When you’re young, everybody asks you what you want to be when you grow up. Is it a teacher? A police officer? A famous singer or actor? An astronaut? An athlete? I wanted to be a writer.
With symptoms of depression and anxiety in my early years, I was the quiet one. I was the one who tried to fit in and didn’t know how. I was the one who found solace in books after being shunned by peers for being different. I’d get lost in the pages and fall in love with the stories, wishing my life was so perfect.
But, I didn’t realize what was wrong with me or my life. I didn’t realize that the dysfunction at home was abuse, or that it affected me in such profound ways, or that I was sick, or that talking about it would force adults into action. How could I have known? I was 7. I was a child.
The consequences of revealing anything were severe enough to silence me. Only through writing could I make the truth known.
I was an outsider, looking through the window at the happy faces while I clutched my notebook and wished someone would look at me and see the words I could not speak.
Talking was dangerous and humiliating and invalidating for me. So I wrote. Writing was a way to try to make sense of everything and to get it out without being scared that I was going to suffer for it.
………………………………………..
It is still that in some ways. Several years have passed and so much has happened: attempts at help, more lack of support, lists of diagnoses, too many medications to remember, more abuse, more scared silence, a long history of hospitalizations and overdoses and self-harm. But one thing is still constant; the outsider holding the notebook.
I still feel like an outsider, but along the journey so far I’ve found something that I didn’t have before: some peers who get it, some people who are just like me. And it is life changing.
Even if it’s just 1 person who understands, it can be the catalyst that allows you to speak your truth and empowers you to seek the help. It’s a sigh of relief to know that you aren’t going crazy, that there is somebody out there who’s experienced what you’re going through, someone who believes you.
And that is why I am here. If my words speak to even 1 person, then that is 1 more person who will realize they are not alone in their fight, that is 1 more person who might look at an outsider and finally see what they cannot say.
Journey of an Outsider 