Where do you fit?

Based on the film "Unnatural Causes," please describe where you would fit on the ladder? 

    When it comes to the Unnatural Causes documentary, I realized that I need to take better care of my health, and I need to make sure I learn how to relieve my stress. I come from a low-income family. My mother is a single mother with two children, which I am the oldest of. I helped my mother raise my little brother. Even now, as a college student, my mother struggles a lot financially. To help her, I work full-time, and I go to school full time. 

    While watching this video, it made me realize a lot about my family. All three of us are very unhealthy; we are all overweight, battling our own health problems. When it comes to me, my health reached an all-time low in college. My mother kept blaming the school for my bad health problems, but I kept ignoring her. She has begged me countless times to drop out of school because she eas worried I would die, but I didn't believe that school was the cause of my bad health. I blamed it all on my bad eating and my lack of exercise. 

    In my first semester of college, I was still a bit active, but my eating habits and sleeping habits weren't the best. I don't remember much about my freshman year, but from what I do remember, I was always under a lot of stress, and I started to become depressed. I remember still feeling alone and sad. I just remember a lot of pain. I don't know the details, so I think I must've naturally blocked it out. 

    In my second semester, my habits started to catch up with me. In my physics class, I kept thinking there was a "lighting problem." It wasn't until I asked my friend and he mentioned that the lights aren't switching on and off. When I went to see a doctor that day, she told me I was under so much stress that my body attacked my eyes. She said if this kept going, I could go blind. She then diagnosed me with a form of depression. At the end of that same semester, I was rushed into the ER for ovarian cysts. Apparently, I had a few of them pop during that semester, but I used to be in pain that I kept ignoring them. It wasn't until the pain made it hard to function from day to day basis. 

    In my third and fourth semester, I don't remember much. I just remember constantly battling my mental health. I just remember a lot of pain, tears, loneliness, and wanted to feel understood. I don't remember much of what happened that entire year. I think I kept getting sick that year because my housemate kept getting me medicine and my friends would bring me soup or fresh honey for tea. I also had the worst dandruff I had ever gotten, it got so bad that my scalp became inflamed. 

    In my fifth semester, I was hospitalized with pancreatitis. They kept me on the surgical floor because they wanted to make sure that they would be ready to do surgery on me at any moment. My amylase and lipase levels were extremely high that it became dangerous. To help get it down they had to put me on NPO, which meant I had to have nothing taken orally. No food or water. Then I took a leave for the next semester due to all the health problems.

  From my sixth to the eighth semester, I got in a car accident driving to Modesto. I was a home health care aid that worked the Noc shift, from 10pm-6am. I was a bit tired and I was taking the back roads instead of the freeway. I rolled down the hill and landed near the almond trees. I realized when I get really stressed out my scalp becomes inflamed and will continually peel. I get UTI's almost every month due to constantly holding in my bladder while I'm at work or school. 

    Currently, I'm in my ninth semester and I work full time as a Home Health Cair Aide with the Noc shift but now in Merced. I try to focus more on learning how to release my stress and take care of my workload. I haven't gone to the doctor but I think I have another UTI because I can feel the pain, it makes it hard to sleep. I'm just so used to going to the restroom once or forgetting to go that I don't notice that I need to go until extreme pain kicks in. My apologies for all the details, but writing this down helped me really understood how much stress correlated with my situation. It seems my mother was right.

If you were a 5th example in the film, where would you fit (between which people?).

    In the film, I believe I would be an extreme example. I would showcase the toll that stress has been doing to my body.