Sanah Jalili Ms. Cunningham AP English Language and Composition 19 April 2024 Memoir Prologue Since I was a young girl, I’ve been familiar with the feeling of solitude. Early in my life, I began to latch onto forms of media and daydreamed for lengthy periods to cope with the natural world and my feelings of not belonging. For hours, I would watch TV shows, read books, and daydream to fill the void inside of me. While I had friends as a young girl, they were only school friends I would chat with for a few hours. After school, I would use my time to daydream once I finished my homework. In those days, I did not know what these emotions were, but I knew that my spirit yearned for release from the tiring hours of school and the monotonous days …show more content…
My life was suddenly turned upside down by these feelings of sorrow and misery, and my parents sought the assistance of doctors to determine what was wrong with me and how to fix it. I experienced many breakdowns during this time, and my parents were upset with me for crying frequently and expressing how terrible I felt. Both my sister and my parents accused me of lying about my depression for attention. Nonetheless, I somehow convinced them that I was indeed suffering and needed help to get better. I soon began to undergo therapy, and my doctor prescribed antidepressants. My therapist is an older blonde woman. My parents always sat in the room during my therapy sessions, most likely because of my young age. We discussed my emotions during our sessions, and I felt it was going well. My therapist helped me recover from my depression slowly but surely. I started feeling better at the beginning of seventh grade. I stopped taking my medication and saw my therapist at that time. Yet, I spent most of the seventh grade listening to music and rarely spoke to anyone, including my friends, who became concerned over my unusual behavior. I lost most of my friends that year because of a conflict between my …show more content…
My parents used to joke about how I attended online school before everyone else. Like many, I had thought the pandemic was temporary and that life would return to normal within weeks. However, it was a long-lasting global crisis, and everyone stayed home for a year. Quarantine was a peaceful time for me. Despite all the chaos happening in the world, I managed to do well during the lockdown. I spend my free time learning TikTok dances in my bedroom and watching movies. I had an online friend group with whom I spent my time. We met through an Instagram community, and I was added to their personal group chat soon after talking to one of the girls there. During that time, we talked about everything and everything. Although we had never met each other in person, they still meant a lot to me. It was simultaneously a strange and enjoyable period of my life. I stopped speaking to those friends at some point. I do not recall the reason for discontinuing communication, but I remember it occurring in the summer. My life was going well, though. I soon began eighth grade, and my parents decided to switch me from independent studies to studying online at Madrona Middle School. I used to tilt my laptop screen so the teacher couldn't see me, and I would play games or scroll through social media on my phone. I used to cheat on my assignments and receive straight A's, which made me complacent since everything was online. Everything was fine since
This extract emphasises the lonely, outworld feeling that would have been felt living in such settings. This puts into perspective the feeling that will be felt during the coarse of the plot development.
In a world of overpopulation and crowds the idea of solitude is foreign. Many people take “retreats” or trips to escape and find peace with themselves. However, these same people usually return to civilization and to familiar faces. The Wanderer in the lyric poem does not have this luxury; he is alone and will never see his kinsmen’s faces again. It is not just seeing these friends, however, that pains the Wanderer the most: “There is now none among the living to whom I dare clearly express the thought of my heart.” Being able to...
This weekend I was paired up with a nurse from the floating pull. It was a very interesting experience. For the first time since the beginning of the semester I can say that I was faced with a lot of critical thinking situations. I spend the day running around reminding my nurse of things he forgot or task we had to finish. It was already 2:00 pm and I still hadn’t performed an assessment on a patient, at this point I remember what Mrs. McAdams had said before “ we are in the hospital to help but our main priority is to learn and practice our skills” so I made the critical-thinking decision to tell my nurse that I needed to at least complete an assessment and since we were about to discharged a patient I could performed a final assessment on him before going home. I performed my assessment, had time to document and helped my nurse with the discharged. This weekend was a very challenging clinical for me but I also learned a lot. I learned to managed my time better, be proactive in my clinical experience and I also found my voice.
