There’s a certain kind of loneliness that comes from being in a room full of people and still feeling like you’re the only one who doesn’t belong. I’ve lived most of my teenage years in that quiet isolation—not because I was physically alone, but because I’ve convinced myself that everyone secretly hates me. Not in the loud, dramatic way that people cry about in movies, but in the quiet, persistent kind of way that lives in the corners of your mind and slowly rewires how you see the world.
I’ve learned to expect judgment even when none is given. If people laugh behind me, my heart races—not out of paranoia, but out of practice. My brain has taught itself to assume the worst: they must be laughing at me, even if they’ve never seen me before. Compliments feel like lies wrapped in politeness, or worse, social obligations. If someone tells me I’m pretty, I don’t feel flattered. I feel embarrassed, suspicious, and even guilty.
My mind tells me they don’t mean it, that they’re just saying it because they feel bad, or because we follow each other, or because they don’t want to be rude. Because how could they mean it? When I’ve spent years picking apart my reflection, spending hours trying to fix what feels inherently wrong with me. Dyeing my hair, layering makeup, picking outfits like armor, I still end up feeling like a pig in lipstick. Like I’m trying to decorate something broken.
Other girls don’t have to try. They wake up effortlessly beautiful. They laugh openly, post bare-faced selfies, and exist without apology. Meanwhile, I get out of bed two hours early just to feel like I have the right to be seen, and when I don’t put in the effort, I feel disgusting—like I’ve failed some unspoken test of worthiness.
It’s not about vanity; it’s about survival. The world has taught me that being seen as “feminine” or “beautiful” is the only way I might be worthy of love, so I try to earn it through effort. Through performance. Through exhaustion. But I’ve performed so much that I don’t know what’s left underneath.
And when someone does show kindness, when someone says something nice, I tear it apart until it becomes meaningless, because I’ve been let down too many times to let myself believe someone could be genuine. I don’t know how to accept love when I’ve spent so long believing I don’t deserve it.
I’ve been conditioned to see myself as too much, too loud, too annoying, too ugly, too needy. So I silence myself. Shrink myself. Make jokes at my own expense so no one else gets the chance to. I’ve become my own worst critic, my own bully, my own enemy.
And still, underneath it all, there is a small, soft part of me that aches for something real. That wishes I could be loved for who I am when I’m not trying. When I’m not pretty. When I’m tired, or sad, or messy. I want to be loved without having to earn it, without having to perform it.
But I don’t know how. I don’t know how to let someone see me without the effort I put in and not assume they’ll leave. So I keep trying. I keep waking up early, dyeing my hair, painting on confidence like blush. I keep telling myself that if I try hard enough, maybe I’ll stop feeling like a burden. Maybe one day I won’t feel like a pig in lipstick. Maybe one day, I’ll feel like a person again.
I’ve never thought, not even for a second, that I was extremely pretty. Most days I can barely convince myself that I’m even average. But my experiences with boys, if you can even call them that, have twisted that insecurity into something uglier.
I get made fun of for how I look. I’ve been asked out as a joke, just to be laughed at afterward. I’ve been sexualized by people who didn’t care about me, who didn’t know me, who only noticed one part of my body and decided that was all I was worth. I don’t feel like a person to them, just a body. A punchline. A dare. No one sees me for me.
And somewhere along the way, I started wondering what it was about me that made me so disgusting in people’s eyes. Why do I inspire mockery instead of admiration? Disgust instead of desire?
But then I started noticing a pattern. Every time I told someone I liked them, they’d either laugh, ignore me, or worse, tell their friends, or tell me directly, that they “don’t like black girls.” Even if they were black themselves. Even if they smiled at me yesterday. Even if they flirted with someone else who looked just like me but was lighter-skinned or more conventionally attractive.
And it broke something in me. Because how do you argue with that? How do you respond when someone writes off your entire existence because of something you didn’t choose, something that is you?
What about my race made me so unworthy of love? Is it just an excuse for their own self-hate? Or is it true? Am I genuinely seen as less because of the skin I live in?
I don’t have the answers. I just know that it made me question every part of myself. It made me feel like I could never be beautiful, not because I wasn’t, but because I wasn’t allowed to be.
My relationship with food has always been complicated, shaped by years of quiet discomfort and silent battles I didn’t have the words for. I grew up underweight, praised for how “tiny” I was, how “small” I stayed, as if my worth was directly tied to how little space I could take up. Back then, I never questioned it. I wore the compliments like medals, not realizing they were planting the seeds for a future war with my own body.
