Beyond the Surface, Monsters Crawl
By SIENNA EDWARDS
May is mental health awareness month. Mental health is incredibly important and often overlooked, and this pandemic has taken a toll on everyone's mental health in some way or another. With everything up in the air right now, with everything that is going on in the world right now, we can’t be certain about much, however, one thing we can be certain about is the way we treat others.
People are dying left and right; families that were once just beginning are now ending. There are so many stories that were left unfinished, chapters that were never written and that will never be written. With all the talk about death right now, it can be triggering for quite a few people. The world is in a very dark place right now and the last thing we need as a society is to add to that darkness; we should be creating light.
We’re so used to life moving so quickly, and we always want it all to stop and slow down for a moment. Here’s our chance and there’s no time like the present. Time is a gift and something people often take for granted and want more of. We have all the time in the world to slow down and change right now. We need to spend our time wisely.
The world has always been full of hate and darkness and fear; now, there’s no need to exacerbate it. We need to step up our game and start to be kinder.
Monsters walk among us everywhere we go and not the ones with green skin and black eyes from the movies, but the heartless people. The ones who spend more of their time tearing others down instead of building them up; the ones who break people who might have already been broken. Everyone's a little bit broken, but what separates a human from a monster among men is whether or not they remember that humans have hearts that can be broken.
From a young age, people are taught to be kind; unfortunately, this lesson didn’t stick for a lot of people. No matter what, any action will have a consequence, even if it doesn’t affect the person who did it.
With all this time on our hands, people think it is a good idea to take a moment and destroy someone else for their entertainment; this thought is actually sickening. The real monsters among men are not the ones we see in movies, they are the ones who make people forget their worth. Every life has value and everyone deserves to be here and no one deserves to be disrespected and treated like garbage, and I for one will not stand for it.
It is time to rise up and slay these monsters among men and turn them into a human again because every monster among men starts as a human.
A heart can break in one of two ways: it will make you want to break other's hearts too and shatter them (this is what happens to the monsters), or it can break you down and make you feel lost. It is time to fix their hearts so they can fix the ones they broke. Because when they break someone, the one who feels lost is left to pick up the pieces that the monster stole, but sometimes the monster takes the pieces with them because they are lost too, but they do not know how to ask for help, so they steal from others.
It’s time to rise above them and teach them to be kind and respectful. It’s time to teach people about empathy and discipline them because it is unacceptable to treat people with such immense amounts of disrespect and hate.
We are all stuck at home, it’s time to change the world. It’s time to make the world kind. It’s time to become the best version of ourselves, not the worst. It’s time to raise people up and create light in this time of darkness. It’s time to mend all that is broken.
If you or a loved one is thinking about taking your own life, please know that it will get better. The bad day will end and another one will begin; it might not be any better, but there will be a good day again, but you must live to see it. Reach out to others; someone cares about you, even if you do not feel like anyone does, you are not alone.
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Call the national crisis hotline: 1-800-273-8255.
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Happy mental health awareness month. Take care of your body and your mind.
SIDE NOTE:
Here is a message to all of the monsters who do not think twice about the decisions they make and how the consequences of their actions:
There are 24 hours in a day, 1440 minutes in a day, and 86,400 seconds in a day, and none of that time needs to be spent hurting others, online or in real life. You might think this is fun, whoever you may be, but others do not. What you are doing is wrong. It is hurting other people, making them question their worth and whether they should live or die. People’s lives are at stake here. Do you want to be the reason someone might die? Most people would not.
How do you sleep at night knowing what you are doing? Do you think it’s funny? Do you enjoy it? You are hurting people. Exploiting someone else for your pleasure is wrong. How could you do this to someone?
Take one second and step out of your little bubble and into the real world. People are dying, there’s a global pandemic. People’s lives are in danger and people are out there are risking theirs to take care of others, and what are you doing? Harassing people and hurting them. Bullying them, causing them to feel worthless, alone, and like garbage. The real garbage here is the way you are treating these people. These are human beings. They have cognitive ability, they have feelings, they have a heart, do not be the reason it breaks.
People out there have died, they committed suicide because of people like you. Their families and friends have forever been scarred because they’re gone. After all, sometimes it is just too hard to fight and they can’t deal with it anymore because people like you never know when to give it up, do they? They never know when to back down and wake up and see what they’re doing and the damage they have done. No, no people like you just keep going about their merry little lives and smile and laugh as if nothing is happening. Wake up, the world is full of people who feel worthless and hate themselves and who want to commit suicide.
Life is hard, but it should not be this hard, and there is no need for you to make it worse. You never know how much someone could be struggling, how close someone is to giving up and doing something they can’t take back. You can stop this though and change. Apologize to everyone you hurt, make it mean something. You don’t have to keep being this monster that you are. Why do you do it? For popularity? For clout? To fill some void in your life?
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One day it is not going to matter to you anymore and it will all be meaningless. But you know who it’s always going to matter to? The people you hurt. The people that you broke are forced to live with the pain that you caused them for the rest of their lives. They are the ones who your actions will always affect. They are the ones who are always going to live thinking that your words and actions are who they are. They’re the ones who are left to deal with the pain and try to fix the damage people like you did, the best way to help them is don’t cause the damage in the first place.
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There’s no need to exploit someone else for your own pleasure. Go on a walk, draw something, play the piano but never, ever be the reason someone might even consider whether they want to or deserve to live or die. Show them a reason to stay, not a reason to go; stop it and get it together.
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Apologize to the people you have hurt. Wake up and realize that your actions have consequences, even if they don’t affect you, it’s always going to affect someone else. Get it together and stop being a monster and start being a human being, because humans care about other people’s feelings too, monsters don’t. Think about what you’re doing and what you’re saying. Is that how you see yourself or is that how you want the world to see you?
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Check up on the people you love. Tell them how much they mean to you and that they matter and that you love them, you never truly know what might be going on inside their head. Be empathetic, validate their feelings, and listen and try to understand, do not shut them down and make them feel worse.