I Never Thought It Would Be Me

I never thought it would be me. Not in a million years. Here I am, going to a therapist once a week to talk about my feelings. If you know me personally you would think that I am the happiest person in the world. That was true until I was in high school.

For most adolescents, high school can be tough, and you don't see that in the movies. When I was growing up I thought that my high school experience was going to be something either straight from High School Musical or even Bring It On (those cheerleading movies my sister always made me watch). Oh boy was I wrong. I had moved around a lot and I thought that my high school career was going to be in the same high school and it started out like that up until my sophomore year of high school.

That's when things took a turn for the worst. I was constantly ridiculed for being friends with certain people and I was getting more threats each and every day. Most days I wouldn't eat lunch or if I did I was sitting in my favorite principal's office. I always talked to my mom about homeschooling me, but she wasn't so keen on it in the first place and that's even when I told her about everything that was happening in my life.

It wasn't until my junior year of high school did something happen. We moved. Now I didn't want to move but it was for the best. In this new school would I be able to start over? Well, yes. Did things go according to plan? Well, no. You see when I moved I wanted to try new things. I started playing sports again instead of going into music. I made a whole bunch of new friends who turned into new enemies. I lost a perspective love interest to someone whom I thought a close friend. I was secluded from the world. This new school is where I had my first panic attack. Surprised? So was I. You would've thought that it would've been in the first school where all the bad things happened to me. When my mom found out that I had a panic attack at school she was FURIOUS! I had never seen this woman so angry at a school. I think that this was the point where she decided that I would be homeschooled for my senior year.

When my senior year came around, I went through a lot more than I thought I would. We moved four times and went to three different states. This was rough. All I had in my mind was the fact that all I needed was a couple months' worth of an English class then I would graduate. Our first stop was to a house two towns over from where I already was. That wasn't a fun house either. We were living with my mother's friend and her family. The son was so defiant, and the husband was a creepy drug addict. We left a couple months later when we found out that they were just using my mother. Our next stop on my senior year tour was my grandparents' house in New Jersey. I did not want to live there at all. I witnessed my drunk family getting together and yelling at each other. That's not what I needed in my life. Soon thereafter, we moved to the Sunshine State (Florida). That was something I had never seen before (I had lived in Florida as a child but the things I had seen as an almost adult were new). I saw my childhood best friend act like the Hulk and throw his mother across the room into the Christmas tree. That was when I decided to become a shut-in and stay in my room but only come out when no one besides my mother and myself were home. When I got the news that I had graduated I realized that Florida was not meant to be, so I asked my mom if we could go back home to Pennsylvania. She luckily obliged. We started our travels back home to a place where we had no home. On our way we stopped at the last house before we made it back, and that was my uncle's house (also my mother's twin brother). We got there just about mid-February and that's when it started.

My depression was real. It made me gain weight. It made me stay up all night and sleep all day. It made me an anti-social young girl who stayed in bed all day. These are things I never thought would happen to me. Now fast forward four years to now, 2018. Things haven't changed except my house. I've been back in PA for almost four years now. I've loved every single bit. I've made some new friends who are along for my new journey. Things have gotten better but, I have to see a therapist so that they don't get worse. I never thought I would be the one with depression and anxiety. I don't let those words and those feelings hold me down. If I have a day off from work, I am not home. I can't stay home if I have nothing to do. I don't want to turn back into the person that I was before.

I look in the mirror and see a girl whom has a bright future as a journalist ahead of her. I need to work to meet those goals and those dreams. I need to make a better life for my future kids than the life that I lead. I need to make myself a better person, so I can treat society better. I need you to take all of this information and learn from it. You are the only person that can make your life better. If you are like me then find your niche. Mine, for instance, is writing. I've always been good at it and it helps me escape to where I would rather be. When you find your thing then you can use it to hide yourself from the world for a short amount of time. If you think that you are getting worse rather than better by digging deep into your niche then you need to seek someone that will listen. If it comes down to it and you have to take medicine for it, then you have to figure out if you can do it. Being on antidepressants is hard but only you can decide if that is something you need.

I want you to take a message away from my words and know that there are people who are working with the same thing that you have. You are not alone and we can get through this with love, peace, and happiness.