The Pressure of a Teenager

My emotions are in a bottle. The lid is somewhere around my chest and it hurts as it tightens. Twisting to keep everything inside, so that nothing leaks out. But they weren’t always like this. They used to pour out of my body like a broken fountain.

Many people feel like this. And yet, everyone is different and everyone deals with it differently.

For me, it was not something I inherently knew. I only thought I was shy, introverted. Growing up, I was the kid in the back of the classroom. Baggy hoodies, and too long sleeves pulled down over my hands to hide the nervous habit of nail picking.

I was the kid who never raised her hand, but would silently mouth the answer. The kid who had only some friends, but knew everyone's name and their friends' names.

The kid that most people ignore. And that was fine with me. I prefer being ignored. Even by family members. Dinners and parties would find me in a quiet hallway or room with a book or my gamestop. I would be polite and smile and say hello and happy birthday and merry christmas, but I would not stay surrounded by people for any longer than I had to be. I hated it.

And my family hated it. My parents would always tell me to socialize, to be more active, to try and make friends. I think that's part of the reason why my mother enrolled me in Girl Scouts. I was suddenly surrounded by ten girls who were practically forced to be my friends.

It was good. Fun, even. But little girls grow up. And while I never changed from the shy, nerdy, antisocial child that I was, my girl scout members changed drastically. They became sporty, popular, boy crazy, fashionable, and since I couldn't, didn't, keep up, they left me behind.

I hold no hatred for them. I understand that this is the way of the world, but it made me more quiet, more prone to being alone. Why venture out if you would only get hurt?

By high school, I had two friends. I didn't need more. I had been stabbed in the back, talked about, made fun of, and threatened enough times to be wary of who I placed my trust in. I found friendship with people who wore mental and emotional scars like me. We were just teenagers, trying to find our way in the world.

I was a trainwreck, making rash decisions, and crying over every little thing. It was not my brightest time. You hear people who say high school was the best four years of their lives. For me, I wish to forget them. Those four years are my nightmares, they come in the dark of night and mock my choices and my actions. They throw my past into my present and future, marring any decision I try to make.

I thought I would grow. As more hardships occurred. But I simply sunk deeper under the dark waters of, what I would later learn was, depression.

It all came to a head when I decided to flunk out of college but not tell my parents. It blew up in my face. A glorious parade of pain and tears. I was guilt tripped and yelled at. I was made a mockery of. I was told I was not their daughter. It was a painful moment in my life.

I decided to act out. I dyed my hair and cut it all off. I got tattoos without telling them, I spent my money on frivolous things. I came home only to read books and sleep. I stayed out late with my coworkers, smoking pot in the parking lot of Albertsons. I stayed out all night with boys playing pokemon go and contemplating sex. I stayed over at random apartments getting drunk and admitting truths that should have stayed hidden.

And then I decided to get help. I went to my doctor and I talked to a close friend who dealt with similar things. I found out that my wild emotions, my fluctuating bursts of energy and legarthy, were all part of something bigger, something biological.

Depression. Anxiety.

I started on medication and I began talking to friends and opening up about my breakdowns and the nights I would lay awake crying. Screaming at myself, contemplating hurting myself to make the mental pain stop.

I found self help apps and I began to smile more. I found a great job, with amazing people and I began to mend the broken fences with my family. But there was still pain. A lingering infection in the giant wound that had been left unattended for too many years.

It came on slowly, but eventually it was time to heal it. So I decided to go out of state to college to follow my dreams. I planned it out, I applied for financial aid, and I told my parents that I was doing it, no matter what they said.

So I found myself in Oregon. Settling into a dorm room, seven hours away from everything and everyone I knew. And it was nerve wracking. But I felt okay.

I began healing, mentally, emotionally. The space from my parents made me appreciate them more, and made them realize how much they missed me being in their lives. It was soothing for all of us.

But something that good doesn't last forever. I told myself, promised myself, that I would begin actual therapy once I graduated, because I couldn't afford it while in college and I didnt want to have to change therapists when I moved back home.

But then during my second year away from home. After only four weeks, I felt like I was about to implode.

The bottle cap on my emotions was strung so tight, it might've broken any minute. I hadn’t cried in months and I knew it would be a tsunami when it came. I could feel my emotions, like lava, boiling inside me.

It’s been two years since then, and I can feel the pressure building.

I'm a ticking time bomb...and I’m scared of what I may do should the lid break off.