storiesofateenager

[storiesofateenager]

religion

Very Young

I have about one memory of being in church when I was really young, and it wasn't even just going to church. It's a really, really vague memory because of how young I was, but I'm pretty sure it was for a baptism of a family friend's child. Other than that, my family never went to church or participated in any religious activities. A lot of my friends did, but I was honestly glad that my family didn't because it sounded awful. Waking up really early on a weekend to go sit on a wooden bench and silently listen to a man speak about God and faith and the Bible for a long time. My siblings and I never would've been able to do that, just because we were really talkative when we were in the same place together.

Household

My parents had differing views in terms of religion. My dad has always been a big science and math guy, so he doesn't really believe in things that can't be proven by science. My mom, on the other hand, did believe in God, although she obviously wasn't super entangled in it. We were never forced to read the Bible, we never went to Catholic school, we never went to church, etc. It was just a belief that she carried but didn't force on my dad or any of her children. I believed in God at the time too, but again, it wasn't something that I wanted to make a big part of my life. Looking back, I'm really glad that my mom didn't do any of that really religious stuff with us, because having that freedom helped me grow into my own beliefs later on.

Losing Faith

4th or 5th grade was when I stopped believing in Christianity and God. I watched a lot of YouTube around that time. One of the people that I watched a lot made a video talking about her experience with Christianity and why she doesn't believe in it anymore like she used to. I was intrigued and she was someone that I had watched a lot of content by, so I watched it. She basically went on listing reasons why Christianity isn't this amazing, loving religion like people paint it to be, and why God isn't that great of a guy if he is real. This video really changed my entire perspective on religion as a whole, and after a while, I stopped believing.

It actually took quite some time for me to truly stop. God had been something that I always thought was just there, so to just stop believing altogether was obviously pretty hard. It was hard to stop thinking that there is an afterlife, that there is someone bigger watching over everyone and dictating a lot of things in life. Eventually, though, I did it. I stopped thinking about God and Heaven and Hell and I started just thinking of life as something that we just happen to be given and have to live through. Honestly, it helped a lot with understanding why we should do what we really love in life instead of wasting it doing nothing or doing things that make us miserable.

Experimenting

When my belief in Chrisitianity ended, my fear of death intensely increased. I realized that there actually might not be anything that happens after we die, and that is a really scary thought. That we just stop existing and that's it. So for a little bit, I did research on different religions trying to find out if there was one that I resonated with and could believe in to soothe that fear of nothingness after death. However, I didn't really find anything that I truly could get behind.

When I was a bit older, probably in 7th or 8th grade, I did some research on Satanism because I was so intrigued by the name of it. I found out that although its name may imply it, Satanists do not worship Satan (There's a different name for that: Luciferianism). Satanism is more about believing in your own power over your life, standing up for yourself and others, and overrall just being a compassionate person who allows yourself to grow and follow your dreams. To take control over your own life. I LOVED this idea, but I didn't love the idea of telling people that I was a Satanist because of the negative connotation and viewpoint that people have when they don't really know what it is. This is when I first found my personal beliefs and values.

Finding Myself

Over the past few years, I've gotten in touch more with spirituality, but not so much religion. I don't follow any one belief system. I am really in touch with nature and the universe. I feel that there could be something bigger that plays a part in everyone's lives, but it's not a physical being that can control anything. It's more of an energy, and it's dictated by your actions, thoughts, and feelings. If you constantly have a negative mindset, everything around you will be negative and bad.

However, I also really believe in science and I know that the chances of there being anything like that are extremely slim and impossible to prove right now. With the mindset thing that I just mentioned, I know that a big part of it is psychology. If you're constantly in a negative headspace, your perception of things around you will be constantly negative. Overall, my spiritual beliefs contradict my scientific beliefs, but I don't really care. Life is too short to always look for answers to impossible questions.

With that, I believe that my "purpose" in life is to be the best person I can possibly be, and to be a positive influence on the lives of people that interact with me. Of course I have bad days and mood swings and things like that, but overall, I try my best to be an optimistic person. I really work hard to find the bright side, to pay more attention to the best possible outcomes of decisions, etc. Sometimes I forget to do this for my own life, but I am really good at helping others when they need advice or when they get anxious about situations they are experiencing.

Final Thoughts

I'm extremely thankful that my parents were truly open and flexible in every sense since I was very young. If you read my post about gender and my post about my parents, you know that they've always allowed me the freedom to express myself and have my own opinions and beliefs, which has really helped me become my own person as I've grown up. I know a lot of people didn't have the same experience with their parents.

A lot of people had really bad religious experiences and trauma growing up, and I feel for you if that's your story. I'm sorry that your parents/guardians put you in a place where your identity or life might have been disregarded, and that it might've been extremely hard to get rid of those beliefs as you got older.

If you're currently in a bad religious situation, you'll get out of it. If you're young and still have to live with your parents, you'll move out. It might not be safe to share with your parents that you don't like the church or that you don't share their beliefs and you don't want to participate, and I'm sorry if that's true for you. Maintain hope that it's not permanent, and you will have control over your own life soon.

