“You never let anything get to you Abi, why don’t you care?” My mom used to say that to me all of the time that it began to become a weekly sentence she would say. My family is not the average family, no family is perfect, but mine is far from perfect. With my mother having 4 kids, me as the youngest, you could assume that it must have been hard on her. As it was hard for her, it also impacted me. Being the youngest sometimes has its perks, your parents are less strict on you, not as much stress on you, but being the youngest in my family means you never get the attention. My twins brothers are trouble makers and have been since they were born. My mom would say, “It felt like they were fighting each other in my stomach when I was pregnant with them”, but with that, my mother is always so focused on them. Focused on getting them better, focused on how to make them improve as people, focused on what they are struggling with. She and my father have never noticed the times where I needed help. With my brothers always causing problems I didn't want to add anything onto my parents’ stress and it has been like that for years. I would hold everything in, hold all of my emotions and pretend to always be this happy girl who doesn't care about anything. In the past couple months that has completely changed. 

I met a guy who has completely changed my life, in the best way possible. From pretending to be this happy girl, holding in everything, he has taught me to let out my emotions to my parents and everyone. He made me realize that I was in denial with everything going on in my life for all of my 16 years and accepting that is a reason why I am proud of myself. With being in denial for 16 years, you would expect your whole life to change and that is what happened. You realize everything wrong that is going on, you realize how poorly treated you are, and all of these emotions that you are holding in. From all of this happening, it has put me in a very bad mental state; bad anxiety and depression. This guy gave me a shoulder to cry on and let me tell him everything and anything but still it was hard on me to admit I wasn’t this ‘perfect happy girl’ I made myself out to be. The anxiety, depression was all new to me and I had no clue how to control, and still sometimes don't know how to but him pushing me, gave me the strength I needed to get help with all of my mental problems. Telling someone your problems over and over again and then giving you advice only can help you in the short run, he has shown me how to get better in the long run and I could never be more proud of myself for finally being able to admit to someone, that I do need help and to seek the help I needed.

As this may seem to be a thank you letter to him, it is not. I do appreciate everything he has done for me but I want to make this a thank you letter to myself. Nobody really knows everything I have been through in my life and for me to wake up every morning and still continue to push myself to be the best real version of myself. I realized that I need to do this for myself to make myself happy, not just pretend anymore. You get only one life and you don’t want to waste it being sad and not let anything get to you. We are all humans, we have emotions, we have bad days and I realized that those bad days are okay. You can get sad and crying is proven to be good for you. A year ago today I never would have thought that I would expect that you can get sad and you can cry and I am very proud of myself to finally realize that. 

I want everyone with messed up families or messed up lives to realize that there is always someone there for you. Although it may be a random person you met 2 years ago, like it was for me, there is still always someone there for you. Someone will help you push through your rough times and show you that there is more to life than pretending to be happy all of the time, instead you can actually feel the happiness. This will help me for college because I have learned that I need a little guidance, yes, but also I have learned from this that I am able to push myself and that will help me for college. It has gotten me prepared to push myself through rough times and I know during college there will be many rough times and I will figure out a way to work through it and be able to handle it.