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Hey guys-
I’m back and better than ever, It’s been a minute since I have posted anything I know…. The reason I haven’t posted anything, is why today’s post is happening! Today’s post is about threats! My blog has always been a space where I have shared intimate details about my personal life, some fun posts, and some serious posts about issues such as homelessness. However, it has never been a place where I assumed I would get enough attention to attract hate. If you follow my blog, you know that I shared a post about sexual assault. A singular post about two accounts in which I was assaulted. That blog post caused someone to reach out to me and call me a number of names, berated me until I took the post down, saying not to “make them come make me take the post down themselves.” This person told me I have no right to say I was a victim, and whenever they pass me on campus, to this day, they cough and yell, “bitch!” The name calling in person has happened multiple times, I think four times now. I don’t think it’s something anyone should stand for so naturally, I’m writing about it. Sexual assault is a very hard thing to deal with in the first place and no one should feel “bad” or be “shamed” for sharing their story. For people like me, writing was my way of coping with what had happened. It is not in anyone’s right to bully someone for sharing something that doesn’t even concern them. I am beyond appalled by this person’s behavior and I hope that no one ever has to deal with someone as naive as the person who decided to target me. If this has ever happened to you, I am sorry. If this ever happens to you, (which I really hope it does not), please feel free to reach out to me. No one should deal with something like this alone. XOXO, Em I would like nothing more than to crack open a cold-pressed juice with the ladies, treadmill days are for the girls, am I right?
If your loved one suffering from juice-cleanse-itis you may want to have an intervention ASAP. Symptoms include drinking only juices for meals, complaining about “if only I could eat that entire pizza and piece of cake… but I’m on this juice cleanse so I can’t, UGH!” OR of course if the insta, snap, insta story contains a green drink… they may have this diagnosis. Additionally, if they complain about how badly they ate last week and a juice cleanse will fix it all is also a symptom. These people are VERY dangerous so don’t DARE to question why they are doing such a thing, they turn into godzilla because they are hangry. Also, God forbid they eat ANYTHING on this cleanse because then… obviously... all of the starvation will be ruined. Juice cleanses have been a trend for a while now. People use this trend as an excuse not to eat or as a rapid way to “undo” the bad eating they might have indulged in. While this may be effective, it is in no way healthy. The reason they aren’t healthy is because people abuse them. People use them as a meal replacement which they aren’t supposed to be. I know this because I used to do the same thing. I would use juice cleanses as a meal replacement when I was afraid to eat a full meal. I would get irritable and I would make excuses about not eating because I was on this juice cleanse. I would complain about how hungry I was because I wanted people to know I wasn’t eating. What I have learned since then is that juice cleanses are unnecessary, if you feel so bad about how you ate, eat a vegetable, meal prep, anything but a cleanse! Clean your closet, go for a run, organize something. Any of those things will give you the satisfaction of control that most people feel when they lose control in terms of their eating. While these aren’t permanent fixes, there are so many alternative, healthier, and tastier options than turning to drinking juiced vegetables. XOXO, Em The front door creaked opened and in walked a man with a bent up orange hat, a beaten up leather jacket, and long unwashed hair that was held by a rubber band in a ponytail.
“I’m here for community service, here are my papers.” He said. “Hi y’all my name is Mark.” The March for Our Lives on Saturday March 24, left the streets of D.C. overflowing with signs, posters and trash for the Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District maintenance crew to clean up. One member of that crew was Mark. Mark is a 56-year-old white man who has been homeless for eight months. He said he’s been living in the New York Avenue homeless shelter. Mark muttered to himself something unintelligible about why he had 48 hours of community service given to him by local authorities. He was assigned to work with a man named Anthony Davenport, an employee of Downtown D.C. BID. It is not uncommon to see local homeless individuals performing community service time and time again. Recent recidivism rates for local inmates, who have committed one additional offense, hit 79.9 percent in the most recent fiscal year, according to the D.C. Department of Corrections. The rate for two time offenders is 14.8 percent, dropping to 5.4 percent for three or more relapses. Mark is originally from Montana and came to D.C. to talk to Trump about the $71 million lawsuit he filed against the government for racial discrimination. “I came here to talk to Trump, but he don’t wanna talk to me.” Mark said. “They weren’t giving me no jobs for no reason!” Then he started to sing a song Jon Pardi released within the past two years, “I got a little dirt on my boots.” While Mark angrily threw trash into his red bin he talked about his life in Montana and his job in the Carpenters union. “I was being paid $29 an hour, what idiot leaves that kind of job.” Mark said. He continued to talk about his past and how his wife back died from alcoholism. “She drank until she turned yellow.” Mark said. Mark added that ever since his wife died he has suffered from delusions. “I was eleven years sober.” Mark said. “Then I took one shot of tequila, and that was it.” He started to sing again, “I got a little dirt on my boots.” Mark talked about how his mother had left him 24 tracts of land in Montana, nine of which