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It’s a terrible feeling when no one understands your pain. You smile all the time, sort of like a mask, worried of coming off needy, worried of coming off sensitive, baby-ish, overly vulnerable, all of the above. It’s especially difficult when you feel like you don’t have a valid reason to be sad and even worse when the people you vent to dismiss it and make you feel invalidated. As a person who’s always there for others, this is me giving myself a minute, checking in with myself and realizing that I need a second. To breathe, to regroup, to recharge, to recenter, to let it out, to cry, to yell, to scream, to feel validated. Growing up feeling invalidated will do that to you.

This doesn’t serve as a cry for help, however. It’s simply here to serve as an explanation, as a reason to my recent behavior. As to why I feel like im boiling over, why im actively drowning in not only my daily to do lists and responsibilities, but also why im angry and mad all the time. I feel like ive done an amazing job at masking it all. Im always smiling, laughing, always hiding. I’ve grown up learning that it’s bad to be vulnerable, always reprimanded the second I show my emotions, which can be quite terrible.

Im always giving. Im always helping others. Heck, ive dedicated the rest of my life to this. Or so I think so. I feel lost, unheard, and uncertain at what comes next. Still, I hold on. When your whole life feels like its falling apart, when everyone around you makes you feel like you’re to blame, that’s when you hold on. Someone in my community recently committed suicide and that’s breaking me. Our community suffered enough, we cannot handle any more pain. This letter is a reminder that we can get through it. We will get through it. We have to hold on and fight even when everything goes wrong. Even when everything is wrong. That’s strength. That’s resilience. That’s Parkland.