When I was younger, I was always smiling and laughing and having a great time. No matter where I was, no matter when it was, no matter what. I was always moving, I was outgoing, I was such a little social butterfly! Then it all snapped. It popped away.

Now everyone still expects to see the girl who's always smiling. Who does everything with a smile. Who never complains about anything. Got hit in the hand with a bat, no tears, try to finish the softball game. Got hit in the head with a ball, have marks on your head and people telling you that you could have died that night when you went to sleep, but I can't break down in the middle of the office of my sisters school. I've learned to not cry, to try and at least act like the girl they want.

I still cry about what people say even these years down the road and the help that I've gotten but those wounds still hurt. And newer ones just add on and build on to the pressure until I can't save myself. Until I lose myself. Now, I try to help people but I know that I can't fix it, not matter how hard I try because I still can't fix myself. But I'm getting better. I'm crying less and less in private, talking to the friends that get me, who I can really only find on here. The only people that get my obsessions and loves completely, are the people that I constantly talk to.

But I'm not into self harm, because that causes even more damage, not just to myself but to my family and the people that I've made connections with. And because the one Lord God Almighty is just unfinished with me, he's still working on me and I haven't fulfilled what I need to do for Him and His Kingdom.

So yeah, that's why I try to help people through rough times in their lives, because its not worth death. Its not worth it, no matter how it seems like a solution at that moment, its not. And I pray for all of you, all the time!

But I can't lie to myself. I need to help myself through this for real instead of turning my focus to the next song that pops into my head, that no one at school understands. Because I'm the only one like me and I can't keep smiling and saying that I am like the others! Because if I leave the small friend group that I've just now really gotten completely into, I'm alone. Because everyone else has something against me for who knows what!?! Because I'm that freaky nerd girl who can't shut up about musicals. Last year to one of my friends at school and the teachers and my parents, they said I did the right thing by at least trying to help someone who was thinking of taking their live during class. But I never felt like the way they saw me. It broke me, it still breaks me every time someone mentions suicide because to a then sixth grader, now seventh grader, it hits too close to so much. Because if I had lost that person, I would have lost myself, knowing that one of my best friends ((they're good now, though, thankfully)) ended it all and I wouldn't have been able to do anything. That why I try to help people through that stuff, because I've made a connection with them and if I lose them, I lose a part of myself.

I try to hide what people have known me to be at school, I don't speak up in class anymore unless I have to, if it is drama class, or if it is Gifted and Talented. They've come to know me as the freaky smart musical geek and I have tried to hide it, but then they bring it up and I go back to the dork. I embrace it with my friends and family, shut myself off from everyone who could hurt me. Because I tried dance team last year, the populars clicked together and I linked up with the two people that really know. I'm not in the smart popular group, was picked on last year by people in there because they thought I like liked one of my best friends. Not in the real populace because I just can't stand those people. I fit with the gamers and the ones who just...accept me as I come and I just embrace it because I can't change it. Every day I feel out of place until we get to drama. The pressure to do well in Algebra is crushing because I'm the only seventh grader and there aren't even any eighth graders, only ninth graders that I don't know. But everyone expects me to more than survive in there is too big to just let go and tell people that I don't know if I can. Its not the work, its the people. They talk, whispers that I could hear on the first day. And the rest of the classes, I hide my brain because that's just more reason for the groups that I'm not in to dislike me more. Third grade, I was mocked for my intellect. Even at church. But they never saw me cry, I only let my mom see because she knows exactly what it is and how to do it. And I geek out with my sister, but that's about it in the real world. Everyone at school and home knows me as the girl who's always smiling,who's never stressed out. That's a lie. Two years ago, I broke down in tears because I had a huge project that I wanted to overachieve on but couldn't. And ever since then, its another battle of if I can handle the pressure or if I break down first. When my sister had her surgery, I swear I didn't want to do anything, but I still had to go on an overnight field trip with my grade the day after she had it. I begged to stay home with her because I was scared to death for her, but they said it was fine and that I should have a good time. But it was still on my mind, but when I got home, I told her all of the good things that had happened, because she had gone on the same trip five years before. Its been two years since then and she's doing perfectly fine now, but that realization of how people see me still lingers. So no, I am not that perfect happy girl that everyone wants to see, when I look in the mirror, I see the girl that I can't change, but can only embrace and love which is what I've decided to attempt to do

I'm sorry if you read this, I just had to scream somewhere and I can't do it literally in the middle of the night.

"Just breathe"-Breathe, In The Heights, Lin Manuel Miranda

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