Anyway, here I was going through something that was major to me and the adults around me didn’t understand or they did understand and they just made me feel extremely stupid. I think sometimes adults act like they are so far removed from being young that they forgot their first heartbreak or hell they forgot their first kiss or first love or first time. And that doesn’t really do anyone any good.

I could list all of the figures from history, but I won’t because I want to shout out those of us who are currently making history. Who sacrifice our mental health knowing we shouldn’t to complete our goals. When we our hurdles are 30 feet taller than the others who are in the race with us.

When you come home to yourself but you do not know yourself, you feel like a stranger in your own house. The last time you knew who were was in the womb so you lie in the fetal position hoping to recreate that certainty. And when I say you I mean me, but it really feels like a you because I don’t know me. I am trying to find my identity in a space that constantly tears me apart in an effort to put me back together. So here I am, on the floor crying tears that I cannot figure out the meaning of. I ignore the school work piling up. Anxiety turns into depression and depression turns into weight on the bones.

When I think of unrealistic expectations and the anxiety they cause me, I think about Snow White. “Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” That phrase echoes in my mind. Why you ask?

I am afraid of success. I am afraid of what will happen if I actually succeed. For the longest, I believed I was scared of failure (although I still think sometimes I am), but I realized this week that I am more scared of being successful. 

I somehow had tied my worth to the number I saw on the scale. I felt like people were talking about me. I felt like I wasn't pretty. I felt like the girl who had big dreams but didn't fulfill them but managed to fill all that space with extra chicken on her burrito bowl from Chipotle 

I had this weird relationship with food. It was love hate so to speak. I knew I needed to eat, but I hated the way it made me gain weight. I thought it was the food's fault. I thought it was my fault.