[storiesofateenager]

parents

Young Childhood

My parents have always been extremely fluid and supportive of my desires, even since I was a really young kid. If you read my post about gender identity, you know they never forced me to dress a certain type of way or take part in certain activities. They allowed me to basically do anything I wanted to, as long as it wasn't harming me or anyone else. Even in picking colors for a bedroom when my mom was pregnant with me, they chose yellow because it's a soothing color for babies and it isn't gendered (this was mostly because they didn't want to know my sex until I was born).

In elementary school, I started playing basketball in a local league. It wasn't split by gender, so there were a lot of boys and I was one out of two girls on the team at the time. They were super involved and supported me a ton by getting me proper clothes, shoes, and protective gear (kneepads and such) to play properly. They even coached my team for one season because the league didn't have enough coaches.

Parenting Style

It's hard to put a label on my parents' parenting style. They have always been quite lenient and understanding, but definitely disciplinary. I will say that an important thing is that they never really did a great job at explaining why what I did was wrong and why it was worth punishment. They also would lose their tempers and yell, but never put their hands on me or any of my siblings with the intention of hurting us. There was a lot of timeouts, groundings, and taking away TV privileges or other things like that.

However, they always made time for each of us and had fun with us. We would play sports in the front yard, go to the movies, play board games, take small trips on weekends, etc. when my parents had time away from work. They really spent a lot of their free time bonding with us instead of spending it all to themselves, which is good and bad. Good, because it built our family relationships showed us kids that they cared about spending time with us. Bad because they barely got time alone (individually and together).

Relationship

Through childhood, I bonded with my parents in different ways. I shared different interests with each of them and there were ways that we bonded one-on-one that I wouldn't have done with the other parent.

My dad used to show me video games he liked and we would play them together. Games like Skyrim, Papers Please, and a bunch of puzzle games that he would have to help me with because I was young. I loved doing that with him. We really spent a lot of time bonding over coding too. Coding is actually a really special memory I have with my dad. Every few nights we would go to his office in the basement and he would show me a coding program that also taught basic code and we would learn together. My dad is really into math and science, which was really cool growing up because he was like my personal math tutor whenever I struggled with homework. I obviously had the moments where I was crying over the table while he was trying to explain to me how to find the variable x in an algebraic equation, but I don't think of those as traumatic or bad memories with him. Our brains work similarly, so he was always able to explain those kinds of things in a way that I truly understood, which my actual teachers sometimes weren't able to do for me. Overrall, I spent a lot of time with my dad as a kid and I loved it.

My mom was more involved in my extracurriculars. I did Girl Scouts for a while, and she was always a leader or co-leader of the troops I was in. We also bonded a lot out of the house, like when she would drag me along to go grocery or clothes shopping. Very rarely, we would go fishing with my siblings. I have a vivid memory of being at Girl Scout camp with my family and going on the lake in a canoe with my mom, just me and her. I was never really into camping, but that was a really fun time. In general, my mom was always the one to take me and my siblings places, like the park. I've of course been on family trips to aquariums and museums with both of my parents but my mom was always the leader of the itinerary and she always planned it all out. In all honesty, though, I didn't spend nearly as much one-on-one time with my mom as I did with my dad when I was younger.

Being a Teenager (Now)

It's completely flipped since childhood. I love my parents equally and I still love spending time with both of them, but the amount of time I spend with each of them has switched.

My mom and I have butt heads a lot in the past few years (duhhh I'm a teenager). But we've been spending so much more time together. She truly makes an effort to spend one-on-one time with me and to keep our relationship close as I've begun to grow up. Unfortunately though, through my teenage angst or whatever, I do turn her down sometimes. There are a lot of days where I just want to stay home or I just want to be alone, but she understands that. At this point in my life, it makes sense that I'm closer with her because I have a lot more social and psychological problems going on in my life and she has a better understanding of that than my dad does. We actually share an interest in psychology and sociology, and that's something that we talk about a lot together. She's also really involved with knowing the people I surround myself with, like my girlfriend, whereas my dad knows the basics but doesn't really care to learn about details. She came to my girlfriend's house when we were getting ready for prom. My mom is the parent I go to when I need to talk about something serious or when I have a serious question about life.

My relationship with my dad is still loving and sweet, but we don't spend much time together at all anymore. It honestly makes me really sad when I truly think about it, because I miss spending many nights a week coding or playing video games with him. But he's not a very social guy, and I've realized that I'm not either, so it makes for awkward interactions between us now. And it really sucks. Of course, I still love him so much and I trust him, but it's not the same as it was when I was younger. Something else I share with my mom is that I've grown to really like going out and being out of the house, but my dad is kind of a hermit. He doesn't have many friends, works from home, and is usually in his office in the basement. I'm not saying we never spend time together, but it's so much less now. We play board games sometimes, but that's usually with the whole family or at least one of my siblings. The last time I spent one-on-one time with my dad was when he went with me to get some bloodwork done. On top of everything else, now that I'm older, I have my own opinions on politics and such that we do not share. It hasn't caused any big arguments or anything like that, but it has caused some tension between us. It's really sad. But don't get the wrong idea about him. He's not a bad man or dad by any means, we just aren't interested in all the same stuff like we used to be.

Final Thoughts

Every teenager has problems with their parents, irrational or not. I think the way that people's relationships with their parents completely switch up as they grow up is a really common narrative. Thankfully, I have pretty tame experiences and I really lucked out with my parents. Many, many people have terrible trauma and memories from their childhood because of their parents.

