Mindfulness Audio Essay

The speaker was babysitting two girls when she discovered that her best friend and ex-boyfriend were dating. She felt betrayed and angry, and immediately blocked them on Snapchat. She struggled with overwhelming emotions and resentment in the following months. To cope, she focused on her softball team and practiced physical activities to channel her anger. Therapy didn't work for her, but medication helped with anxiety and depression. She realized the importance of communication in relationships and plans to strengthen her current ones by addressing issues as they arise. I had just put the two little girls I had been babysitting to bed. One was about five and the other was about three. It was only the second time I had babysat the two, but they were sweet and loving. The girls' parents were not going to be home for another hour or so, so I had time to study for my AP psychology exam coming up. I sat at their kitchen table with my textbook and notes when I got a text from their parents. They were leaving the restaurant and would be home in about 20 minutes, so I started packing up all my things. I started to scroll through my phone as a reward for studying so much. However, when I opened Snapchat, I saw that my best friend Kaylee posted a picture with my ex-boyfriend Seth on a putt-putt date. My mind began to race. I had caught them sneaking around together while we were still dating, but I had confronted them before. They said it was nothing, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I told my best friend I was supposed to give her the benefit of the doubt. My face began to heat up. There was adrenaline running through my limbs all the way to my fingertips. I just wanted to yell or throw something. I could finally feel the knife that had been in my back for who knows how long. As I went to confide in another friend about what I had just seen, I saw that two or three people had already texted me about what they had seen. Another wave of heat washed over my face. I was embarrassed. I felt like the idiot who let her boyfriend cheat with her best friend. How could I be so stupid? Eventually, my friend Kyla confirmed what I had thought all along. Seth had cheated on me with my best friend. My silly little world felt like it had flipped upside down. The flood of overwhelming information all happened in the 20 minutes I had before the parents came home. My face was blotchy and tear-stained. I knew I could not look the way I did when the parents got home, so I rinsed my face off with the cold bathroom sink water. Finally, the parents made it back, and they asked me how their girls were, as any parent would. I told them they had been great, even though my mind was elsewhere. I quickly left the crime scene. I did not even wait for my windshield to defrost before driving down the street. I drove home in tears. When I returned to my house, I immediately ran upstairs to my room. The room filled with so many memories of Kaylee and me. As I walked through my bedroom door, I was met by my parents fixing the TV I had hanging up. Despite my efforts to hide my tears, they still knew something was wrong. I started to explain to my parents what had happened, and I broke down again. I was so mad at Kaylee. She had been my best friend for almost four years, and we were the closest thing to sisters you could get without actually being sisters. How could she do this? While I talked to my mom, I went on Snapchat and blocked both Kaylee and Seth. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with either of them. Within the hour, Kaylee texted me, asking why I blocked her. How could she have the audacity to ask me why I blocked her? I immediately replied with vicious, lengthy texts. I had never lashed out as I had in those texts, but it was better than the preferred alternative of me going to her house and screaming at her. She could not even respond to those texts for three days. In most situations when I am angry or upset, I hold my tongue. This is primarily because there is a buildup of things that are making me upset or annoyed. It is generally very gradual, so much that I don't realize how much it has been irritating me. I only start to think about things when they get too overwhelming. I will feel a weight in my chest. It feels like I cannot breathe or I have no control over my body. This is because my emotions have been suppressed for so long that they begin to manifest themselves physically. I cannot talk about or vocalize those overwhelming emotions or thoughts immediately either, though. I must give myself time to figure out what is going on in my head before I can talk to or confront anyone or thing. When I found out about Kaylee and Seth, there was so much anger, betrayal, confusion, and sadness all at once. That is why I reacted out of anger immediately. It was the strongest emotion that took control. I had never been hit with such rage before, so I did not know how to digest what was happening and what I was feeling. The months that followed were filled with resentment. I despised the two of them, the school I was trapped in with them, the entire county that seemed to know about it, and the world in general. Why did this have to happen to me? This is the type of stuff that you see in movies. You would never think it actually happens in real life, and especially not to me. I was angry at everything, and I could not put my frustration anywhere. During those months, I was bombarded with questions from people that barely knew me. Everyone wanted to get the inside scoop. No one actually cared for me when I was explaining what happened, and no one thought about how it felt for the situation to be my entire life for those months. It felt like I was being suffocated. Everywhere I looked, Kaylee and Seth were there in some way, and I couldn't escape. So I started to give more time to myself and people I could see real relationships in. I started to hang out with my teammates from softball. Kaylee also played softball with me, so I knew I would have to become closer with some of the other girls on the team to enjoy softball. I grew closer to Kato, who is my age, and Jackie, who is two years younger. They became my rocks. We were always goofing off and laughing, and I was starting to feel like myself again. I also began to practice more in general. Whenever I got overwhelmed or frustrated, I would hit off the tee. It would help me to channel my anger physically. Since then, I have continued to channel my emotions physically. I'll go for a run, hit off the tee when I go home, or go driving. It has proven to be effective so far. Three years later, I still use those coping mechanisms because they work for me. I tried therapy after everything happened. My doctor and I had discussed it before, but it just worked out that I would start therapy after the fact. Therapy did not seem to be very effective for me. Strangely, it made my mental health worse. I had to leave school a lot more often in the middle of the day because I was having anxiety or panic attacks, and I could not even bear the thought of having to be in a building full of people. I dealt with everything I had gone through by myself in the past, and it worked for me. I was and still am medicated for my anxiety and depression, and that has kept everything balanced enough for me. As I have gotten older and moved into this new stage of my life, I have realized that my bottling everything up and dealing with everything myself is not going to work forever. These lifelong relationships I am building and maintaining cannot be sustained if I neglect communication. Kaylee and Seth's cheating was an embarrassing and lousy situation for a 16-year-old girl to go through in small town, but it also made me realize that there were many flaws to Kaylee and I's relationship. There were many issues that were never discussed. We were very codependent on each other. She would upset me with some of the things she would say, and I am sure I did the same. No friendship or relationship is ever perfect, but there are ways to build them to be stronger, and there are times when they need to be let go. By working on communicating with the people in my life, I plan to strengthen my current relationships. I plan to identify the things that irritate, upset, or anger me when they first do, instead of waiting to address them. It will help me avoid resenting someone because I am too afraid to say something or ask anything. It would give me a better piece of mind knowing that I am surrounded by people that I love and that love me.