#alittlework

I am 21 years old and ive had 2 open heart surgeries. I had my first one at 4 months old back in 1996, and I just recovered from my second one which was done back in November of 2015. I suffer from congenital Heart valve disease . After years of waiting, my baby donor pulmonary valve finally got replaced with an adult donor valve.

This surgery was extremely stressful on my brain and body.  Sitting in that hospital bed waiting to get called in was one of the most heart dropping , stomach churning feelings anyone can ever experience. My anxiety was at 1000 and my mind kept overthinking "What if I die?" "What if it rejects my body?" I lived in fear for 48 hours. Right after its done they have to pull out 3 chest tubes while you're awake (those are the 3 X scars under my breasts) that pain I would not wish on my worst enemy.

After the surgery was done I had to stay at home for quite a long time. No work, no driving, and no exercise . Coughing, sneezing, and laughing destroyed me. It pounds on your chest and feels as if someone was stabbing you repeatedly. Sleeping was horrifying. Every movement was agonizing. My mother had to help me get outta bed, and get dressed.  I'm so thankful for her.. I felt helpless and vulnerable. My energetic self was so drained and tired . I felt as if the world was coming to an end.. Fast forward to January. Which was my "recovery month". I had a visit with my cardiologist. Only to find out that the results and X-RAYS came out beautifully . I was told that I healed amazingly and that the surgery went so well it was shocking. . By the grace of God all my physical pain suddenly disappeared. I was able to move, laugh, drive, work, and exercise. I tried to remain positive throughout it all , which was hard but necessary. Now I'm a personal trainer, and a shift leader at my other job. I've also completed a few 5ks, and I weight lift now.

I can't tell you how thankful I am for this surgery. It's opened my eyes and helped me become so positive. I hope to inspire others with this story . Don't ever be ashamed of your #scars . They are what make you who you are

@fergie 

Hey Fergs, My name is Amanda (aka Nanda) i’m 23 years old and I’m from Brazil, Rio De Janeiro.

I always tried to show myself like a happy person, always smiling and laughing, but inside my heart i always felt loneliness, emptiness and without hope in life. I passed through a difficult moment last year and a deep depression. I almost took my own life. And when i was at the hospital i remember crying and asking God why i had all those feelings of loneliness, emptiness and rejection in my heart, i was better and greater than that, i had many people who cared about me, family, friends, so why i did this? I went to therapy, i started changing some stuffs in my life to feel better and today after a year so difficult i see how blessed i was to get a second chance in life, how wonderful my life has been lately, unique moments, and one of this moments i was by your side this year, and i just have to thank you. A little work is definitely the anthem of my life.The phrase that most defines me is "cuz you a warrior more than you know". I was one of this warriors. Thank you for everything.🙏🏿✨

@fergie #ALittleWork #DoubleDutchess #Fergie @fergie

Every since I was a little girl a lot was going on in my life. My parents have 7 children and I'm the youngest. When I was 4 years old they divorced. But my dad didn't want to so he turned into a diffrent man ever since. All he did was trying to hurt my mom. He tried this using us agaist her, make us tell her things and trying to manipulate us into believing how horrible my mom was.

I never felt normal and always felt jealous of kids having parents that actually loved eachother. I always had the feeling I had to fight for attention when it came to my dad. He seemed so obsessed with my mom that the only reason he wanted to see us was just to annoy her.

But things went worse. One of my sisters got really depressed. It turned out she had borderliner. She tried to commit suicide a few times and my whole life felt even more unstable. She was hospitalized for around 2/3 years. Thank god after that everthing slowly started to get better.

I lost the contact with my dad when I was 13 years old. It was new year and I texted him I would be a little later at his house that day. He texted me back to stay away, so that's what I did. Ever since that day I walked into him a couple of times. He used to send me mails that he regrets it, other days he would mail me that I was dead in his eyes.

I feel 2 ways about this. One way make me feel horrible because my dad definitly needed help after the divorce and he is actually a really sad and lonely man. On the other hand I was a kid and he needed to be there for me. I needed him to be a grown man but he just couldn't bring that up for me.

I had to overcome all these things and im only 19 years old. I still don't feel too happy, but at least I survived every bad day so far. I came so far simply because music really saved me. I discovered Michael Jackson back in 2008 and he made me lose myself in the music. Still till this day I try to recover from bad days with music. I go to a lot of concerts because there in that little moment I can feel completely happy even if its just for a couple of hours. I love a lot of artists, I love them because they saved me everytime I need to get rid of reality.

And so did you @fergie. You saved me too, when the Dutchess dropped I was young, but so grown already too. I really felt happiness in your music. And with your second album I even feel more relatable. You touched me, made me feel a lot of feelings. It's so incredible what you can do to me. Listening to you brings a little magic to my life.

My name is Dimitar Milchev. I’m a 19-year old boy originally from Bulgaria, but now I live in Brighton as I’m studying fashion design here. I do feel okay now, but I have had numerous serious social, sort of, issues in the past. I’m a proudly open gay person, so I’ve been picked up on at school a lot for that. People would hate me for no particular reason, would point fingers at me, whispering “he’s gay” and being judgemental just because of the label “fag”. I’ve had many occasions when I was beaten up. There was this boy which I really liked and once I tried to kiss him, but he got pissed off that I even tried to do such thing and punched me right after my attempt, I started running away from him, but he chased me and caught me at some point, putting a hamburger on my face and spilling the ketchup and mayonnaise on my favourite white blouse back then. I felt very ashamed because everybody was staring at me.But the worse part was that nobody tried to help me. Another case was that this girl whose father is part of the mafia beat me up at the centre of my hometown and nobody yet again did anything, I wouldn’t have fought back because I knew that there would have been even scarier consequences for me if I had tried to do so. The outer door was then broken by a brick with death threat afterwards. The police said that they couldn’t do anything, so the case was over I guess, but the fear remained inside of me. As a result of these events and many other actually, I got in a really dark place in my head. I didn’t want to go to school, I developed an eating disorder, I just lost any perspective of my future. But then a guy I met helped me escape from that dark place and showed me that I was worth it, that I had potential to do something great, to stand out from the rest and that I should not give up because of people that lack kindness and humanity. Eventually, we became boyfriends, had our fights, and of course, broke up at some point. But this is not the important part, the important thing is that I was able to overcome all of my anxiety that I’ve been dealing with and was able to gain this confidence, that I’ve never had before because of that person, and I am really grateful for that. This year I was accepted at the University of Brighton, which ranked 4th in the UK and 13th worldwide. Out of 1000 people, only 40 got in and I felt really great about it. This proved to me that the experiences I’ve had all along my life really made me stronger and helped achieve what I want to achieve at the end of the day. This is my story, I hope it inspires whoever is reading it not to give up at certain difficult moments.