To the people that helped me fight back,

Thank you for saving me from myself. Thank you for believing in me and giving me guidance. Thank you for encouraging me to always push myself to be the best person I could be. Thank you for never giving up on me.

The past year has been one of the most difficult of my life, and there's no doubt that I wasn't way harder on myself than I should've been. Although I was forced to face a copious amount of strenuous events within the past several months, I let it engulf me. Moments of weakness are okay, but I extended just simple moments into what I thought would be my entire life. I never thought I had the ability to rise above the weights that I let pull myself down, but thanks to you, I managed to accomplish just that.

Without you, I wouldn't have been able to teach myself the value of having good people in my life. I wouldn't have learned the genuine importance of love and how it makes us all better people. I wouldn't have been able to acquire the motivation to shape myself into the person I thought I could only dream of being. You taught me to compose myself and fake-it until I made it, and never failed to consistently encourage me. You aided me in becoming aware of the potential I had to be the best I could possibly be, and I couldn't thank you enough.

Most importantly, thank you for allowing me to come to the realization that life goes on. Thank you for advising me to believe that I'm worth so much more than I attempt to convince myself I am, and giving me hope for what the future holds. Thank you for guiding me to my current mindset of believing I am above the self-deprecation my mind withholds and convincing me that I can replace it with self-empowerment. Thank you for believing that I could survive the storm. Thank you for teaching me to fight back.

(Also just want to say a special thank you to myself because I used to have a tendency to not give myself enough credit for everything I've accomplished. So, thank you, me. Thanks for not letting me give up on myself.)