I wish I had advice on how to deal with manipulative, abusive parents, but I don't, I'm sorry. I don't have any experience with that and I don't want to give advice without knowing anything about being in that situation. But if you are in an awful situation like that and you need resources, there are TONS online that give advice, hotlines, contacts, etc. that you can use to get out of there if you're unsafe, even if you're under 18. I wish I could do more to help.

Also, if you're in a house that you can't wait to get out of, remember that you won't be there forever. You will move out, even if you have to stay with a friend or another family member for a while before you find your footing. With that, you have no obligation to continue to be in contact with family members once you leave. Block their contacts, cut off ties with those family members, do whatever you need to do to keep them out of your life. Your safety and mental health come first.

[storiesofateenager]

career

Young Dreams

When I was young, I had the normal kinds of career "dreams" on top of dreaming of fame. I vaguely remember wanting to be a police officer for a while. I've always liked science, and I was pretty into space as a kid, so I wanted to be an astronaut at one point too.

I talked a little bit about my dream of fame in my post about social media, but this has been a dream since I was really little. I've wanted to be an actor, a singer, an influencer, all the things. I did local theater for many years, up until I went to middle school. I'll expand on this more later in this post.

Confusion

When I began high school, I started to realize I actually needed to seriously start thinking about what I wanted to do. Even in my freshman year, I was panicked about my future and my career. If you read my post about anxiety, you know I've always been irrationally anxious about things that don't make sense to be anxious about. Freshman year was one of those times for me. Not because it was a transition into a new school with people I didn't know and a building that I hadn't learned yet, but because it was a milestone. I had to start being serious about my life and taking steps to build to the place I wanted to be.

I ended up being pretty lucky because the classes I had helped me a lot with figuring that out early. Usually, people have no idea what they want to do until about junior or senior year of high school (so it's normal if that's the boat you're in). But because of my classes in my freshman year, I started to get a general idea of what I wanted to do.

Beginning of Interest in Career

During my freshman year I took a class called Intro to Business. It taught about basic financial stuff and career stuff. One of the projects we had to do was research a career, create a slideshow, and present it. We had to research the salary, education needed, basic description of the career title, and other in-depth concepts relating to the career we chose. I had no idea what to choose because we were supposed to pick a career that we would be interested in, and I hadn't figured any of that out yet.

I ended up just choosing a psychological career because I knew I was interested in science but not chemical or physical science. I chose counseling, otherwise known as therapy. I had had experience being in therapy in the past, so I decided it might be an interesting topic to research. After doing all of the research, maybe more than was needed for the project, I found that I truly was interested in it. My experiences with therapy hadn't been that great, and I came to realize that I would be happy contributing to the good side of therapy and becoming a therapist that would actually help people.

After that, I decided that I should start taking steps to achieve my goal of becoming a therapist. I chose to take psychology and sociology my sophomore year. My psychology class didn't pique my interest quite as much as I had expected it would. It was more about the physical aspect of the brain and the effeets that different environments have on the physical brain. However, my sociology class was amazing. It was more about social concepts and human behavior rather than physical effects. We talked about beauty standards, herd mentality, etc. and the teacher did an incredible job with all of it. Through taking these two classes, I learned that I was disinterested in the physical aspect of people's brains and more interested in how people's brains are conditioned to behave.

More Confusion

Although these classes helped me understand my interest, I began having more interests during my junior year. I realized that my general dream for a career would be an influential one. Something that would change lives and help people.

I had an incredible english teacher (who was also my drama teacher) during my first semester who changed my life and perspective in a lot of ways. She taught me how to be confident in my skin, that people can be good but do bad things, that not everything has to be so black and white. She taught me so much more than english and drama. She was the first teacher I had ever had that genuinely seemed to care about every single student, even the ones who she didn't get along with. I had a lot of bad days during that semester, and she was always the first or only person to notice and check in with me. She honestly saved my life by doing that. Because of her, an interest in teaching sparked in me. It was a great way to seriously influence people's lives while also doing something else I like to do: teach people about things they don't know about (specifically SCIENCE!).

On top of that, she was my drama teacher and did genuinely teach me a lot about theater, TV, and things like that. She has done many, many theater productions (some completley solo!) and has been in underground shows and films. Again, she taught my class a lot about the business aspect and real life as an actor. Through that, I realized that I also had an interest in being an actor again. However, the live theater aspect of the class didn't interest me as much as being on TV and in movies did. And again, it was a perfect mashup of influencing people and doing something I liked: acting.

During this time, I was really panicked again. I was switching between what I wanted to do and now I was a junior in high school. My friends already had their plans set for their lives and I felt like I was falling behind in that aspect (don't worry, i figured it out before the end of the year).

First Job

Still during the first semester of junior year, I got my first job. A friend in one of my classes had reccommended a place that she worked at because they were understaffed and she was related to the owner. I applied to be a busser, interviewed, and got the job. It was a restaurant that served bar food. I ended up being a foodrunner instead of a busser, which meant my entire job was just bringing people's food to their table. It was a seriously stressful job, which sounds really dumb and whiney, but hear me out. I was the only foodrunner, even on weekends when it was crazy busy. Sometimes I wasn't able to carry food to tables fast enough and the line cooks would get mad at me because the food was burning under the heat lamps. I usually had to ask the owner to help me run food because it was too much for just me to handle (especially since I was new). I was working crazy hours, definitely illegal for my age, and usually wasn't able to take a proper break during weekend shifts because it was so busy and there was no one to take over for me. I was barely even able to see my family because I was working straight after school until late night, so my parents would be asleep by the time I got home. On weekends, it was even worse because I was working morning to late night.