Under the orders of her husband, the narrator is moved to a house far from society in the country, where she is locked into an upstairs room. This environment serves not as an inspiration for mental health, but as an element of repression. The locked door and barred windows serve to physically restrain her: “the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.” The narrator is affected not only by the physical restraints but also by being exposed to the room’s yellow wallpaper which is dreadful and fosters only negative creativity. “It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.”
Ramazani, Jahan. Richard Ellmann, Robert O’Clair, ed. The Norton Anthology Of Modern And Contemporary Poetry. Vol 1 Modern Poetry. Third Edition. Norton. 2003.
Stories are created over time through our attempts to connect events in our experiences and derive meaning from them (Morgan, 2000). Maya Angelou once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Narrative methodologies assume that individuals have a various set of skills, capabilities, beliefs, values, and commitments that will assist them in reducing the influence of troubles in their lives. During the practice of narrative therapy the client is encouraged to deconstruct and critically appraise their story in search for new meanings (White & Epston, 1990). White (2000) believed that if one can change the way they describe their lives and the events within, there will be a change for the better.
Why is externalising a central technique in narrative therapy today, and what are the limitations and successes of this technique?
Solitude represents the commencement of redemption. In the novel Wise Blood and the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the protagonists’ pursuit of freedom and redemption reveals the negative psychological effects that confinement, solitude, and denial can have on humanity. Though confinement appears as a common struggle for the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Sabbath Lily Hawks, and Hazel Motes from Wise Blood, the last manages to free his spirit and sacrifice his sight for God, while the first loses her sanity and achieves nothing more than frightening her dear husband, John; similarly, Asa Hawks, Lily Hawks’ father, loses his sanity and flees town soon after being discovered as a sham.
Personal narratives allow you to share your life with others and vicariously experience the things that happen around you. Your job as a writer is to put the reader in the midst of the action letting him or her live through an experience. Although a great deal of writing has a thesis, stories are different. A good story creates a dramatic effect, makes us laugh, gives us pleasurable fright, and/or gets us on the edge of our seats. A story has done its job if we can say, "Yes, that captures what living with my father feels like," or "Yes, that’s what being cut from the football team felt like."
It had come to the attention of my family that I had some sort of psychological problem and something had to be done. I was always labeled as a shy and quiet kid, and like my family I had thought nothing more of my behavior. However, now it had become something more obvious. I had told my parents the kinds of problems I was having. Basically I didn't want to talk to anyone or to be anywhere near anyone I didn't know. I didn't really want to leave my house for any reason for fear that I might have to talk to someone. I was so critical and scrutinizing in relation to myself that I couldn't even enter into a conversation. Everyone seems to have a part of themselves that lends itself to thoughts of pessimism and failure, but mine was something that was in the forefront of my mind at all times. Something telling me that everything I did was a failure, and that anything I ever did would not succeed. Through discussion with my family it was decided that I should move out of my parents house to a place where I could find treatment and get a job. I was to reside with my sister Lisa, her partner Brynn, and their Saint Bernard in Greensboro.
Narrative Therapy was developed to help people separate themselves from their problems. The idea is that this will help the person use the skills that they already possess to minimize the problems that exist in their everyday lives. The Narrative Therapy approach was developed by Social Workers Michael White (Australia) and David Epston (New Zealand) during the 1970s-1980s. “White proclaimed is work to be exclusively that of ‘rich story development’ “(Gallant).
Summer vacation, and school ends for about three months, and then you have as much fun as you can, then back to school… right? Well I had to go to summer school, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Everything was going fine, I had a job after summer school, and that was going fine as well. They say that summer is supposed to be fun and exciting, and it usually is for me and my family. However in July my father started coughing up blood. My father usually doesn’t make it his top priority to go to the doctors, so he waited about four weeks until he really didn’t feel good.
