Negative drastic events in one’s life can affect them physiologically and have a huge impact on their lifestyle.  The trauma a person goes through does not always go away with time it can stay with someone throughout their life.  This leads to many problems further down a person’s path, and of course can change their point of view on different aspects of their relationships, career, and ideas. It can also be hard to deal with emotionally because of how traumatized someone is from the horrible event.  Having baggage one needs to live with will impact future relationships someone might have.  In the novel If I Stay by Gayle Forman and modern sources the authors explore how change in one’s world impacts their life.

When someone experiences sadness, irritability, or low energy for a long period of time this is a sign of depression.  Depression is a result of many different problems people face daily, but a common reason for the mood disorder is because of negative events and its lasting impact on someone’s life.  The sudden change can make someone feel like their life will never go back to normal and that they can never be happy again.  While Mia is making her decision, she states, “How am I supposed to decide this? How can I possibly stay without Mom and Dad? How can I leave without Teddy? Or Adam?” (Forman 173).  Mia may have to deal with depression because of how much change she will experience, not having her family, and seeing life in a new perspective.  In one of the sources it states, “Stressful life events, long-term difficulties, and high neuroticism are established risk factors for depression” (Ormel et al. 885).  It will be difficult for Mia to adjust to her new life style and because of the rough times and problems she will go through, depression is realistic.

After loss and big change someone’s life will never be the same and is almost impossible to go back to how things are. Instead of trying to do the same things and act the same way a common result of negative occurrences is changing your lifestyle.  Living a new way can be refreshing and make you think of something else other than the negativity and sadness you are forced to deal with.  Forman writes, “Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you” (Forman 221).  The decision Mia will make will impact her future greatly because of how her lifestyle will change.  Even if someone does not want their life to change in the end, they do not have a choice because their outside environment will never be the same.  Relationships with people will change, opportunities may be different, and a new path will be available.  In the first source the authors write, “The participants’ perceptions of barriers to lifestyle changes were categorized into two main themes: they were stuck in old behaviours and habits and that they were burdened by emotional baggage from previous experiences” (Folling et al. 4).  Having a different way of acting and changing your behavior is very common while going through a difficult transition.  Past events that impact someone’s life and turns their world upside down will make them live differently forever.

Coming back from a difficult period of time is hard and takes a toll on someone’s life socially.  Word of what happens around the world or in town spreads rapidly, so if there is a big experience you have been through many people will know.  This can make you act differently around people and make others act differently around you.  School will be different because of how someone is treated based on what they have been through.  In If I Stay Mia says, “We were friends, just as everyone had assumed all along that we would be” (Forman 146).  Friends will stand by you and make sure you are okay; some people will make fun of you and others will try to boost you up.  Socially change is inevitable and you just must get through it.  Kim and Adam will help Mia in school and other public areas and her classmates might look at her differently and only think about what she has been through other then who she is inside.  Dealing with school can be hard and take a toll on someone’s grades and participation.  In one source it states, “found that recent events were strongly associated with symptom scores then events accumulated over a lifetime” (Peterson et al. 35).  Drastic occurrences may impact grades, relationships, and thinking in life but you just must get through it and as time goes by other people’s thoughts will not be as strong towards your unfortunate events. 

Different people go through different problems and difficulties that they need to deal with.  It can be harder for some people than others and lead to a series of different long lasting results.  This can change the way someone lives, acts, and feels around people and alone.  Experiences one obtains in their life forms who they become as a person later.  Big negative events can lead to different types of disorders or illnesses including depression and leads to changing one’s lifestyle and social skills/status and overall has a long-lasting impact on someone’s life.

Works Cited
Folling, Ingrid S., Marit Solbjor, and Anne-S. Helvik. “Previous Experiences And Emotional Baggage As BarriersTo Lifestyle Change – A qualitative Study Of Norwegian Healthy Life Centre Participants. “BMC Family Practice 16.1 (2015): 1-9. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Jan. 2017.
Forman, Gayle. If I Stay. , 2014. Print

Ormel, Johan, Albertine J. Oldehinkel, and Els I. Brilam. “The Interplay and Etiological Continuity of Neuroticism, Difficulties, and Life Events in the Etiology of Major and Subsyndromal, First and Recurrent Depressive Episodes in Later Life. “The American Journal of Psychiatry,vol. 158, no. 6, 2001.,pp. 885-91 ProQuest AP Science; Research Library.

Peterson, Jean, Nancy Duncan, and Kate Canady. “A Longitudinal Study of Negative Life Events, Stress, and School Experiences of Gifted Youth.”The Gifted Child Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 1, 2009., pp. 34-49 Research Library.