This story is going to be a little different than the other’s I’ve written. While I’ve talked about unfair standards put on black women and the stigma of black mental health, I’ve only alluded to myself a few times. But now I think my audience deserves to see why I write what I write. This relates to the Twitter hashtag #TheGloUpChallenge. This is when people tweet how they’ve physically changed over the years. This resonated with me as over the course of my short life I have seen many changes. I feel like my readers deserve to see who I really am.
I discussed in a previous article, about mental health, that I was emotionally abused in school, but I never really got into detail as to what that entailed. Ever since preschool I’ve always been seen as different. I was teased, picked on, and occasionally physically assaulted for reasons that even in my adulthood I still can’t figure out. My energetic and eccentric attitude towards life made my teachers tell my own mother that I had a mental disorder. A place that I came to for the sake of education was like torture every day, with my peers and my teachers looking at me with hateful eyes.
Each grade got progressively worse than the last up until the point that I developed depression in my last year of middle school. I was one of (insert statistic here) that refused to seek help for my illness. I let it linger and build up for another five years. Everyday I questioned why I wasn’t tall enough, why I was good looking enough, why I wasn’t popular enough. Every day these would be the thoughts that ran through my head.
When I entered high school I was quiet and withdrawn from everyone else. I didn’t really appear to fit anywhere. I tried being an athlete, but was only apart of that crowd for a short time. I tried fitting in with the popular kids but I couldn’t afford the nice clothes to fit the part. I was stuck in a void of perpetual doubt and I felt like there was no escape.
My depression continued all the way into college. I was far more socially accepted but the years of mental strain had taken its toll. It was in college that I took acknowledgment of my depression. I saw it as a crippling weakness and that it was my fault; it was my fault I wasn’t talented, or good looking. For a while I didn’t even smile in pictures. It was only those thoughts that I was able to get consistent access to a therapist and help ease my pain. After months of therapy I was finally able to start living normally like I was before I ever started school.
Now I have friends, I attend a great school, I’ve won numerous awards and recognitions at my school, and even appeared on the news. I actually smile in pictures now. I guess the message I’m trying to get across is that there’s always a brighter day after the dark. While I still am working on learning to love myself, I’m blessed to be able to at least feeling a sense of self-pride. So to the kid who’s bullied, who’s picked on, who feels like they aren’t worth anything; don’t worry, it gets better.
