I Need to Vent! | Teen Ink

I Need to Vent!

June 28, 2012
By Anonymous

Hello everyone. I don’t feel comfortable revealing my birth name so you can all refer to me by the name people outside the family call me, Chameleon. I received that name because I’m the kind of person who can and does blend into any crowd. I don’t have a specific style I just dress in pretty much every way. I don’t have a certain cliché I stick to, I’m friends with everyone. I’m not conceited but I’m very aware that I am one of the most kind people that you’ll ever meet. Everyone who meets me says that they’ve never met anyone quite like me, which honestly I consider a good thing. I’m a pretty peaceful person but in this crazy thing we call life I have picked up some crazy and disturbing issues and I need to get some things out. I would be extremely appreciative if you all just bear with me while I vent.

First off is my family. I may have this feeling just because I’m a teenager but I feel like they don’t understand me… and they don’t like the way I turned out. We disagree on everything! One issue that has torn us all apart is gay marriage. I am a heterosexual young woman but I believe that people who are homosexual should have the same rights that heterosexuals have, including getting married. I have quite a few gay friends and my family thinks that I’m going to turn gay. The other issue with my family is that I’m very diverse and they claim that I’m too diverse… if that’s possible. If you look at the people I hang out with you will see that I don’t stick to a certain race, I have friends from every race and I’m very proud of that. Also I’m in a diversity program and every now and then I stay up to write lesson plans when I have to teach a class the next day. My family doesn’t think what I do is important and to me it is because if it wasn’t for the other diversity trainers and I the bullying problem on our school campus would be far worse than it is now.

Secondly, is my will to help people. Even when I was little I loved making people feel better and listening to them vent but as I’ve gotten older I’ve taken on this mentor role. At first it was easy but now it’s difficult because I rarely do anything for myself now. Almost every night I stay awake and let people vent just so they have someone they could talk to. I get on average four or five hours of sleep a night and that leaves me totally exhausted during the day. In class I can barely stay awake, in fact most of the time I just fall asleep. I need to find a way to manage time. Carrying other people’s issues plus my own is hard. It’s even starting to affect my health. I’ve been getting sick a lot, feeling weak, my hair is falling out, and I’m losing a large amount of weight… too fast. I feel like in the journey to help other people I’ve lost myself and I need to find myself before its too late.

Third and last is my boyfriend. We met in elementary school but we didn’t start dating until our first year of high school. We have been dating for about three years now. He’s Caucasian and I’m African American. We both went through a terrible battle with depression when we were freshmen. When I came out of it my goal was to better the world. When he came out of it his goal was to do anything he could to find a new family. After a couple months he ended up joining a gang and at first he didn’t tell me but I noticed the changes so I confronted him. I was angry that he went to such a level but I also know that his father was in a gang so that’s all he knows. I love my boyfriend but he creates so much stress for me. I’m always with him so I’m always around his gang friends. I see everything they do and it just not right. But I would never abandon him so I deal with it. I just feel like I’m too young to worry about my boyfriend making it home alive.

Well that all folks. Thanks for letting me vent. Comment if you want. You can add advice to because God knows I need some. Have a blessed day!



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