{"id":11592,"date":"2019-03-05T14:49:20","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T19:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=11592"},"modified":"2019-03-05T14:57:46","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T19:57:46","slug":"the-shield-and-recovery-a-personal-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/05\/the-shield-and-recovery-a-personal-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shield and Recovery &#8211; A Personal Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trigger warning <em>(Content Warning: Suicidal thoughts, suicide mention)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A lot of cool things happened in 2013. I went to the Honda Battle of the Bands, graduated high school, went to TNA Hardcore Justice, started college, and marched in the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade with my college marching band. That was also the year I really started to suffer from depression. How long the depression had been present before this point remains unknown, but I know that the end of my senior year of high school was rough. I chalked it up to &#8220;senioritis&#8221;, to knowing that I\u2019d be departing for the greener pastures of college soon. Looking back, the constant fatigue, low appetite, and random feelings of listlessness were definitely symptoms of depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ignoring the symptoms was fairly easy.\nAfter all, there was plenty to keep my attention occupied with graduation,\nstarting college, and marching season. There was also plenty of wrestling to\nkeep my mind off things as well. A lot of you know that I\u2019ve been a wrestling\nfan since I was a little girl. My room always had pictures of my favorite wrestlers,\nmostly cut-outs from the magazines. I\u2019d taken a bit of a hiatus from WWE in\n2009, choosing to focus on other promotions, but I\u2019d been coaxed back into it\nthrough a few friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then The Shield debuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At first I was taken aback by the abrupt\nappearance of three guys in black turtlenecks interrupting a match. I knew Dean\nAmbrose and Seth Rollins, having followed the careers of Jon Moxley and Tyler\nBlack. Roman Reigns was a stranger to me, but I liked his strength. Any\nreservations I had about them as a team went out the window when I watched\ntheir TLC match with Team Hell No and Ryback. I was hooked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the Shield continued their rise to\nthe top, my mental state began to deteriorate. I was able to perform well in\nclasses and ensembles, but behind closed doors I was a mess. I felt hopeless,\nuseless, and unlovable. I felt like I didn\u2019t really matter to anyone and that\nthe world would be better off without me. If you asked me what triggered these\nfeelings, I honestly couldn\u2019t tell you. Maybe it was the awkward living\nsituation with girls whom I had nothing in common with. Maybe it was the\ncrushing reality of just how bad some people really were. Maybe I had the potential\nall along for such feelings, but it had taken the physical, mental, and emotional\nstress of college to make it all bubble up to the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the midst of debating my life\u2019s worth,\nI continued watching the Shield. I loved the way they always had each other\u2019s\nbacks, how they considered themselves brothers, and how their individual\npersonalities shined through. I cut out several pictures of them from the WWE\nmagazines and adorned my dresser with them. Something about these guys kept me\ngoing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I developed my first official suicide plan\nin March of 2014. In my mind, I had reached the conclusion that my life was\nultimately worthless and I would do everyone a favor by being gone. But on the\nnight I was to go through with this plan, my friend called and said she had\ngotten us WWE tickets, mentioning my love of the Shield and how they would\nprobably be there. I committed to going to the event and sure enough, they were\nthere. When they came down the stairs to survey the crowd, Dean Ambrose was\nstanding right next to my seat. I\u2019m pretty sure I cried after the event. If I\nhad gone through with my plan, I wouldn\u2019t have gotten to see Dean up close and\nin the flesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In September of 2014, one of my best\nfriends committed suicide. I was filled with all kinds of emotions, ranging\nfrom guilt to anger. I felt betrayed by his actions, even though I had\nconsidered the same actions only a few months ago. And of course, I sought out\nShield content to ease the pain. We were in the middle of Seth\u2019s Authority\nstoryline and I related to the feelings of betrayal that Dean and Roman were\nexpressing. Seth wasn\u2019t dead but he had turned his back on his brothers, the\nsame way I felt that my friend had turned his back on me. And when I made that\nconnection, it hit me. The way I was feeling about his death, all the hurt and\nrage, was exactly how other people would feel about me. If I killed myself, I\nwould put others through the same torment I was feeling\u2026and hurting others is\nnever something I want to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fast forward over four years and I\u2019m still\nhere, still kicking. I still live with my depression, but it\u2019s a lot more\nmanageable. There are still times when I retreat into my own world to ride out\nthe depressive episodes, but they are further apart and I bounce back a lot\nquicker. I\u2019ve had therapy, cut out toxic people and mindsets, cut off my hair,\ngone to more wrestling shows, and started trying to live with a more positive\nattitude. It took a while to get where I am and I\u2019m forever grateful to Dean\nAmbrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns for providing that little bit of light\nin the tunnel when I thought I wouldn\u2019t survive. At the 2019 Royal Rumble, I\nhad the opportunity to tell Seth as such. Overcome with the emotion of that\nconfession, I also burst into tears when he won the Rumble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Shield will always hold a special\nplace in my heart because without them, there\u2019s a strong chance I wouldn\u2019t be\nhere to tell this story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">-Wynter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trigger warning (Content Warning: Suicidal thoughts, suicide mention) A lot of cool things happened in 2013. I went to the Honda Battle of the Bands, graduated high school, went to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-editorials","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-30Y","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/download-2.jpg?fit=700%2C392&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11594,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11592\/revisions\/11594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}