Ever since last year I’ve hated you. I used to anticipate you but when you came, my happiness slipped away. You provoked a long, tiring, and emotionally exhausting self-love journey that I wasn’t prepared for.

A journey that would push me through suicidal thoughts, blaring music so my parents couldn’t hear me while I was throwing up the 2 pounds that made me feel fat, feeling my heart physically ache, having to change my breathing from automatic to manual because I was having a panic attack, skipping meals and counting calories, crying myself to sleep because my GPA was a 3.8, pulling a muscle while having a panic attack, being scared that someone would ask how I was doing because I didn’t want to fall apart in front them, and countless other terrible experiences that I’ll never forget. Or how every time the doorbell rings past 10:00 pm, I pray that it’s not the police coming to do another welfare check. When I think of how I treated other people while I was trying to hide my own suffering, a little part of me dies. It’s been 11 months since everything happened and I could not be more proud of myself.

I was miserable for such a long time, that I forgot what it felt like to be content. I now have a job that I love, I’m surrounded by people that I love even more, and I’m mentally stable. It has been weird to navigate high school and happiness simultaneously but I do believe that I can do this. Change doesn’t happen overnight, it’s not easy, and I can’t count how many times I wanted to give up.

Anytime my depression flares up, my friends are there to gather around me to show their support because they know how bad it can get. They never heard it directly from me until a few weeks after it happened. I felt validated by the silence that followed my attempt. No one noticed but it was my own fault. I was expecting someone to understand something that I was trying so hard to hide. As soon as I said something, they immediately came to support me and surround me with their unconditional love. I just had to be honest with myself before I could be honest with my friends. I had to start somewhere. I put in the work and exceeded my goal.