Sonja Murphy:
CLASS OF 1981
Delta High SchoolClass of 1981
Sacramento, CA
Sonja's Story
"on a journey to anywhere, you can draw your own map"".
Born in Iowa, moved to LA with the family when I was 5 and starting 1st grade at Monte Vista. Jr high at Rosemont. Moved to Colorado in 96 starting highschool as the first and only class at Thunder Ridge in Highlands Ranch. Freshman year was a lot easier without any upper classmates. But my life changed for the better and for ever when I was privileged to get into the prep division at Denver Academy my sophomore and junior year. But considering most of my friends that I was taking my classes with were mostly a grade higher and they graduated and I still had my senior year to go. Because of how credits are transferred from the courses I took at a private school compared to how they looked from the public school requirements for graduation, I went back. I knew that I would have an easy year, that included mostly electives and I got credit for getting to leave school every day right before lunch to go to my job. So coming back where I started my highschool years, I was part of the first ever graduating class of that school in the year of 2000.
Since then, I've been to a couple of community colleges in order to get my required basic studies outta the way while I was hoping to pick one, out of my overflowing level of interests beyond curiosity, and then the plan was to get a degree to start my path to the future I had been conditioned to assume I wanted to achieve. After a few other unproductive avenues like bartending college and cosmetology school I, in hindsight, see that my true self was sending me the start of what became a multiple decade long period of time full of messages trying to guide me in a different direction. Though I didn't understand what I was going through or why my mind body continued to get more and more chroniclly I'll as those miserable years passed me by at what felt like a snails pace, I have come to recognize the truth behind it all. At 43 years old, I can say with honesty and an incredibly in depth inquiry to be able to look back to the pain and suffering as grace. I went from the victim mentality of why I was going through all of that, and now I've survived the dark night of the soul (though I didn't know that's what I was doing until afterwards). After I spent countless years bedridden for 90% of my days along with insomnia during those years too. I had the one thing going for me that most people don't h...Expand for more
ave, and that's time. So in the last few years now, I've been self educating myself that began with my desire to understand the diagnosis that were responsible for the condition I was afraid I would never recover from, at least not to the extent that I have so far. In this broken healthcare system that we are facing and the amount of care any human being deserves, I realized that I had to take advocacy for my own health progression if I was going to see any kind of positive changes. It's been a little frustrating (that's an understatement) attempting to know the science and current research of my specifically different chronic illnesses when trying to get a specialist to know the current treatments available to help me. It's also a bit shocking to see how many healthcare professionals out there, who has been dulled and cold and have been basically going through the motions while in denial that they don't have the energy nor open-minded curiosity to do their job. So many doctors that are quite bluntly further traumatizing their patients out of their own personal frustrations with the system and sometimes their ego is too big for them to ever imagine other possibilities because how could they be wrong. I wish that most medical professionals got into the field of medicine with a real desire to help people, but I'm really sad to see that there are a good percentage of doctors that are more in it for money and recognition.
After I spent over 3.5 years of my mid 20's receiving ECT (electric convulsion therapy aka electric shock therapy) for an approximately 130 different treatments, I have been on Social Security Disability. I initially had such a disfuncinal memory, I had even lost huge chunks of my long term memories that I have never regained to this day, but fortunately I was able to get some healing after I stopped the treatments that I didn't really see for several years after. But I have been getting diagnosed with a new chronic health problem on an average of every 2-3 years since. Countless surgeries, procedures, treatments, doctor's opinions etc...and now? Well now my team of doctors I have been working with diligently for the last 4 years, make me feel like I could get a medical degree without too much difficulty just based on the amount I have been able to learn on my own. As good as that feels to my ego, I'm pretty sure I don't want to go through any kind of school again lol😉
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