Acknowledgement

A close friend of mine said in the midst of a difficult time, find what the root of the problem is and fix it. I have to acknowledge my shortcomings in order to move past them. Which involves one of the hardest things that a person can do, acknowledging you have a problem, and discovering a way to move past it. I'll say that I've had this problem for years; masking my true feelings and colors are one of the things that I excel at, unless someone truly knows me and even then it is difficult.

When I was younger, my childhood and early adolescence was difficult and extremely taxing on my emotional and mental stability, mostly my early adolescence. I have always been active, pushed and driven for nothing but the best by both my immediate and extended families, educated, articulate, athletic, talented, but something no one knew of was I suffered from depression and anxiety. In my seventh grade year, two of the people who knew the most about me and were my best friends, betrayed my kind-heartedness by twisting my emotions for their enjoyment, they insulted the person who kept our family afloat in difficult times, and claimed that I would be nothing more than the person they belittled and degraded to my face. Needless to say, I fought with everything I had emotionally and verbally. I regret some of the things I have said, but at the time it was how I felt. This fight between these two individuals weighed so heavily upon my shoulders (mind you, I had said nothing at all to my family, my mom had more than enough to worry about, my sister was too young, and dad had a lot of stress on his shoulders too) that I tried to take my life, twice. I resulted to scarring my body, changing my appearance, isolating myself, crying more frequently, skipping class and countless other things. Once the problem had 'been resolved' which resulted in a stern talking to by the assistant principal and making sure that none of us would have classes or even lunch together, all that activity seemed to be swept under the rug. I hadn't died, so therefore it wasn't a problem, because it only really matters when someone loses their life to suicide for it to be considered a tragedy.

Well, I still suffer from episodes of depression, I urge it to go away, but no one speaks of it and no one chooses to acknowledge it still, not even myself. Depression is a scary term that no one truly wants to admit exists, because if we don't talk about it it doesn't happen and we're protected from it. This also plays into another large problem I have, and that is with food. I overeat, and under-eat because I have the power to do so. No one can control my eating habits but me. I've always struggled with my weight, but in my early high school years, I changed everything I knew about my life. I worked out, ate right, lost weight, felt great....but one devastating moment at that time, threw me back into comfort eating, and I gained all the weight I had lost and then some back. But my friend's courage, strength, fearlessness, has made me want to go back to my healthy self. I write this as a farewell to my life before, I want to change, so therefore I will. My problems, that I have acknowledged is I suffer from depression, and I will not allow this to affect my life anymore. I have also acknowledged I have a sick obsession with eating and not eating, I need to eat right. I will change from this point forward, it might take awhile but I will go back to being the bright-eyed young woman I was before; I will go back to the passionate and curious person I was before. From this point forward, I will be me and no one else's variation of me.