But now, things are different. My body has changed. I’ve gained weight. I see myself in photos and feel sick with shame. Every angle feels wrong, every outfit a reminder that I’m not who I used to be. I look in the mirror and see failure, not just in my appearance, but in the lack of control that got me here.
I go through endless cycles of eating too much, then not eating at all. Starving myself until I’m dizzy, then binging in secret, again and again. I tell myself I’ll be better tomorrow, that I’ll eat “clean,” that I’ll restrict harder, that I’ll be strong. But I always cave. I always give in.
Food stops being fuel and becomes a punishment, a test, a transaction. I want to be small again. I want to take up less space, to return to that version of myself that felt more acceptable, more loved. So I stop eating. Until I can’t. Until the cravings win, and I fall back into the same trap, hating myself more each time.
I’ve built my self-worth on a number I can’t reach anymore, chasing a body that wasn’t even healthy, just thin. And now I live in this constant loop of guilt and hunger, of shame and surrender. I don’t know how to break free from it. I just know that every bite feels like failure, and every day I don’t feel empty feels like I’m losing.
People don’t understand how different minds work. They think everyone sees the world through the same lens, but they don’t. Especially when it comes to suicidal minds—no one talks about what it’s actually like. Everyone wants to help, but no one wants to listen.
Ever since I was nine years old, death has lingered in the back of my mind like background noise. Not always loud, but never silent either. I didn’t understand why other kids didn’t think like that. Why did they laugh so easily, live so loudly, when I already felt like a ghost walking through hallways?
Now I’m almost sixteen, and sometimes I feel like I’m living on borrowed time. I never thought I’d make it this far, not because I was planning to disappear, but because I just didn’t see a version of the future where I existed in it.
I wake up, go to school, do my homework, turn things in, say “I’m fine”—not because I want to, but because I have to. Because everyone expects you to keep moving. Even when you’re barely functioning.
When I miss school, it’s not because I’m lazy or irresponsible. It’s because something is going on, and it’s heavier than people realize. It’s a storm in my chest, a weight I can’t carry, a feeling that doesn’t pass with rest or sleep. It could be the best day of my life and yet there will still be a moment, or a hundred, where I wonder what it would be like if I wasn’t here anymore. That thought never leaves. It’s stitched into my routine.
Then there’s anxiety, something that crept in quietly and now controls everything. As a kid, I didn’t understand anxiety. I thought it was just being nervous sometimes. But after fourth grade, it started swallowing me whole.
I begged to stay home from school, not because I was tired or lazy, but because I was terrified—terrified of people, of being seen, of being perceived. I’ve skipped days because the thought of walking into a classroom, of sitting in a group, of raising my hand, made me physically sick.
For four years, I couldn’t eat in front of anyone at school. Not even my friends. I’d sit with an untouched lunch because I didn’t know if the way I chewed or held my fork or opened my juice box would look weird. That’s what anxiety does. It turns everything into a threat. It convinces you that the smallest things will ruin you.
I hesitate before I speak, before I move, before I even exist too loudly. I come off awkward or quiet, but it’s not because I don’t care—it’s because I care so much it consumes me.
I’m hyper-aware of every word I say, every gesture I make. I rehearse conversations in my head over and over again, scripting my lines like a play, terrified of saying the wrong thing, sounding weird, being judged. I overthink everything. I replay interactions from months ago, picking them apart like puzzles I’ll never solve.
I don’t know how to just be—how to exist without analyzing myself like a problem. I am self-aware to the point of self-destruction. People don’t see how paralyzing that is. They don’t see that I’m not just shy or sensitive. I’m fighting a war with my brain every single day just to do the things they don’t even think about.
But it’s not just the suicidal thoughts that haunt me, it’s the depression that follows me like a second skin. The kind that makes happiness feel like a visitor, not a home. Even when I feel okay, even when I laugh or smile or enjoy a moment, I know it’s temporary.
I know that anything can pull the rug out from under me. A misplaced word. A weird look. A bad grade. One tiny thing and suddenly, I’m spiraling again, back to hating myself for reasons I can’t even explain.
