by Anonymous Writer, Age 16
My story is different from the rest, it’s so chaotic that it's interesting. To me, it could really be a movie. So, I’ll just start from the beginning. When I was three years old, my mom passed away from a seizure in her sleep. And, if I’m being honest, I don’t really remember much of that day or of my mom at all. The only thing I can recall is rubbing my grandfather’s back because he was crying.
So, you would think I would live with my dad, but I didn’t know my father at the time because he was living in Missouri, creating a new life with a new family. He never forgot about me though. From that day, my grandmother became my legal guardian, and that wasn’t the best experience of my life. It took me a while to notice, but my grandmother was very controlling and mentally abusive. From the things she said to me, the things she did, or how she treated me. Now I can understand why, because she had gone through a lot of mental trauma in her life. Yet, in the eyes of an innocent child who knows nothing, I thought that I was just misbehaving and that is how life goes. I ended up speaking with people about it. And I've realized that even though I was treated very well and was very blessed, our relationship wasn’t the best.
While in school I went through a lot of bullying. I was bullied due to my height, body shape, hair, skin color, etc. In this time of my life I experienced many different feelings about myself. I felt unneeded, lonely, abandoned, and more. Due to me having feelings of loneliness and having an unhealthy need for love, I came to depend on having boyfriends to fill those voids. Due to that decision I went through many heartbreaks, was in an controlling relationship, was forced into having sex, and more.
Thanks to my counselor, I realized many things. I realized that living with my grandmother was really hurting me and my mental health, and that it was time for a fresh start. So,I moved out of my grandmother’s house. By this time, my dad was married with 3 children and had moved to Virginia, so I moved in with him. By the time I moved in with my brothers, they were between the ages of 7 and 12, so I felt like I needed to be with them so we could get to know each other and really grow up together.
Living with my brothers, dad, and step-mom really affected me in a positive way. During that time with them, I turned around in my life. I learned how to love myself, how to treat people properly and how to capitalize on my talents. One of those talents I capitalized on was my creativity. So I started a business where I made anything and everything you can think of. "If you can name it, I can make it. - SJ Creative" But also due to my creativity, I had another idea for a second business. This business challenged a belief. The belief is that people should only go to therapy when they feel like they've been through a traumatic experience. I imagined if children began going to therapy once a week beginning in preschool, if I would have done this. Would I have had a different mental outcome? A different life? Would certain people not be in my life? Would new people have come into my life? These are things we will never know because we were allowed to grow up and live life with the idea that "Therapy is for crazy people" or "You only need therapy if something bad has happened in your life." After learning what I have about mental health, I realized that once you know how to properly cope with things, you can navigate through trauma and events easily. So, without this realization, we would have gone through maybe generations in the same belief that therapy isn’t important. But it is and the whole world needs to know.
This is how my non-profit, Kool Kids, came about, and it is what I was born to do. From everything I went through and saw, it was preparing me for the day that I would get this idea. So I could help everyone else, now and in the future, deal with their mental health.
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Congratulations to "It Gets Better" for being selected as a FINALIST in the 2022 Share Your Story Multimedia Contest!
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