Going through depression at the age of 14 wasn’t easy for me. If you’ve seen this Netflix series called 13 Reasons Why season 1, that’s pretty much my story. Except for the fact that I didn’t choose to kill myself, and that I experienced everything in middle school.
During my middle school, I had really awful friends, who weren’t benefiting me in any kind of way. But I considered them my friends anyways because I thought they were fine and that it’s “friendship”. They would try to make me feel bad about myself ALL the TIME and if I show, even a glimpse of hope or positivity, they’d dim my light. And that’s how I became a people pleaser. I tried the please EVERYONE. Really. I felt like I could just please, not just the whole school, but like literally EVERYONE on Earth. I tried to be someone I’m not, do things I hate, tolerate bad behaviour, just to make sure NOBODY was unhappy with me. As you may guess, eventually, with all that pressure and expectations that so many people and I put on myself, I became depressed. And the ironic thing, is that, I pretended like I was fine. Like literally. I showed up at school like normal, eat like normal, smile like everything was normal and that I was completely fine when I wasn’t. I was suffering so hard mentally, I started cutting myself. I cut, with the hope that someone would see my scars and tell me “It’s gonna be okay”. But no one did. No one.
Three months passed and I started to think about my life and what I was going to do with it. I came to a realization that I couldn’t live like this forever. Laying in bed, being depressed, not doing anything with my life, I just can’t. I need to do something about this. That’s what I thought, and THAT— is the beginning of my self-love journey.
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