he sold and got $10,000 for. “I tried to put that money in the bank.” Mark noted. “I only put in $2,000 and took out $8,000. I spent that $8,000 in one week partying like a rockstar.” Mark said he needs to get his act together and get back to Montana to his high-paying job. “It’s my delusions that brought me here.” Mark said. He claimed the only way he is going to be able improve his life is by going to Alcoholics Anonymous and bettering his relationship with God. He wanted to start this process by fulfilling his community service hours. He wants to get them finished so he can get back to Montana and work. “This man I met, offered to pay for my ticket back to Montana so I can start working again.” Mark said. During his lunch break, he sat down in McDonalds and befriended another homeless man. “I want a buddy to come along with me in my travels.” Mark said. “But I told this guy, ‘you have to go get a social security card and a government I.D. so you can come with me.’” Mark admitted that he didn’t think this other homeless guy would leave his alcoholic lifestyle to get his act together like Mark wanted to do. Mark looked down with a disappointed face and started singing again, “I got a little dirt on my boots.” B.I.D’s Davenport kept observing to himself, “I think he’s still delusional.” The day came to an end and Mark brought his trash can back to base. “Four more days and then back to Montana.” Mark said. He started singing again, “I got a little dirt on my boots.” Mark handed in his vest and said, “See you guys tomorrow, 7:15 sharp!” Then he walked out the door. A week or so later, the homeless shelter had no record of Mark remaining in residence. Hey guys,
So I decided today I’d share some insight on how to get through midterms and Monday’s. This will be a list of eight things that will hopefully help ease some of the stressors of midterms, Monday’s or just in general! One of the reasons I started this blog was because it made my Monday’s a little bit better and hopefully it does the same for you! SO. Because some of us have midterms this week…I will keep it short. But look forward to a good story next week because I know everyone will want some good reading material over spring break. ~I know I do~ How to get through Monday’s & Midterms
~Joking… but now that song is going to be stuck in your head for the rest of the day *cough* you’re welcome. *cough* ~ Ok for real now...
I hope that you can take something from this list and work it into your Monday or midterm schedule! ~RELAX~ See you next week! XOXO, Em Everyone has that one person in their friend group that always likes to stir the pot. That person who loves drama and tells everyone everything... as if it is a feat to know the most information.
"Gretchen Wieners knows everybody's business, she knows everything about everyone. That's why her hair is so big it's filled with secrets" You know that... yet you still trust them with things because you would like to believe that they are different with you. Got a friend like this? I know that friendship is so important. However, keeping the right friends is even more so. Sophomore year of high school I was a part of a really destructive friend group. There were four of us. We referred to ourselves as the Pretty Committee and I am pretty sure that we are the only people that referred to ourselves at that. How highschool, right? We always sat together at lunch, we had a ring leader, one day we even wore pink on Wednesday. Let’s call our ring leader Regina George because it was just as cliche as that.. Uggs were a big no. Aaron Samuels, the boyfriend, made that huge mistake once. He wore these to Regina's Sweet 16 party and was heavily reprimanded for doing so. The flowers that he brought for Regina didn’t even make up for his fashion faux pas. After telling Regina that getting mad at Aaron was unreasonable, I was banned from the group. God forbid someone disagreed with Regina. My best friend and I, after our freshman year, had definitely had our fill of drama to last us the rest of highschool. We wanted nothing to do with this girl. She was the type of person that would talk about each of us to each other and expect none of us to repeat anything. What she didn’t know, was that my best friend and I, because we lived together, would tell each other everything at the end of each day, that she had said about the other. A side note, this may not have been the best idea because it caused a lot of built up anger. I would like to thank Regina George, though, for saying everything she said. It allowed me to learn a strong lesson about trust. My best friend and I swore to that day that we would never do what she did to us, to each other and we never did. I am so lucky that to this day she is still my best friend and we have upheld that promise 100 percent. If I could give any advice to anyone who has a friend like this… they’re not worth your time. Surround yourself with people who will help you up, not bring you down. I know that may seem obvious, but I think if we are all honest with ourselves, a lot of our choices in life are more superficial than we think. Being in the popular group may seem more important than having true and long-term friendships. Let me tell you, it is not. The short-term gain might be rewarding but the long-term consequences that come along with hanging with the wrong people are not worth it in the slightest. Growing up, my mom always told me, “Anything you don’t want everyone to know, you keep to yourself.” It took me a long time to really internalize this. Thankfully, I can say I have met some people I fully trust. XOXO, Em Happy Monday, welcome to the central line of my life. Ugh, let me just get this off my chest... having an instagram account is one of the most stressful things I have done. I know some people will think, wow she must have no life, but if you do then you’re not seeing this how I do… so let me help you out. So I hope now you can see how this is a big stressor for me. Not only is there a massive amount of thought that goes into making an instagram post, but there is also the stress of how people will react to it.
