Growing pains, Anonymous (13)

Hello. My name is Chelsea. I’m a 13-year-old adolescent who found this website from a Tik Tok comment. I’m deciding to write this because things have been pretty rough lately, and I don’t necessarily have a clear view of where to turn to with my problems, so here I am. I’m scared. I’m so scared. I’m so scared of growing up. I’m so scared of pain, I’m so scared of the struggles I’ve yet to experience and I’m so scared of losing people. The concepts of “Growing up”, “Moving On”, “Changing”, “Growing”, and “Saying Goodbye” are concepts so incredibly difficult for me to think about, but I’m slowly watching things change as the world around me is now keeping me, prisoner, in my own home with my own thoughts. I have a good family. I have good friends. But I don’t have anybody to go to because of my age. Some might say I’m too young to understand certain things. Or some might think that this is just a phase and I’m just overreacting. This might be true, but in my eyes, I don’t have a way of knowing because I don’t have someone to talk to. Either my friends aren’t exactly mature enough to understand or the adults that COULD understand refuse to believe that someone of my age can think that way. Recently things got really hard. When quarantine was first introduced, and I was forced to do online school, things became so mentally difficult for me. So much so that my parents were constantly pestering me about what was wrong, but I just couldn’t say it. They ended up asking me if I wanted to see a therapist, and I agreed because at that point I knew that I needed help. And therapy helped. A lot. My psychologist was very kind and understanding, but I couldn’t tell her everything. I was still scared that I might say something that would force her to tell my parents, which I didn’t want. So I bottled a few things up. When I had gotten better, I was starting to become more lively again, and so my parents asked me if I still needed to see the therapist since I was looking so much better. The truth is I wanted to keep seeing her. But the harsh reality is that a one-hour therapy session once a week is really expensive. So for the sake of not burdening my family, I now only see her once a month. During my time in therapy, she diagnosed me with Depression and Anxiety. And to this day, to this very moment that I’m writing this, I still feel lost. I feel empty. I feel broken. As an introvert, I have a fear of social interaction with people I don’t know, but I also have a deep fear of missing out. Afraid that I might miss something that could’ve left an impact on me, and that feeling is eating me up inside. But I’m trying my best. To anybody feeling the same way, I’m rooting for you, and please know that you’re not the only one feeling this way. Fear is a part of life, and even though it might eat you up inside like how it’s doing to me, I refuse to give up just yet after getting so far. Whoever you might be, you’re not fighting this alone. So please, don’t fight alone. You never win alone. Your victory is a symbol for all of those still fighting. Thank you for anybody taking their time to read this. I wish you all luck in the future