Although I was making really good money for a teenager, it wasn't worth the emotional distress. I broke down in the car with my mom because of how much I didn't want to go to work and because of how much anxiety, depression, and general stress it was causing me to experience. Even she agreed that it was a little much for a teenager to handle (she might be a little biased though, being that she's my mom). She convinced me to put in my two weeks notice and get out of there. For context, this was after only two or three months of working there. Quitting before getting too entangled with the job and people there was honestly the best decision I ever made.

College

Figuring out where I wanted to go for college was really hard too. For a while, I didn't even think about college. School began to get really hard for me and I started to think that it just wasn't my thing. That's junior year of high school for you. For a majority of the year, I truly had my mind set that I was not going to college and I would just figure something else out. I gave up on my dream of being a therapist just because I felt that I wouldn't be able to do that much school to get there.

However, towards the end of my junior year, I started going to therapy again. My therapist has been so wonderful and perfect for me that my interest in therapy began to grow again. I also started doing better in school and started being more disciplined and able to keep up with it. With that, the motivation to go through the 8 or so more years of education started growing too. So I decided that I definitely would be going to college.

Current Dream

Currently, my plan is to dual enroll during my senior year to do my gen eds online and get them out of the way early. That way, when I leave high school, I can transfer to a different community college, live on campus, and get right into the good stuff in my major, which will be sociology. The full dream is to work up to getting my master's degree and fully become a licensed therapist. This way, I can change people's lives and generally contribute to the betterment of society, even if only a tiny bit.

Final Thoughts

I think my experience with figuring out my future is pretty common among teenagers. A lot of people don't truly know what they want to do until late in their high school years. Even then, it's really common for people to change careers or majors once they start getting experienced in it and realize they don't love it as much as they thought.

If you're currently in high school and are worried about finding that career that really interests you, don't stress yourself out about it too much. Take different types of classes to explore different fields and start doing research about the different careers that your friends/peers are interested in. You will figure it out. Even if you're out of high school and still don't know, you will figure it out.

[storiesofateenager]

social media

Beginning

The very very first instance of having social media that I remember was when I was really young, maybe 7-9 years old. I had a tablet, not a phone, but I downloaded Instagram because my friends in school had it (yes, my friends had phones and Instagram in like 3rd grade and yes that is so scary). Anyway, I ended up using my mom's email because I didn't have another one to use and she ended up finding out about it and getting mad at me, so I had to delete it. I didn't dare try it again until I had my own phone.

I finally got my own phone when I was in 6th grade, towards the end of the year. So I was 12. That was when I started being on Instagram and Snapchat. I'm not sure if I was on TikTok (Musical.ly at the time) but if I was, I wasn't using it as much as the others. I definitely used Snapchat a lot more at that time and I posted a lot with my friends and innocent things like that. However, I had no idea the effect it would have on me in the years to come.

Self-Esteem

My self-esteem dramatically dropped. If you read my post about gender, you know I had a half-shave haircut and I dressed very masculine. I also had braces by the time I was in 7th grade. Seeing objectively attractive people on Instagram and Snapchat made me extremely insecure. On top of that, my social life was nothing like the other people in my middle school. People were hanging out with their friends almost every day and doing so many fun things. At that time, I didn't know that those people could dramaticize it and make it seem better than it was, so I just thought I was boring as hell compared to them.

6th grade was absolutely the first time that I truly felt insecure about my physical appearance. There was bullying in person in school, of course. But the bullying and harassing I witnessed online, even when not directed at me, made me such a pessimist. It also honestly made me a terrible person. I thought that was just how people were supposed to be, so I would be mean too. I wouldn't say I was a full-on bully, because I never targeted people in real life or went after specific people publicly on social media, but I would say some mean things about people to my friends and it was not okay. In general, through middle school, social media just deteriorated my mental health and my morals without me even realizing it.

And don't even get me started on being insecure about views/likes. My friends always had more followers and therefore more views and likes and comments on their posts. I wanted so badly to be on that level on Instagram but I never have been. Even now, when I post on Instagram I turn off my public like count so people can't see how many I got.

Friends

I made so many friends because of social media. Being on Snapchat and Instagram I stumbled upon people that lived in other states that were really nice and fun to talk to, but those friendships usually didn't last. The best and worst friendships I made on social media were from the app that no one should ever download: Yubo.

I first downloaded Yubo in 2018 or 2019. I didn't have many friends in school and I heard about Yubo in ads on other social media platforms, so I decided to give it a try. I found a few people that I thought were cool, but again, they didn't last very long. We usually just ended up drifting apart and stopped talking after a few weeks. I also found people that I got into talking stages and relationships with, but I'll talk about that in a separate post.

When 2020 and Covid came around and everyone was in their homes, I started making more meaningful friendships on Yubo. I ended up having a friend group entirely from that app and we would go live on Yubo almost every single day. We had a Snapchat group chat together and would talk nonstop. Even this came to an end within a couple months, though. After that, I met someone while I was livestreaming on Yubo, who would soon become my best friend.

