Stingrays spend their lives swimming in the oceans, grazing their fins in the warm salty water of the oceans, seemingly free as ever. These sea animals are a symbol of gracefulness and peace. However, it is also true that stingrays have the ability to be incredibly dangerous creatures, but they choose not to be. Unless threatened, stingrays do not utilize their ability to seriously harm or kill most species that live among them, or humans. Stingrays are also one of the most common animals to have trauma or PTSD. I find my past in the sting ray species, my present, and future. Freshmen year of high school, specifically second semester going into summer, I destroyed my own life. I made all the wrong choices. Stingrays PTSD and trauma stem mostly from escaping …show more content…
Because of this trauma, I took so much away from myself based on my decisions. I took away my parents trust, I took away valuable friendships, and the most devastating thing I lost was myself. At first I trusted my predator, even embracing it. It was one of the things that made me feel good, at times invincible, a sensation I’d never experienced before. Then I realized once it was too late that my predator was the very thing destroying me. Stingrays symbolize shyness and docileness. Until this point in my life, I was extremely shy and would only speak if I was spoken to, didn’t initiate conversation with anyone I didn’t know well, and stuck to what I was comfortable with. This changed when I discovered my predator. When stingrays sense a predator, their initial reaction is to escape. That is what I should have done, swim away from my predator, just like the stingrays. I was naive, like a young stingray who had never encountered a predator before. My predator snuck up on me, hunted me down. My predator was sneaky, and did it in silence. It acted like it was my friend, an ally. I was foolish and took my predators bait, like a stingray tempted by a bite of