idk What to really say on here so I’m just gonna tell my story. I was born in the city of Chicago (the hood type lol) but we moved to a heavily predominately white neighborhood in the suburbs when I was in kindergarten, because my parents wanted a better education for me. I was bullied a lot by my classmates for speaking differently with words like “aint” and “yall” and stuff like that because that was how I was taught to speak, and I was also bullied for my poofy hair in barrettes, and my “dirty skin” (I’m African American btw). so because of that, I changed myself to become more like them. It was a time where neither me nor my classmates knew what racism exatly was, making me think that it was okay to beg my mom to straighten my hair all the time and take a whole lot more showers. But my mom kinda didn’t care so I wore my hair straight for almost my whole life, until freshman year (where I am now). In the 4th grade, I moved again to a predominantly black neighborhood, and they also made fun of me, but this time for being too “white” or too “proper“ and “energetic”, that I had to chill. So then again, I changed myself to fit in, I started using my hood lingo again and tried to hop on the trends that were going on around the town. Didn’t work out too well. Then middle school came, 6th grade was a breeze, but 7th grade is where I found my mental health issues. Not only was I stressed and worked out from all the assignments, but I was also hit hard by depression and anxiety, with self worth issues too. Because I changed myself completely, twice, I didn’t know who I was, and I hated it because I wanted to be like my brother who basically knew his life purpose since he was born. And especially because I was never told what depression was, or anxiety, I had no clue why or how I would randomly cry in the middle of the day, get terribly nervous for absolutely nothing and feel like I wanted to die on my birthday. In 8th grade, nothing got better. Corona came, kinda ruined my year, i got more depressed because of it and even more mad at myself and depressed because I felt selfish being sad when high schoolers had lost their whole senior year, prom and all. Nobody helped me because I didn’t reach out to anyone, I didn’t and i still don’t want to put my personal problems on someone else to make their day worse when I can just keep it to myself. but now I’ve accepted the fact that I don’t know who I am, I have hope that I’m gonna find me one day. Idk why I’m admitting all of this online anonymously lol, but ig i just had to get it off my chest. And Im now thinking I shouldn’t post it cus it’s too long for anyone to read but I’m pushing myself to post it anyway. But yeah, if you need someone to talk to people say I’m a really good therapist type friend, so reply to this, I might check it, and maybe we can connect:) love you, so proud of you, you got this! It gets better, too, just have faith, and it’ll come;) luv u bb-N.J.A