We would text on Snapchat every day, sometimes late into the night. We would go live, just the 2 of us. We would play Minecraft and Fortnite. Our interests would phase in and out as we found new things to do together online and all that. But seriously, she's the best friend I've ever had. She helped me a lot through breakups and personal issues, and I did the same for her. After about a year of being best friends, we actually met up halfway between where we lived. By this point, I was about 15 and she was 17. It was a really fun time even though our moms were there.

She's been my best friend for about 3 years now. We don't talk as often anymore, but we catch up every couple of weeks and still play games sometimes when we have time. We're actually planning to meet up again this summer. She's just an awesome person and I genuinely think we'll be friends forever. So, it's completely possible to make friends through social media who truly have a positive impact on your life.

Education + Misinformation

There's a strange dichotomy of education and misinformation on social media. A lot of people talk about the fake stuff, which is totally reasonable because it is true that a lot of stuff on social media and on the internet in general is fake. Take The Onion for example, which makes satire news articles. Although it is a known fake news site, there are people that genuinely believe the stuff they post, even though it's completely ridiculous.

With that, popular social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat don't have good guidelines about posting fake facts and such. And a lot of people take it as it is, believe it, and share/spread it without doing any of their own research. It can be hard to trust when someone posts a factual type of post on social media. As I talked about earlier as well, it's really easy to pretend that your life is super great on social media. Pictures can be photoshopped, videos can be scripted, etc. Young people on social media might believe this and compare their own lives to it, as I did when I was that age.

However, there's also a lot of educational stuff. There are real doctors, scientists, therapists, etc. on social media who post helpful tips and educational posts that are actually real and factual. I personally love science, and I've learned a lot of science stuff on TikTok (that I looked up on Google afterward because I was curious) and I've never been taught half of it in school. Of course social media educational posts should not be a substitute for an actual education, but it can teach you fun little facts about subjects you like.

Pursuit of Fame

Pretty much ever since I started social media, I've wanted to be famous on it. I don't mean have one post go viral, I mean get big. That's honestly still a lost dream of mine (welcome to my blog LOL) but definitely not on a place like Instagram or Snapchat or Twitter. I've always dreamed of being a famous YouTuber turned actor/comedian or sommething along those lines.

I actually have started various YouTube channels over the years doing different things but ultimately ended up deleting them after realizing how embarrassing it was that I was doing that. Maybe I should start that up again (I don't know what I would do though). Some of them did get a little bit of traction, but I usually got overwhelmed with negative comments and just deleted everything.

Final Thoughts

Now, I've learned that when my mental health is bad, social media can't help at all. I delete it from my phone for a few weeks or sometimes over a month and just allow myself to find other ways satiate my boredom. While I'm away from it, I read, write, play video games, spend time with my family and friends, and sometimes I just meditate. Eventually, I do redownload it when I feel more stable. It's an addiction. I know it's bad for me but I can't stop. And I know a lot of other people my age or older feel the same way.

If social media really has you down, get away from it for a while. There's no shame in coming back to it later. Just get your mind off of it and find healthy ways to distract yourself. Pick up a new hobby, or something you've worked on in the past that you haven't done in a while. Going on walks or drives are other things that can really relax your mind and release the happy chemicals and hormones that social media usually does. If there are certain people that you only talk to on social platforms and you don't want to not be able to talk to them, ask them for their phone number! You don't need to isolate to be off of social media.

When you're feeling ready, download it again. Gradually get back into it, watching out for those feelings of insecurity, self-consciousness, or anxiety. If you try to go back to it and find that you immediately fall back into those negative feelings towards it, stay off of it for a little while longer. Again, you can always come back when you feel ready.

[storiesofateenager]

gender identity

Before School

I was born female, with a super feminine name. Before I was able to dress myself, my parents would dress me in somewhat feminine clothing, but usually not dresses or skirts or anything like that. It wasn't all pink and butterflies either, but they were clothes from the girls' section. However, once I was able to dress myself, I soon came to realize that I didn't care for those kinds of clothes. Ever since then, I felt disconnected from femininity.

I wanted to dress like my brothers, who I hung out with a bunch. My parents never forced me to dress a certain way, so I did end up wearing a lot of neon tshirts and basketball shorts. In my home, it was normal that I acted and dressed this way. I would play baseball and basketball and football with my younger brother in front of our house. We would also play things like cops and robbers, pretended to fight zombies outside with Nerf guns, and played other imagination games like that. I also played a lot of video games with both of my brothers. Playing Call of Duty and Guitar Hero with my brothers was a big part of my childhood.

Outside of the home, though, people often found it strange. I have one memory of one of these situations being on a playground with my siblings as a kid. I was really young, so I obviously hadn't developed the physical traits of a female, and I was wearing a tshirt and basketball shorts, but I did have long hair. There was a mom pushing her young child on a swing. I was standing by the swing waiting for a turn, so the mom took her kid off of it and said, "Come on, let's give the little boy a turn." I promptly said, "Oh, I'm a girl." The mom seemed shocked and said, "Oh I'm sorry, I just thought because of your clothes." I was confused because it was normal to me.

