Looking down at my hands, they were shaking and gathering up my tears. I couldn’t control the streams running down my face. I was gasping for air; I just wanted all of this to stop. I had all these thoughts going through my head. There was no way I could miss another day of school. But I just couldn’t bring myself to get out of this room. My chest felt like it was on fire, there was no way of putting this fire out. I was just more comfortable sitting in my room staring at my ceiling all day, it was better than standing next to my peers.

I skipped school for a few times already this year and I just never want to be there. I feel like I’m imprisoned there. I’m this average looking 14 year old, no sense of direction, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt each to hide all of my insecurities, hair up in a pony tail, and sneakers. I’m average and I’m fine with that, it’s just I have trouble dealing with everyone else’s average. I feel like I’m stuck in my own mind, thoughts rushing through my head about how I don’t want to be here and just not school. I can hear the thoughts now, even just writing everything down, “You’re a failure. You’re not going anywhere.” I tell myself this every single day. I mean there’s times where I feel like I can do anything but mostly I feel better wrapped up in my blanket on a constant basis.

My Nannie and my mom are my biggest support systems and no matter how hard they try to help me, I’m even more lost. It’s almost like I’m bringing them down with me, each dirt pile I bring up with my shovel. I just want to take all that dirt and dump it over my own head. I can’t bring myself to just face them; I knew I was not where I wanted to be in my life. So today, I’m not doing anything, I’m staying to myself as I usually do and not listening to the world and instead my own brain.

Today was the day, I really just shut every else out. I tried finding places to hide, ways to get out of school. I saw my closet and decided that would be the best place to escape to. It’s small, dark, and I’m sheltered from the world. I hide myself in my closet. I hit a breaking point, I was just so confused. I overhear my parents, “Where is she? Why does she keep doing this to us?” I knew I was breaking their hearts.  I knew it was all my fault for being lost in my brain. I just couldn’t handle myself anymore.

I looked down at my hands again, still trembling and tears overflowing and I realized I wasn’t as alone as I thought I was. I admitted to myself that I needed help from someone outside of my friends and family to give me support and advice. I finally gained the courage to talk to my mom about all these depressing thoughts that ran through my head. She looked at me, “I believe in you and I want to help you.”  So we started looking at therapists around the area, making appointments. I met with this woman who made me feel even more uncomfortable in my skin, who was just wanted money and didn’t care about me at all. I looked at her in the eye in disbelief, I just wanted someone to give me advice and not to empty my wallet. I made an appointment with someone who just wanted to shove pills down my throat. I even avoided these appointments more than school. I wanted to hide back in that closet and never go to those appointments. The woman kept telling me I was severely depressed and I needed these “happy” pills to fix me. When I knew it wasn’t even close to that, I knew I had problems but it wasn’t that bad. I started skipping her appointments and crying all the way up the elevator when I was forced to actually go. Then one day, I found Kathy she was basically the light at darkened tunnel. She was the first person to give me tips and actually listen to me.

I looked back down at my hands, the first time I wasn’t trembling and tears weren’t everywhere. I felt okay for the time in my freshman year of high school. I continued going to sessions with Kathy and finding ways to get my anxiety down. I kept going to her until about junior year, she really helped me find my voice again and who I really was. There was no longer any more times hiding in my closet and hiding away from the world, instead I was finding myself and not giving up anymore. There’s this lyric from my favorite band that often helped me get through each day, “We all fail but we are not all failures” I look at these words every single day and remember just because I had one moment of fails, I am not a failure.