Thank you to this anonymous contributor!
This is not a story of triumph. It is not a lesson to be learned and it should make no one feel better or stronger. This is just feelings put into words. This is how it feels to be the kind of person who relies on Riley’s blog to normalize their life. Maybe someone else walks around everyday feeling like this. To that person, you’re not alone and I hope you have more strength than I do. I hope you can make yourself find help even though I cannot do it myself. I’m told I should smile more, and that my blank face is intimidating and keeps people away. This is why I can’t smile more. My face is blank because I can’t let it show how I feel. I can’t let it show this:
I’m not sure when I started to feel like shit. I know what some of my triggers are, and I think I felt it coming, but I can’t pinpoint an exact moment where I was no longer happy. Sometimes I think I can trace it back to eighth grade when I got bullied for reasons that weren’t always in my control. Other times, it seems to only go back to last year. There are also times when I feel fine. Not good, but fine. I hate those moments. When I feel fine, I feel wrong. The thought that I should be depressed continues to pop into my head. I’ve never been diagnosed with depression, but according to my school social worker, it’s certainly a possibility.
If I ever want this to get better, the only advice that I’ve ever heard is that I have to talk to someone about it, to get help. The only problem is that I have no one to talk to. I’m a leader at my school, a rock for so many people and activities that it feels wrong to talk to my social worker about it. I have talked to her before, but I can’t bring myself to share everything with her.
Of course, you’re probably wondering, why not tell my friends? That’s another problem, I don’t have any to tell. Sure I have friends, some of whom might listen to me, but none of them actually care about me. Every time I start a new friendship with someone I dive in headfirst, trying to show I care about him or her more than anyone else in my life, just so that maybe they’ll care about me. There was a time where I thought one of them did, and I told her some of what I felt, but it quickly and painfully became aware to me that she was too absorbed in her own life to care about what was happening in mine. I have no one, and nowhere to turn to. Nothing that makes me feel safe enough to talk about how I feel. I’m writing this because it is the only way I can think of to have someone hear me.
I know this just comes off as a lot of complaining, and it may seem like all I want is attention, but that’s far from the truth. Everyday I struggle to keep a straight face and keep pushing through everything when all I want is to shout at the world that I’m not ok. I can’t do that though, because I’m not the kind of person who can be not ok. If I’m not ok, my world and everything attached to it that people rely on me for crumbles.
It’s March Break and I should be happy that I’m out of school for two weeks, but I’m not. I’m terrified. In the past, I’ve felt my worst when I can’t go to school because it means I can’t distract myself with my busy life. Perhaps the worst of all of this is the story that has lead to it. I’m ashamed of all this not because I think it’s pathetic to feel this way, but because the events that made me feel this way are pathetic. My problems are small compared to others, and to feel this way because of them is pathetic. Maybe all I need is a win. One person who cares about me that I can talk to, but that will come with a price. It means someone will know that I’m not ok.
-Mr. Not Ok