Elementary School

When I was in elementary school, I had a lot of girl friends but I never truly fit in with them. I just wasn't into the stuff that they were into. They wanted to sit and talk at recess. I was running around and playing football and basketball with the boys. They were fashionable and trendy at that age, and I just didn't care about clothes like that. They would pay attention to their hair and check on it during the school day, but I was the girl that just didn't care about my appearance at all. I brushed my hair in the morning and that was it. Basically, I was the big tomboy in my elementary school.

Of course, I still loved being around them and talking to them. They were my friends. Even though I liked doing traditionally masculine things, I got along with girls a lot better because I thought they were funnier and way nicer.

However, there were instances in elementary school where I went through periods of trying out feminine stuff again. I wore a skirt and leggings very rarely and but it felt extremely awkward. People even made comments about my outfits. One specific memory I have of one of these comments was probably around 3rd or 4th grade. I wore a dress on a special occasion, maybe picture day. One of my friends in an older grade saw me in this dress in the hallway and asked me why I was wearing a dress because it was so out of character for me. This was one of the nicer interactions during these spurts of femininity.

During the summer before 5th grade, I got a drastic haircut. One side of my head was shaved, and the other side was about chin length. At the time, this was just something I randomly felt like doing. I didn't have any gender stuff in mind, because I didn't know anything about that yet. I felt like changing things up, so I did. People loved it (or so they said).

Middle School

In middle school, I was pretty much the same as before in terms of expression. I still had my half-shave (although the longer side had begun to grow out a lot more) and wore masculine clothing. A lot of sweatpants, khakis, and hoodies. At this point, I was rejecting femininity so hard that I "hated" the color pink. I was completely out of touch with my feminine side.

Although I was a little bit different than a lot of the other girls, I made friends pretty easily within my first week of 6th grade. I still mostly had friendships with girls and I found most guys insufferable to be around and talk to (lol). These girls were, again, rather feminine and paid a lot of attention to their outfits, hair, and nails. Again, I didn't pay much attention to any of this in myself. My friends never made comments about it because it was so normal to them. However, this is when I really started pondering gender. I knew about transgender people, so I really thought about it. I ended up coming out to my friends as transgender and a boy. But within a couple weeks, I realized that I didn't really feel that much like a boy. It didn't make me comfortable.

I had many moments like this from 6th to 8th grade, wondering if I was a girl or a boy. Those were the only things I knew people could be, so I didn't think of any other option. It didn't really start to change until around 8th grade.

My 8th grade year was weird. First things first, I ended up getting a new haircut because my half-shave was getting boring and I stopped liking it. My hair got cut really short, like a guy's. This is when I realized I was having a lot of body issues. I hated my chest, and it made wearing masculine clothes a real struggle because it never looked how I wished it did. Then, Covid hit. After schools got shut down in March, we started doing online school. I started being on social media a lot more because everything got shut down and there was basically nothing else to do at home (in my mind as a 13 year old). I started learning so much more about gender and sexuality through the internet. I made a bunch of online friends and I started seeing more people's experiences and stories. I learned what "gender non-conforming" and "nonbinary" and "personal pronouns" were. At first though, I still didn't feel like I identified with any of that. I finished 8th grade year still identifying as a girl. Over the summer, I got a binder to help with my dysphoria.

High School

In 9th grade, we went back to school, but only for half the week. Half of the week was in person, half was online. I still had a lot of time at home to ponder my gender. I ended up trying out being a boy again, but I only did this with my close online friends. I didn't "come out" but rather told them I was experimenting. I went by Evan and he/she pronouns for a while. I didn't really like they/them pronouns at the time. In school though, I was still a girl with a feminine name. After a few months of this online experimenting, I realized it didn't make me as comfortable as I thought it might. Instead, I started introducing myself to people with a shortening of my birthname and went by any pronouns. By the end of 9th grade, I was still kind of confused.

Over the summer and into my sophomore year, I really started identifying with nonbinary. I had feminine traits and masculine traits. I stopped pushing away femininity so much in my actions and interests, but I still dressed masculine and had short hair. Although I did start growing it out just a bit. In school, I would introduce myself in classes with the shortening of my name. I started telling people that I went by they/them and I was nonbinary. This was the year that I also came out to my parents in terms of gender. My mom had been having suspicions. When it was time for her to fill out forms for the information on my driver's permit, she asked me whether I wanted an F, M, or X on it as my sex. I told me I wanted the X, and that was it. She didn't question anything or say anything, just wrote it down. She told my dad (which I have no qualms about), and he never questioned it either.

Now, in junior year, I have never embraced myself so much. My parents call me by the shortening of my name, as well as everyone else. People refer to me as they/them. It took my parents a while to get used to, and they still make mistakes, but they always put in effort. Sometimes they forget and say the wrong thing, sometimes they correct themselves, sometimes they get it right the first time. I'm okay with all of that because I know they're trying. I also feel this way about anyone else that makes errors or doesn't understand. I'm always willing to explain what "nonbinary" means and how to use they/them pronouns for someone. I've grown out my hair a bunch, to the point where it's a subtle mullet/shaggy type of vibe. I still bind and wear mostly masculine clothing, but I throw in feminine flair to make it more androgynous (like painted nails, a turtleneck, earrings). I'm much more in touch with all sides of myself and I don't suppress anything in terms of expression. I am unapologetically myself, and I'm so happy with my appearance and who I've become.

