that seems to only cater to everyone else who is just not like you? If you answered yes, you are not alone. Most people actually feel just as lost as you are, I remember feeling lost. I felt like the world just didn’t cater to me, I felt like nobody admired me, felt like I was not attractive enough, not worthy enough for everyone surrounding me. Middle school, along with freshman year made me feel really insignificant due to how many people would spread negative rumors about me. Since I was not raised around people that had a lot of money, and I was taller than most people in my classes people have had the tendency to make fun of me for my off brand Payless shoes, hurtful names were always being bombarded in my ear. Middleschool hurt my self esteem a lot, I never learned how to defend myself or how to not believe what people say about me, I took practically everything that was said to me or about me to heart. I began to stay closed in, as a defense mechanism to the cruel ways I would be treated. I was closed in away from people against my own will, staying away from people and feeling targeted only made my self esteem worse. I doubted myself a lot, “why am I different in a “bad way” I would say to myself. I would get shot down by hurtful labels and terrible behavior. I would still have a little fight left in me to be myself though. It may come as a surprise to some people, the fact that what makes me feel like myself is being bubbly and energetic, due to this my comfort is in expressing my fashion sense and practicing self care. I admire confidence- so of course naturally I love making people feel confident.When I transitioned into highschool still with the hurt of how poorly I would be treated by students everyday in middle school, but walking through the halls of my highschool felt like a fresh restart. My confidence slowly came back, Freshman year was tough for me because I was not too close to people in my grade just yet. Highschool then began to drastically change for the better right along the beginning of the very first semester of Sophomore year, I felt like everything in my life was going right. I finally started to feel more comfortable in my own body, and in my style. I began to grow enough confidence to talk to more people in my classes. I began to have a group of friends I would tag along with and suddenly I did not feel lonely anymore. When I began to hangout with my group of friends, we would all go to school around the same time, eat lunch in the same room together, talk in a group chat all the time- of course we all had our own hidden obstacles in life, but when we were together the world and all of it’s negativity that has been thrown onto us suddenly became unrecognizable. True love can really distract you from anger and frustration, even my sadness got lifted. Suddenly I was the “class clown”, I was the funny, and pretty friend and everyone seemed like they finally admired me for my truest self. Highschool then became my safest space. The label of me being “too dependent” is correct in this case, never would I have thought that a friend group consisting of a few teenage girls would leave a mental scar so deep that the tiniest trauma response would just rip it right open again. We would ditch school parties to hang out together at the Pink Victoria secret in SOHO Manhattan, we would sneakily steal sodas from hotdog carts with our own tactics, we’ve even spoken about potentially getting jobs together. Everything was all very sudden, from barely any friends freshman year to people suddenly saying they “love me”, I quickly have fallen into this sinkhole of love bombing. I then quickly realized that my happiness stemmed solely from other people. Although I recognized my fragility I still continued to feed into this addiction of the fact that I had a change of power dynamic, a change of identity that was the total opposite of what I have been conditioned into thinking I am. Suddenly Julia was not “little” and “insignificant”, Julia was seen as a “head turner”, Julia was seen as “significant”.
But of course these highs of emotions eventually are bound to come down, I had a new interest in my life. Not only was I now getting attention from friends, that I cared about dearly, I was in a relationship. In highschool it seems as if people will only love you for as long as you are not “better” than them, insecurity and immaturity led to each “dear” friend that I had slowly dropping one by one. It felt like a repetitive heartbreak, an unexplainable heartbreak that nobody seemed to have the answers for. so I never questioned it. I never asked them why, I never got too emotionally invested, I just let them slowly form their delusional and mysterious alliance against me. The intensity of the friendship was at its highest peak around the beginning of sophomore year, and went down to its lowest in the span of only a few months. Life is incredibly unpredictable.
I suddenly felt bored, and alone with only me and my partner’s company, I felt like I had lost my worth. Passing by them in the hallway was heavily embarrassing, I felt like I was nothing more than a loser- it’s pretty funny to say but it’s true. I was uninformed on the faults in my own actions. I wish they had communicated to me.
I noticed from watching many self care and mental health videos in order to help me with my sorrow; that I was so reliant on people, eventually I began to be more emotionally aware. I slowly learned, a true strategy of staying happy is not being reliant on others. I took note that friends come and go. Everyone in this world has negative and positives that are not publicized, peoples actions are based off of how they feel and are not a reflection of you as an individual. Naturally animals gain knowledge from trauma in order to protect themselves from more physical or even mental harm, instead of me fixating on the hurt I would rather learn from it in a positive way. A reminder I have gotten better at is the lesson of remembering that you are not what people make you out to be, you are only what you identify yourself as- and you are only how you react to situations.
Being who you are is ever so changing with time, I was not the same person back then as I am now, and I was not any less of a person from peoples false perspectives of me. I am great how I am now. The best thing I can do is to have a kind and humble, patient soul. The lesson here is to realize how amazing you are for who you are, no matter who recognizes it or not. It is okay not to be deemed as “perfect” , nobody realistically is.
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assignment 2&3 (step 1)
My working research question is based on the curiosity of how people can build a better sense of self easily from a young age. I plan on supporting my research by using reliable sources on my topic that will actually contribute to schools comprehending my teachable moment more- thus helping them help kids, oron body image issues or preventing them. The only obstacle I am concerned about is the research being too cliche, and not helpful in supporting my teachable moment. This topic is interesting to me because everyone at some point in their life has dealt with criticism- I think that it is a cycle of hurt people hurting innocent people. Shallow ideologies and harsh criticism can contribute to mental health issues that are not beneficial in anyone’s life and I would like to change that at its starting point; adolescence. I especially care because I have been personally affected by it.