What is a “like?” It is an endorsement of your life. It is a visual representation of social acceptance by anyone that has an instagram. We pride ourselves on how much exposure and acceptance our public life gets. Am I wrong? But wait; can we actually say that our instagram accounts are completely transparent? I don’t think so… at least, it’s not for me. Everyone posts what they think will be the most widely “liked.” Social media is a platform for editing how people perceive your life. Nobody realistically has a single-themed-beautifully-edited-problem-free-life. And that is the biggest problem with it, especially for people we follow that we view as role models. One of my biggest triggers was looking through my explore page and seeing super skinny, beautifully posed women with zero flaws. Everyone idolizes and endorses these women as a norm. In reality, very few people exist that look like this. It’s a very false representation of a “normal” woman, companies like Victoria’s Secret promote this, while companies like Dove have a “natural beauty” campaign. While I was struggling with my eating disorder, being able to accept my body as “normal” was my biggest problem because I viewed an ideal body as a Victoria’s Secret model’s body. The pressure that girls, boys, men and women face on a day to day basis to conform to these highly publicized norms is so high. My personal goal, is to make my social media, ie: Twitter, Instagram and Facebook more transparent. I know that saying I’m not going to worry about what people think at all isn’t true, because realistically, I will. But I’m working towards total transparency, starting with my blog. XOXO, Em If anyone has anything they would like me to write about, or would want to write and for me to share, feel free to email me : [email protected] “This is me” is not just a Demi lovato song, it is the title of my blog. It will contain my day-to-day struggles and experiences. So… here we go, this is me.
Hi, I’m Emily Insana. I am, paper due later- mental note, I have to drink more water today- mental note. Clean your room-mental note. Lose weight, eat better, be better, why can’t I be better?! Sorry. My mind kind of went rogue. What I meant to say is, I’m 19, I am in college, I go to George Washington University and I do NOT have a quiet mind. What you just experienced was a small example of what is constantly going on in my head. I most frequently find myself in this state while I am laying in bed. 1 am is my brain’s witching hour. I replay every event from the day and make it play out in 50 different ways, positively and negatively until my heart is racing. These are the most stressful hours of my day. I think of how I could have done something differently- better. Then I play that scenario in my head to put my mind at ease. I am constantly organizing and reorganizing my thoughts into a hierarchy of importance. I have always loved making lists, they create order in my life. I will make, remake lists about everything, especially things I cannot control. Sometimes I feel like I cannot control how I feel- like I’m riding on an emotional roller coaster that takes me from euphoria to sadness and back up. If I don’t try and rationalize it in my head it puts a lot of stress on my body. The way I have learned to deal with this best, is by making lists because it makes me feel like I have control of my life. Food lists, specifically, were one of my favorites. I have been afraid of becoming, “fat, like I was when I was 12.” Since freshman year of highschool my entire experience revolved around eating and not eating. When I would eat, I would, of course, write it down. The constant compliments of “ how good I look now,” would negatively reinforce how I functioned. Junior year was the worst of this. I stuck to a diet of special K bars, one for each meal, with an occasional fiber bar, if I got hungry. This was also paired with running, spinning, and body weight exercises. But no matter what I did, I was never satisfied with how I looked. I hated the person I saw in the mirror. I remember my lowest point so vividly. I was running, over the summer of my junior year, before the start of senior fall. I was only eating kale salad, once a day and drinking Bai energy drink to function during the day without eating a lot of food. I was going on 3 runs a day. I was on a 6 mile run one day and I almost passed out. I sat down on the side of the road and I started crying because I knew I didn’t have enough energy to finish my run but I felt like I hadn’t burned enough calories for the day. That was when I had my, “what are you doing to yourself,” moment. I was deathly afraid of eating, but I knew that if I wanted to keep running I needed to eat. I started adding things back into my diet, still healthy, but more food. My senior year I had created a healthy balance between food and workouts. These problems I still carry with me today as baggage, but I have gotten significantly better. Reflecting on everything I have been through, it has made me a stronger person. I am constantly reflecting on my actions and how I feel, and while this sometimes drives me to my mania of over thinking things, I have learned to control it better than it was in the past. This is the first time I have acknowledged what I suffer with on a day to day basis. It’s not something I like to talk about, or have talked about with anyone except my best friend, Sophia. She is the reason I have made it through all of this and still get through my, list- making- over thinking, tendencies. In the future, it is my goal to meditate more to calm my mind, and continue to use lists as a way to organize things without letting it get out of hand. I also plan to journal and write more, as a creative outlet to take what is in my mind and put it somewhere, rather than letting it build up and stress my body. |