Final Thoughts

If you're struggling with your gender identity, there is no shame in experimenting. Have someone you trust try out different pronouns and names on you. Feel it out. It could take a long time, but you will figure it out and find something that makes you comfortable. You might find certain things affirming at some points, and then they could start to make you uncomfortable again. That's okay. But you will find who you are. You won't be confused forever.

If you're young and thinking of coming out but are scared, I understand completely. My situation was very fortunate, but not everyone's is. If your parents have expressed hatred towards transgender people and you think they would be physically harmful to you or would kick you out if you came out, don't do it. It sucks, but your physical safety comes first. If your parents have never really discussed the LGBTQ+ community and you're unsure of how they would react, feel it out. Don't let the focus be on you. Tell them over dinner that someone at school came out as transgender that you didn't expect (don't give a name of anyone you actually know) and see how they navigate that. If it feels unsafe, don't do it. If they seem to be relatively okay with it, come out when you're ready. Even if they aren't fully accepting at first, they will most likely come around eventually, knowing that you're their child and they love you. Above all else though, do it when you're ready. Don't feel like you have to absolutely force yourself when you're not prepared for it.

You are loved, you are strong, you are worthy.

[storiesofateenager]

anxiety

I've had seriously bad anxiety since the very beginning of my memories.

Young Anxiety

I remember being in elementary school, probably somewhere between 2nd and 4th grade, and making it extremely difficult for my parents to get me out of the house and into the car to go to school. I would scream and cry because I didn't want to go. At that time, I obviously didn't know I was anxious, but it's clear now that that's what it was. My parents would have to physically pick me up and carry me out of the house. Sometimes they would yell at me while doing it, sometimes they would ask me what was wrong and why I didn't want to school. They would ask me if I was having problems with the other kids or with teachers, probably afraid that I was being badly bullied or abused. But I wasn't. One day, my dad even cried. Not out of frustration or anger, but out of sadness that I was so emotional about school, and probably out of sadness that he didn't know what was happening. I remember thinking he was mocking me, and I even asked him in the moment. He either didn't explain it or I was so emotional in the moment that I forgot what he said.

I also know that I was scared of my teachers. Most of them weren't even mean, and a lot of them liked me because I was so quiet and I did what I needed to do. But I was always afraid that I would do something wrong and get yelled at, even though my teachers weren't the type to yell at students. I wouldn't ask questions out of fear that the teachers and my peers would judge me. At that time, the only reason I would get all of my work done was because I didn't want the teacher to confront me about it. At that point, I was really conscious of my behavior rather than my appearance, because I didn't feel self-conscious about that until middle school.

First Panic Attacks

My first panic attack ever was in my grandmother's house when I was really young, probably 7 to 9 years old. I don't remember if we were there for a holiday or something like that, but my family had gone over there for some reason. We hung out there all day, and then my siblings and I decided we wanted to sleep over. Our parents and grandparents were fine with it, so our parents eventually left. While we were there, one of my siblings got sick and suddenly threw up. My grandparents dealt with it, cleaned it up, etc. After a while, I started feeling nauseous. You'd think this meant I was going to get sick too, but that wasn't what it was. I felt like I couldn't calm down. I couldn't take a deep breath, and I was speaking gibberish to my grandparents about how my stomach hurt but I didn't want to sit down and I didn't feel like I was going to throw up even though I was nauseous. I was panicking, although again, I didn't know it then. This is what sparked my huge fear of throwing up, which I still have now. Eventually, I calmed down, but it took a while. I don't remember what happened after that. I don't think I ever ended up getting sick, even days later, but I'm not exactly sure.

The next big panic attack I remember having was in school. I was still in elementary school, probably around the same age as my last panic attack. I don't remember why, but I had gone to the nurse for something other than the panicky feeling. I might've been dizzy or started feeling nauseous. Anyway, I was sitting in the nurse's office, waiting for her while she was helping out another student. She had a fishtank in the waiting area, which I always looked at a ton while I was in there. At some point, she came over to me and asked me what was wrong. I knew her pretty well because I had been there a few times and my older brother had a reputation for going to the nurse all the time just because he was bored of class. While she was talking to me, I started losing touch with reality and getting fidgety. It went from 0 to 100 really quick, with me unable to articulate what exactly was happening but making it clear that I was freaking out. She was the first person that said the words "panic attack" to me, by asking if I had had one before. I said yes, remembering this feeling from my grandma's house. She got me a cup of water. I kept telling her that I couldn't "remember" the things around me, that they felt unfamiliar (but of course I was using a 3rd grade vocabulary and she didn't understand what I meant at all, which made it even worse). Again, I don't remember how I calmed down or what happened afterwards, but I now had words that I could put to the feeling. I also now know that I was also dissociating in that moment, which I've experienced multiple times since then as well, but I can talk about that in a different post.

