If you’re anything like me (that is, an introverted extrovert), you pick up on even the slightest changes not only inside of yourself but also in the world around you. As a kid, I always felt and was always told that this was a sensitivity that needed to be snuffed out — a sensitivity to the harsh realities of the world that would only leave me weak and miserable.

Now a young adult, I find myself straying further and further away from the scrutiny of those voices and instead allowing this sensitivity to guide me through life. I’ve learned that this awareness and connection to yourself in relation to the world around you is a gift, a power even, that is otherwise unobtainable unless you truly sit with yourself. It is a gift gradually earned through blood, sweat and many, many tears.

As an adolescent, I found the dichotomy of introverted extroversion to be one that left me wide open to what at the time felt like the big, bad world. I always felt as though I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for a test or a moment that would stunt me for once. You feel invincible when you are young, and at the time, I really didn’t know what it was like for the world to stop spinning, and I with it. I only really knew the fluid motion of my awareness. When the other shoe finally did drop, I was stopped in my tracks for the first time in my life.

In April of 2023, after the passing of a very dear friend, I was devastated. I was only a sophomore in high school, 16 at the time, and had never dealt with loss in a capacity that I was old enough to understand. Around the same time, another close friend was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a devastating diagnosis. I could not make sense of the way that I was feeling, nor could I make sense of a world in which loved ones could suffer so greatly or pass away so suddenly.

My grief and sadness consumed me, and even more so, guilt consumed me over the thought that I could be so devastated when their families were struggling more than I was.

I forced myself to internalize my feelings for the sake of remaining strong and fair to those around me; as a result of my refusal to acknowledge my own feelings, I developed worsened anxiety, heavy depression and a severe eating disorder. For months, I was running every day after meals, sometimes multiple times a day, and living off fewer than 800 calories a day.

I listened to the same rotation of sad songs about loss, disillusionment and heartbreak until I almost made myself sick. I stopped indulging in the hobbies I’d once loved like reading, writing and even stopped praying, which was devastating as my faith was and always has been a huge part of my life. I didn’t sleep, and when I did, I had nightmares — I was an all-around mess.

In the midst of the deepest rut of my life, I woke up one day and realized I was allowing myself to perpetuate a cycle of misery that was only destroying me from the inside out. I suddenly understood that my habits that once seemed like outlets for my grief were now roadblocks to my health. I knew that I needed to change before I lost myself entirely, and at that time I began learning to reinvent and rebuild my life and perspective.

Up until this point in my life, I never recognized overhauling my life as a means of renewing my mental health. Over the course of a year, however, I inadvertently found myself doing just that — listening to joyful music despite a lack of joy (shoutout to ‘The Age of Worry’ by John Mayer), sleeping in spite of my fear of dreaming, writing when I felt I could not find the words, eating even when I did not feel worthy of it and confiding in loved ones — all things my grief had stolen from me.

Through this journey, I learned that my sensitivity to the world was nothing without adaptability, without the ability to observe and reinvent my struggles as strongholds. I urge you, when you stumble, to take a step back and redirect yourself. Find a way to live alongside your pain until you outlive it — it is the most important thing you can do for yourself.

Riley Sanders is an 18-year-old biology major from Denham Springs, La.