SPEAK
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REDISCOVERING HAPPINESS AND LEARNING TO LOVE LIFE
Contributed photo
Two years later, all these self-righteous feelings finally started crumbling down on me. After one painful break-up and one unsuccessful semester, I was feeling pretty sad. I figured this was normal, and took the steps to improve things. I cut off toxic communication with the ex, started exercising and hung out more with friends. But a year later, despite having a good boyfriend and a full-ride, I was still sad, maybe even more so than I was before. My stoicism was slipping. Feelings of hopelessness and frustration came with growing frequency, and so did the dreaded tears. I lost confidence, I lost weight and I was losing my relationship. The breaking point came
I was never that close to my family growing up, not even Mom. She was emotional. Like cliche clockwork, she cried at the end of every Touched by an Angel episode and the occasional Hallmark commercial. She had the tendency to unknowingly wear her weariness on her face — at least I knew to mask mine — and I beatered her for it. She worried excessively about me. I mean, obviously I was perfectly capable of handling my own life at the age of 17. I preferred Dad's stoicism, and I tried to model myself after him. I vowed to never be weak like her.
Love/hate: After battling depression in college, writer Sarah Gregory discovered that her mother also suffered from the disease. Sarah's relationship with her mother has strengthened as she has experienced similar emotions and experiences.
One week and a round of pills later, it was time to tell the parents. This was the part I dreaded most. After all those years of being, as I saw it, the tough one of the group, I had to turn around and tell them that I wasn't even strong enough to keep my own head together. I finally mustered the courage and sent an email.
A few hours later, I was greeted with this response: "Welcome to the club; I've been on Prozac since you were 15. Love, Mom." Immediately, my mind snapped back through all those years, all those judgments I had made of her behavior. I did the natural child-like thing
one sunny Sunday afternoon last November when, despite my boyfriend's insistence to the contrary and my own common sense, I collapsed sobbing at his feet, convinced I was utterly ugly and unlovable. Faced with an ultimatum (either I got help or he got going), I finally swallowed my pride and went to a doctor at Watkins Student Health Center. After a half-hour of physical examinations and prodding questions ("How often do you experience these negative emotions?" "Always," "Have you ever thought about killing yourself?" "... Never"), I had an official diagnosis: depression.
and blamed myself, thinking that if only I had been a little more empathetic and a little less ruthless, then maybe she would never have been sad either.
Finally, I picked up communication with my sister, younger than me by four years, whom I never previously had a relationship with, mostly due to stubbornness. I gave her advice on hairstyling (we share the same unruly curls), on boys (we don't coincide on that one), and on scholarship interviewing. In return, she told me
My relationships with my dad and sister evolved as well. I became more sympathetic toward my father, who had had to deal with the same things as my boyfriend - not just for months, but years. I realized that the stoicism I so admired was a coping device in itself, and that even the other 'tough guy' of the group could use some comfort now and again.
Once the guilt passed, I used our newfound similarity as a stepping stone to finally building a relationship. We started sharing stories about our lives, instead of shielding each other from them. We talked of sex and recipes and God. Mom kept on worrying about me, and I learned to appreciate it.
how to subsist off of more than Hot Pockets and Cheez-its. No matter how seemingly trivial the conversation, it was most important to me that I did what I could to make sure she never felt unwanted or unsuccessful, as I had so many times before.
In the year since my diagnosis, I have begun to rediscover how to love life, and how to love family. Healing my mind and body is taking time, as all things worth fixing do. I am still on my prescription indefinitely, and I could stand to gain a few pounds (I'm sure I'll be kicking myself for saying that in twenty years). As I finish this (in front of the television, as all good writers do), that damned Sarah McLachlan commercial comes on, the one where she serenades mutilated puppies and kittens to the tune of "Angel." There's that one-eyed dog, and here comes that first itching of tears. It's okay to have them, though. I know something now I didn't as a teenager. I realize that it is okay to be sad, but it is better to be happy, and that the key to achieving happiness lies in those around me — like my family, the ones who have been there all along. Jp
changed ner lite.
