In early elementary school—somewhere between kindergarten and second grade—I destroyed a sunflower I was growing in a plastic cup. It wasn’t blooming. There were no petals, no bright yellow anything—only dirt, a thin green stem, and a tangled mass of roots pushing against the sides of the cup.

     Every kid in the class had one. Same cup, same assignment, same instructions. I took care of mine; I watered it, I watched it, I did what we were told to do. But one day—without knowing why, even now—I threw it. My actions were driven by a fury I couldn't name and resentment for something just trying to grow.

     The cup hit the floor and dented inward in several spots. I remember the soil spilling out, the roots exposed and ruined, something living reduced to a mess that couldn’t be put back. And I cried. Not quietly. Never quietly, as a girl whose name-marked clothespin lived in the red section of a color-coded behavior chart. And definitely not politely. It was ugly, uncontrollable crying that came from somewhere deeper than embarrassment. I can’t say that I wasn’t trying to make a statement, because I was trying to be destructive—I wanted attention in a way. I couldn’t stop myself, and once it was done, the reality of it crushed me.

     I had destroyed the one thing I had actually been caring for, one of the only things that made others see me as them: human. Capable of love, able to nourish, something other than insubordinate. Now that I look back at these moments, I know my childhood came to an end when the monsters under the bed became the person standing in front of the mirror. I was a first-grader wondering if she was anything else but a creature—the Big Bad Wolf in a world of trembling pigs, known only for destruction—my own instincts turning everything I wanted into ruin.

     It wasn't that day that the school called my mom—a common incident, so common that they usually just sent me to other classrooms to calm down. But the day they did call, I had been so frustrated that I had been hitting my head against the wall, screaming and wailing incomprehensible, anguished phrases. They were worried about what might be happening at home. I didn’t hear the conversation, but I know how it went. My mom satisfied my curiosity a few years ago. The strongest person I knew had cried that day, insisting that she didn’t know what was wrong with me—nothing was happening at home. There was no abuse, no chaos, no secret explanation that could neatly justify what I’d done. I wasn’t being hurt; I just was. And that was harder for them to understand.

     What I remember most from that time isn’t the discipline or the adult concern—it’s the loneliness. I was avoided. Other kids didn’t want to sit near me. I was strange, unpredictable, too emotional, too much. I didn’t know the rules everyone else seemed to understand instinctively. I didn’t know how to make myself smaller, quieter, or easier to be around. I existed on the edges of the classroom, watched more than included, noticed more than welcomed. Loneliness stopped being a feeling in that grade; it became a living presence. It was the only one who truly saw the weight I carried on shoulders too small for the burdens of a world wreaking havoc in my dysregulated little brain. I was six. And I was alone.

     I didn’t want to “get better” back then, partly because I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t have the language to explain myself, and no one gave me words that fit. I wasn’t diagnosed with anything until January 15, 2025, thirteen and fighting to be seen. I was just a problem waiting to be solved, a question adults kept asking each other instead of asking me. Every reaction felt too big, every emotion too sharp, and I had no way to file them down. So they spilled out sideways—in tears, in anger, in moments I still replay because I don’t remember the reason, only the aftermath.

     Now, I am different. I am older. I understand myself in ways that a kid couldn’t have imagined. But I don’t look back at that moment with contempt or mockery. I look at it with clarity. I see a child who was trying to grow something in an environment that didn’t understand her, who followed instructions and still felt out of place, who cultivated roots that never had time to surface.

     I hated that sunflower because it was everything I wasn’t—alive, thriving, uncomplicated. And maybe that’s why I destroyed it. The plant hadn’t grown yet, and neither had I—and in that moment, I made sure nothing did.