We all remember these grey gloomy days filled with a feeling of despair that saddens the heart from top to bottom. Even though, there may be joy in one’s heart, the atmosphere turns the soul cold and inert. Autumn is the nest of this particular type of days despite its hidden beauty. The sun seems foreign, and the nights are darker than usual enveloped by a thrill that generates chills to travel through the spine leaving you with a feeling of insecurity. Nevertheless, the thinnest of light will always shine through the deepest darkness; in fact, darkness amplifies the beauty and intensity of a sparkle. There I found myself trapped within the four walls of my house, all alone, surrounded by the viscosity of this type of day. I could hear some horrifying voices going through my mind led by unappealing suicidal thought. Boredom had me encaged, completely at its mercy. I needed to go far away, and escape from this morbid house which was wearing me down to the grave. Hope was purely what I was seeking in the middle of the city. Outside, the air was heavy. No beautifully rounded clouds, nor sunrays where available to be admired through the thick grey coat formed by the mist embedded in the streets. Though, I felt quite relieved to notice that I was not alone to feel that emptiness inside myself as I was trying to engage merchant who shown similar “symptoms” of my condition. The atmosphere definitely had a contagious effect spreading through the hearts of every pedestrian that day. Very quickly, what seemed to be comforting me at first, turned out to be deepening me in solitude. In the city park, walking ahead of me, I saw a little boy who had long hair attached with a black bandana.
Away from the immense sea, white foams from the waves gather gently onto the golden shore. Now, half of a glowing, radiant light looms across the water 's horizon. The sea turns blood-red and darkness creeps up like a thief. The necklace that once reflected its passionate energy of fury moments ago now resembled a mere costume jewellery. Perhaps the loss of the necklace’s elegance and sophistication was the reason to why it was disregarded. Pity the owner did not see the necklace radiating its splendour at its peak. Anyhow, the nightfall creates a sensation of joy and tranquillity in me. Every sight and sound stimulates a sense of composure and serenity; and the effect is heightened by the absence of the noisy bustle of our daily work, only to be exposed to the never-ending music of the waves, and to breathe the fresh air instead of the stale atmosphere of classrooms. It is not easy to describe the effect of this sight; it can only be strangely deciphered in my mind. It is however, a very tangible and distinct emotion, though its allure really depends upon the reality of the world from a further point of view, away from the definite predictabilities of the world, all in which an instant becomes like a translucent drape which almost consents me to catch a glimpse of a ideal and more breath-taking reality. The worldly desires, expectations, worries, schemes, suddenly cease to exist. It is as though all of
It all began for me back when I was 10 years old. My excruciating thoughts and mind was slowly and painfully killing me. Coming from a religious family, my obsessive and repetitive thoughts were telling me that I was sinning and needed to constantly pray in order to be forgiven. From the time of being 10 years old up until a few years ago, I was dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder. Unlike most people, my case was far more severe than the average individual with this particular disorder. At the age of 10 that was when I was first diagnosed. My parents had no idea what was wrong with me prior to being diagnosed with the disorder. It was a time for me in my life that was really chaotic; not only for me, but for my parents, too. Prior to being diagnosed, my parents had believed that I was going crazy. My actions were out of control to be blunt. They witnessed me doing these strange rituals/routines that would creep them out. I do not blame my parents as back then, I really was out of control. My disorder was out of control… Moving forward, my parents got so fed up with what was going on that they scheduled an appointment for me at one of the most prestigious hospitals; UCLA. There was a very long process of getting rid of the OCD. Therapy was one of the most grueling processes of the entire ordeal. Over the course of two months, I had went to therapy every single day from 8AM to 1PM. The drive to the therapy session was a whopping 2 hour drive from my home. Driving each and every day to therapy was rough for me. No one wants to drive 2 hours to see a specialist. However, it was necessary in order for me to get better. At that point in my life, my parents and I were willing to try anything if it meant me getting better. After a ...