I don’t know if the world made me like this or if I came into it already broken. Maybe it was the mean kids. Maybe it was the way everything around me felt cold and hostile when I needed warmth. Or maybe I was born like this, with a mind that naturally sinks.
I’ve never really felt like I belonged anywhere, not fully. I’m always the extra piece in the puzzle box, the one that doesn’t quite fit but everyone pretends to make room for. I’ve felt this way for so long that sadness became my baseline.
I find comfort in reading about people who are worse off than me, like their pain makes mine more understandable and more valid. My English teacher once read one of my essays and told me it sounded like I was addicted to suffering. And maybe I am. Maybe sadness is the only thing that has stayed long enough to feel familiar.
Even when my day is fine, night falls and something heavy presses down on my chest for no reason. It’s not just feeling sad. It’s an entire way of being. I lay in bed for hours doing nothing. Or I eat everything in sight. Or I don’t eat at all. I scroll through my phone until my eyes hurt, trying to distract myself from my own existence.
But that’s not the only thing my brain battles me on. I also live with ADHD, and it’s like being trapped inside a house with too many windows open during a storm where everything is happening all at once, and I can’t focus on any of it.
I can’t sit still in class. I need help constantly, not because I’m lazy, but because my mind refuses to settle. If there’s too much noise, I can’t focus. If it’s too quiet, I can’t focus either. If the lights are too bright, or the chair’s uncomfortable, or I’m even slightly overwhelmed, my brain checks out.
I try to do my work but the thought of even starting makes my skin crawl. It’s not just procrastination—it’s dread. It’s this heavy resistance like my brain is dragging its feet through cement.
I always say I’ll do it later, and then later becomes never. I forget everything. Assignments, deadlines, even what I was saying mid-sentence.
I never know how I feel, and when I do feel something, it’s too much. I’m too much. I talk too fast, think too loud, feel too big. I’m impulsive. I interrupt people. I shut down completely without warning.
I want to explain, but even this—these words, this attempt—still doesn’t fully capture what it’s like in my head. I don’t even think I can explain it. I’m starting to believe my brain is too complex, too chaotic, too loud for anyone to ever fully understand, including me.
I wish I was neurotypical. I wish I could just exist without feeling like I’m malfunctioning. Without carrying all of this. I wish my brain didn’t feel like a maze I’ll never find the way out of.
I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do with all of this, with the heaviness I carry, with the thoughts I can’t silence, with the way everything feels like too much and not enough at the same time.
I keep thinking that one day I’ll wake up and all of this will make sense, that I’ll understand myself, or at least be able to manage what’s going on in my head. But that day never comes.
I just keep moving forward because I have to. Not because I’m strong or brave or resilient, just because there’s no other option. I try to smile when I’m supposed to. I show up when I can. I get good at pretending.
But underneath it all, I feel like I’m falling apart in ways no one can see. I question every emotion I have, every reaction, every part of me that doesn’t fit neatly into what people expect. I keep asking myself why I feel this way, why my mind is so loud, why nothing ever feels easy. Why I can’t just be okay.
I try so hard to be someone worth loving, but most of the time I don’t even know what that looks like. I’m tired of thinking I’m too much. Too emotional. Too sensitive. Too complicated.
But I’m also tired of feeling like I’m not enough. Not pretty enough. Not smart enough. Not calm, quiet, or easy to love. I feel like I’m constantly stuck in between, desperate to be seen and terrified of it at the same time.
Maybe that’s the cruelest part of growing up with all this pain: wanting love so badly, but never really believing I deserve it.
I look around and everyone else seems to know who they are, where they belong, how to breathe without thinking about it. And then there’s me. Messy, overthinking, always a little bit too sad, too loud, too much for the world to hold.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m broken beyond repair. If I’ll ever feel like I make sense. Maybe my feelings really are too complicated. Maybe I was never meant to be understood. Maybe I’m not worthy of anyone’s love, not even my own.
Or maybe… maybe I’m just a teenage girl trying to make sense of a world that never gave her the tools to survive it.
Author’s Note:
This essay is a reflection of everything I’ve kept buried inside. The pain, the confusion, the self-doubt, and the quiet strength it takes just to keep going. It’s my way of saying the things I’ve never had the space or safety to say out loud. Every word is a piece of how I see myself and the world around me, even when it feels like no one else sees me at all. More than anything, it’s a reminder that I’m still here, still feeling, still trying, even when it hurts.
Starfish | 15 | California, USA
