My name is Kassandra Nolet, and I am a Canadian that lives just west of the Buffalo border in a small town. I am currently in my senior year at Daemen College, majoring in psychology while focusing my extra time on running track and cross country. Something I have given much thought to, and would like to use my voice to talk about, is living through and surviving trauma while acknowledging mental health. Oftentimes, people affiliate mental health with a negative connotation due to the surrounding stigma. What is already so widely known is one in four people will be affected by and/or suffer from issues related to mental health. Unfortunately, mental health issues and neurological disorders can happen to anyone at any time, and it can affect more than just the person who is mentally struggling. It has the ability to affect each and every person who involves themselves in the life of one who is struggling. My experience, for example, changed my perception permanently, so much so that since then I have considered myself to be overly optimistic and even so, more willing to help as many people as possible. Even if all I can do is listen.
At the young age of 17, I was placed in a complicated situation, one that would ultimately save someone’s life. However, at the time, I didn’t know that it would mean costing someone else their own life. Having been a lifeguard at a quarry at the time, I was able to save a woman's life from drowning. Little did I know that saving her life would mean the loss of a man’s life who was also drowning with her. Coping with such a flight or flight reaction, and my decision to save the woman still cost an overall loss, and was a lot for me to live with and carry at first. When the paramedics and the police had arrived, no one offered to help. They were “not qualified for the water”, so they stood by the cliff’s edge and watched me search for hours for the drowning man beneath me. With time, I finally realized that it was that day where the meaning of life exceeds all possible human explanations. Thus, it would be something that one would never be able to fully comprehend, especially not by me. More so, it was in that moment where I knew that I would never take another day of my life, or anyone’s life for that matter, for granted.
To most, it is a difficult task trying to understand something we cannot see or touch, let alone comprehend. In the case of mental health, if there is one thing I learned, it is that a positive mindset is the foundation for optimal happiness. We are not always able to control our circumstances; however, we are always able to control our reaction to the situation. Thus, we are able to better control the outcome. Though this experience could have been extremely detrimental for my own mental and physical health, I was able to come out the other end of the tunnel stronger than before. Had I not gone to therapy and accepted my experience, I may not be the same person that I am today. That was another struggle I faced, and one that challenged me, broke me and built me, and broke me again. And yet here I am, writing to the many who might also be struggling. Looking back now, I am very grateful for everything I have learned after being involved in such a traumatic event. I have learned the power of therapy and the extent in which it can improve one’s life, leading me to choose psychology as a major. This challenge allowed me to build resilience and I was able to use my strength to come out of this unfortunate event stronger.
So I’ll leave you with this to think about: optimism leads to positive thoughts and teaches us to see the good in the bad, the light in the dark. I challenge you to do the same as often as possible.
