I fell into a vicious cycle of bulimia, starving myself and self harming.
Maybe I did it to kill what was hurting me from inside, maybe to shut my depression and anxiety out, or maybe I wanted somebody to notice.
Somebody to care.
Somebody to tell me they understood.
We all want that, we all want to find our people.
As I’ve started on this journey of recovery on my own, I backtrack daily, and I punish myself for that. I have gut-wrenching nights where I want nothing less than to stop. Stop breathing, thinking. Living.
But I wake up the next day, and I don’t talk about, but I’m present for my friends, I’m there for my cousins, I’m available for my siblings.
I’m privileged, I have so much, and yet, I have nothing at all. I’ve never worried about where my next meal would come from, if my parents might divorce, if I wouldn’t have a home to come home too. Never, and because of that, so many people try to invalidate my struggles, I myself as well.
And it’s so hard to not, because if you can’t see it that means it’s not there, right?
I have good grades, I’m active, and I smile. What more proof does one need?
But slowly I’m starting to realize, no.
Mental health affects EVERYONE. Mental health does not discriminate and invalidating myself, is only going to make things worse.
If nobody else is gonna stick up for me, then I have too. At least.