Schools should care about this topic because I believe that anyone can benefit from helping others and the reader’s own mental health and self esteem. I know that with the right information most people can contribute to the global phenomenon of low self esteem thats associated with body image.
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assignment 2
Public schools withhold an array of responsibilities for children, they are responsible for the most vulnerable stage of a human’s life. The way these responsibilities are handled can make or break an individual’s self esteem and success rate in the future, this is why one of the most vulnerable topics have to be fixated on more by the department of education, principles, and teachers; this topic being how public schools can input their own help to prevent body image issues. This topic can be heavily correlated to how the department of education handles certain preventable causes. These causes can be controlled, and restrained better by public schools. My main appeals towards decreasing body image issues will be, mandating mental-health curricula early on is important in the development of positive outlooks in adolescence, educating students on effects of social media make students more self aware, and that youth mental health services are known to increase positive attitude towards body image in adolescence– who have already been affected by negative perception of their own bodies.
The first text that I will be introducing is titled, Body Dysmorphia and Anxiety, the Invisible Experience We Can’t Ignore by Starr Sackstein. Sackstein is a secondary educator and school leader in New York. She shared her story on how her and her family have struggled with body dysmorphic disorder, the expectation to stay thin due to being an athlete and upkeeping what she knew to be the beauty standard damaged her of course. Although intellectually she knew that she was thin, she could still find areas of her body that she did not like- and fixated on them for hours. With no help she stayed in the same rut for years and years to come. Sackstein blames the lack of awareness in her school as well as lack in empathy from teachers, and an overall lack of mental health curricula in her public school’s contributed have been a main contribution to her being in more of a toxic environment which led to her failing to realize that she has even had body dysmorphia until she was an adult. Disorders created by the anxiety of upholding a “standard” that roughly translates to “how much someone is worth” are the downfall of society’s education systems. Such disorders can ruin someone’s outlook on other peers, quality of schoolwork, and increase bullying rates. Sackstein not only has shown us her own experience on low self esteem correlated with body image of herself, but she has shown us that a lack of empathy in the school system has affected many other people as well. Public schools hold big responsibility in the contribution of creating a mentally well safe space for struggling students. Sackstein states, “When a person tells you how they feel, please don’t ever dismiss it and try to listen without judgment. The work it takes to overcome anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia is great, and it is something that most will struggle with their whole lives to varying degrees. Stress can exacerbate the issue, so be sensitive to those you work with.” Stress exacerbates mental health issues, it is crucial for public schools to take more action in making sure that anxiety disorders don’t arise, or worsen. Her entire article is based on how her environment has affected her.
Alana Papageorgiou, had a similar approach to this issue. Although the text Sexualized Images on Social Media and Adolescent Girls’ Mental Health: Qualitative Insights from Parents, School Support Service Staff and Youth Mental Health Service Providers, mentions body image and mental health that are correlated with school- the school is not to blame. Papageorgiou collected qualitative data to prove the effects of social media on children of any age, and mentioned the help and awareness that mental health services in schools have provided for struggling students. She stated that “Adolescence is a developmental period critical to identity formation, with considerable physical, social, cognitive, and emotional changes. For adolescents in today’s digital age, the online environment including social media plays a central role in how they socialize and connect with peers and form their identity and sense of self . Social media platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok focus on users creating and sharing photos and videos that enable instant social interaction” like what’s said in the first text, the student’s environment is a main contributor to identity and cognitive formation. Schools that provide knowledge on these effects can prevent the likelihood of this happening further. Participants in the mental health services in an Australian school also explained how they perceived that ‘counteracting negative influences’ from sexualized images on social media could reduce or even prevent the potential for mental health harms among young people. The importance of adults and services ‘keeping up to date’ and being ‘approachable and trustworthy’ when describing the support they believed girls might need. Mental health services have shown us that they are helpful in helping issues related to body image.
From Papageorgiou’s findings, and Sackstein’s experience- it has been proven that schools can prevent or decrease the likelihood of anxiety disorders or other mental health disorders that originate or get worsened by toxic environments. Adolescence is the most malleable period of anyone’s life, and the most sensitive. Sackstein mentioned how schools do not do enough to give their time to check in or be sympathetic on the mental health of students; she mentions how important it is to not ignore the obvious and how much it would have helped her live a happier life. Papageorgiou’s findings from various interviews with adolescent girls, and their parents about social media and their daughters mental health have resulted in parents realizing that makeup, fashion, and beauty accounts on instagram have had negative effects on their daughter. The school gave the parents a sense of awareness and more knowledge on the topic of how social media can negatively affect a teen girl’s view on their body. With mental health services like occupational therapists, mental health clinical workers, and youth services like the ones in Perth, Western Australia- situations like Sackstein are bound to be less prominent.
Source 1-
Body Dysmorphia and Anxiety, the Invisible Experience We Can’t Ignore
By Starr Sackstein
Source 2-
Sexualized Images on Social Media and Adolescent Girls’ Mental Health: Qualitative Insights from Parents, School Support Service Staff and Youth Mental Health Service Providers- Alana Papageorgiou