Kristen Tebow, a woman from Manhattan, just wanted to make friends her freshman year at Kansas State University. On a typical weekend night, she made plans with a new friend from marching band. She and her newly found friend visited a typical bar on the outskirts of Manhattan. Tebow's friend got her a drink; a few moments later she felt like the "world went crazy" and passed out in the bar's bathroom.
The next morning she woke up naked in a hotel room just outside Manhattan, covered in bruises and scratches. Seven naked men slept on the floor around her. The men paid Tebow's friend to drug and bring her to the hotel. Her friend set her up for a night she would never forget. She turned into a victim of sex trafficking that night. All she wanted to do was have a
out to be controlling.
Other Signs:
3. Putting you down - The controller doesn't only want to be in control of your actions, but also your emotions.
- Isolating you from friends and family
- Isolating you from friends and family
- Discouraging you from pursuing outside interests
- Perpetually blaming you for his or her own actions (anger, cheating,yelling, etc.)
- Embarrassing you in public
- Constantly discounting your feelings
- Cycling through moods
Adapted from The Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety
little fun in college.
Thursday night, Tebow took back that night from those seven
"I just wanted somebody to hold me at that point," Tebow said. "I was crying for my dad."
men and her "friend."
Incidents like Tebow are not uncommon. And just like Tebow, survivors of sexual assault, rape,
SEE AWARENESS ON PAGE 3A
Dalton Gomez/KANSAN
The Clothesline Project was a visible contribution to Take Back the Night Thursday evening. Victim and supporters created shirts to hang on the clothesline to tell their stories or to send a message about domestic violence.
HEALTH
Filling the gap in children's scoliosis treatment
University researchers are working on a more accurate spinal model
BY MEG LOWRY
mlowry@kansan.com
For every 1,000 children in the United States, three to five will develop scoliosis severe enough to require surgery. However, there are zero model pediatric spines to guide the course of treatment.
Lisa Friis, assistant professor in mechanical engineering, said there are no available spines from deceased children with scoliosis to be modeled off of.
"Unfortunately, a 75-year-old
A federal grant of more than $1 million was awarded to the engineering department to fund spinal replica research. Friis, who has worked as a research scientist in orthopedics since 2001, said the grant was well-founded.
male's spine does not really represent a 12-year-old girl's, but this is what they are using to test spinal implants on," Friis said.
don't have as high of success rates as other surgeries, so these are the types of things we are looking at now"
"The spinal industry is about 15 to 25 years behind other areas of orthopedics," Friis said. "Some spinal surgery procedures still
"The spine is a series of connected joints," Friis said. "If you do something to one level, it will affect all levels up and down. If we can create models and find how treatment influences functions on adjacent levels, we will be able to design implants better."
The lab has successfully created a model of an adult lumbar spine, which has enabled researchers to now begin creating a pediatric model spine.
These kinds of surgeries include spinal implants and fusions, which are used to treat scoliosis.
Erin Lewis, a graduate student in bioengineering from Fort Scott, said medical device companies rely on a scaled-down model of an adult spine, which can lead to error and confusion.
"Babies are much more flexible, for example, and in some places have cartilage instead of bone," Lewis said. "Those kinds of properties just don't change overnight, so we are trying to find out how surgeries can work with that."
Lewis leads a group of graduate students and undergraduate students who help with the research. The group works closely with a pediatric surgeon from Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City,
Mo., and medical device companies, which offer their insight. Creating a pediatric spine replica with nothing to work off of and measure from creates many challenges. For example, the engineers know that children are more flexible and their tissues are less dense, and that they will grow. However, they do not know to what extent.
"It's extremely difficult to create a model of a spine when we don't know the target values and also incorporate somehow the physiological changes that occur in kids," Lewis said.
Scoliosis surgeries involve
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men
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a Agostinho have made transitions.
STION | 6A
tain for
ntics' board of leadership changes to its side opinions
eers
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tnree slots at contest
Designs made by students won the top three spots at the Aviation, Technology Integration and Operations conference in Texas.
Classifieds...6A
Crossword...4A
Cryptoquips...4A
Opinion...5A
Sports...10A
Sudoku...4A
INDEX
TODAY'S WEATHER
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Check out our interactive guide for the different areas of the spine at kansan.com.
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© 2010 The University Daily Kansan
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