DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
The Print Essay
Please use the set-up of the traditional print essay shown below as the format for the essays you turn in for this class.  Please do NOT use high school-styled headings in this class.  Give your essay a title, include your name and date.  That is all.  Please also double-space paragraphs and single-space sentences.  This will help you if you choose to go digital with one of your print essays later.

Writing from the Inside and Letting My Emotions Out

by Rosibel Ventura

September 5, 2013

“Can I just disappear right now?”  I am pretty sure we have all been in weird situations where we think this or say it out loud. But what if you really want to disappear because you can’t handle it anymore? Who do you ask for help or what do you do?

 

I was lucky enough to find one artist to look up to. Her name is Demi Lovato. Demi started her career on the show “Barney and friends,” then the Disney channel movie “Camp Rock” as Mitchie along with the Jonas Brothers. After the second movie came out, “Camp Rock 2,” she started touring with the Jonas Brothers.  In the middle of the tour, she had to leave and enter a treatment facility to fight her physical and emotional issues. Demi dealt with bullying since a small age; she also had self-esteem problems which led her to suffer from eating disorders and feeling the need to harm herself. She was also diagnosed with bipolar issues, but that didn't stop her from continuing her career and inspiring other teenangers. I've been a huge fan of Demi since she first came out, but I felt more connected to her after I heard her song “Believe in Me” which talks about trying to feel beautiful and accepted by others.

 

Like Demi, I have suffered from low self-esteem problems since I was a little girl. I've always been shy and quiet around people. When I was eleven or twelve, I started to realize that all my friends were growing and I wasn’t growing at the speed that they were. I felt like I wasn't pretty enough or skinny enough, the feeling you get when you don’t feel comfortable in your own body, when everything around you seems prettier than you are.   

 

I hurt myself in so many ways. I started to develop an eating disorder. Because I didn’t want to be “fat,” I just didn’t eat. I also became isolated from my friends and my own family just because I didn’t feel pretty enough to be out. When I went out, I acted like everything was alright and I was a happy girl, always smiling and living life.  But just like Demi, I had a breaking point. When I was in my junior year of high school, I had an anxiety attack and I tried to harm myself. I was lucky enough to not go to an extreme, but the problems came afterwards.  After the incident, I had to go through a series of appointments with a psychologist to help me get through the day. At the beginning, it was hard, because I had to talk about my problems to someone I didn’t know, so I felt uncomfortable.  I had to start believing in myself again and gain confidence to actually go out and socialize with others. After a couple of sessions, I was feeling better. I had new friends and I was getting along with my family.

 

Today, I feel the best I have ever felt in my whole entire life. I can't ever cure my self-esteem problem, but I have had to learn how to deal with it and how to live my life with it.

 

When I isolated myself from the world, I started using writing as a way to express my feelings and the way I felt about my body and my looks. I wrote stories about girls that had the problems I had; some of them made it out alive, but some didn’t. Since I wasn’t confident enough to talk to others, I wasn’t confident with my work either so I kept it all to myself. When I realized that Demi had the confidence to show her songs, I tried to do the same thing with my stories.

 

I look up to Demi Lovato a lot now; her music inspires me to keep going every day. I see her as an example of someone who went through some of the things that I had to go through but came out successful and used her experience to inspire others like me. Because of her, I am learning how to write and actually feel proud of my writing. I believe that to write something that you love, it has to come from your heart. Little by little, I am learning how to write from the inside and let my emotions out through my writing. Just like Demi uses songs to tell her story, I use writing, because I feel if I can inspire one person, then everything I went through was worth it and has a meaning. Right now, I believe I am a writer in the making who is going to help a lot of people, just like Demi helped me with her music.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.