Hospitalization

*tw: eating disorders*

In 4th or 5th grade, I was hospitalized because of my anxiety. Basically, my whole family had gotten the flu and felt sick for about a week. No one threw up from what I remember, but we all felt nauseous, had no appetite, and were feverish. Once we all started to feel better, I didn't. The flu symptoms went away, of course, but my anxiety towards being nauseous didn't. My relationship with food deteriorated as I was afraid that I would throw up if I ate. So I stopped eating. I was drinking water and such though. I know now that if I would've been sick, I would've thrown up whether I was eating or not. But I didn't know that at that age. My parents knew I wasn't eating, but I guess they assumed I would eventually cave and eat again. However, the longer I went without eating, the more the thought of eating disgusted me. They didn't know why I stopped eating, and I didn't know how to tell them. This went on for weeks. My mom had let the principal and guidance counselor know about it, so I was getting pulled out of class to go to the office and talk to them about it every day. I still didn't know how to tell them why I wasn't eating, mostly because I was embarrassed. Eventually, I got frustrated. So I told them about my family being sick and my fear of throwing up.

They didn't believe me.

They assumed I was being bullied, or that it had something to do with my weight and body. It didn't. I was just an anxious kid who didn't know how to deal with it. I kept telling them this story, and they kept asking me to tell them the truth. I didn't understand. I was telling them the truth. I got pulled out of class again, but it was different this time. My parents were in the office this time, crying. I was confused, but I started crying too. The principal and my parents started telling me that they had decided they were going to take me to the hospital because I was getting scarily skinny and they didn't know what else to do. So, they took me to the hospital.

I got an IV put in, obviously. They took my blood and told my parents that I was very malnourished and my organs were close to failing. They had a psychologist come to my room and talk to me with my parents outside. She asked me things about my body image, and she told me I was beautiful. I was confused, because as I said, this had nothing to do with my body or feeling ugly. I got no sleep while I was there, because a nurse would have to take my blood in the middle of the night. I eventually ate one singular meal, which I guess they thought was enough for me to be discharged. I continued not eating for a little bit after I went home, but I eventually started eating again slowly. They forced me to start going to therapy afterwards.

Therapy

My first therapist was cool. I still hadn't told my parents the reason I stopped eating in the first place, so the goal my therapist set with me was to get me to open up about that. Now that I had told someone and they didn't believe me, I didn't want to tell anyone anymore. I went to multiple sessions, talking about nothing. I wasn't a talkative kid, so a lot of our sessions were rather silent. Her therapy style was to stay silent so that I felt the need to talk, but it didn't work well on me. I had no problem with silence. Eventually, I knew I needed to tell people, because my parents wouldn't leave me alone about it. So I told my therapist. I cried talking about it. She believed me, and told me that I should tell my mother at least. I did. This is when I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. After that, I told my mom I didn't want to go to therapy anymore. She made me tell my therapist in person that I was done with it the next session. I cried so hard because I felt horrible telling her I didn't want to see her anymore. But, that was over.

About a year or two later, in middle school (probably 6th grade), my anxiety was getting bad again. Not to the point that it was at when I was hospitalized, but still bad. My mom wanted me to go to therapy again, and I agreed that I probably should. She found me a new therapist. This one lasted a much shorter amount of time. We just didn't connect. She rarely asked me questions about myself. Again, it was mostly silence. After a couple months, I told my mom I didn't want to go back because I didn't feel like I could talk to her. So I stopped going.

Now, I'm in therapy again. It wasn't only for anxiety, but a big part of it was that. The therapist I see now is amazing. We've connected, she asks me questions when she sees I can't think of anything to talk about, and we're able to joke and laugh together on top of talking about serious topics. Now that I'm older, I understand that I have to open up about difficult topics to change, so I'm more willing to push myself out of my comfort zone. I've cried so many times with this therapist, and I feel less and less embarrassed about it every time. I was hesitant at first to get back into therapy after two negative experiences, but I'm so glad that I did.

Current-Day Coping

Today, I obviously still have panic attacks and I still get irrationally anxious about small things. I've spent many nights crying and wishing that I could just function normally and not be so afraid of normal things that no one else has a second thought about. However, through therapy and through having to deal with it for years and years, I've learned ways to cope. When I get really anxious, I name countries in alphabetical order. For example, I start with A and name a country that starts with A, then I go to B, then I go to C, and so on. I meditate too, which I REALLY reccommend to people who have trouble breathing when they get anxious. Breathwork sounds stupid, I know, but it really can work.

If you get really anxious, I reccommend turning off your phone or any screen that you're focused on, turning off the lights, and just breathing. Open a window or sit outside in the fresh air. Take a shower, open a notebook and write about anything. There are so many ways that you can distract yourself, as well as ways that you can physically regulate your body. You're safe, you're not alone, and you're going to be okay.

[storiesofateenager]

introduction

*pssst! i'm posting these blog posts on Substack now! please go check that out (it really helps!!!) by clicking this link: https://substack.com/@thoughtsofateen*

Some intro facts about me:

Hey! I'm Em. I'm gonna start this blog off with a little bit about me.

I'm a teenager, 17 years old, and I go to a public high school on the East Coast of the United States.

I have a major generalized anxiety, diagnosed at 11. I find it extremely hard to make and keep friendships because of my anxiety.

I love science. I've always enjoyed learning about how things work in the world, specifically the human body. I'm an extremely logical person. On top of this, I'm a huge fan of psychology and sociology for that same reason, and my dream is to be a therapist because I know so much about psychological and sociological topics.

I struggle with depression, and it comes in waves. For months, I'll feel on top of the world, and then I'll suddenly not want to leave my bed and be disinterested in everything and everyone in my life. Sometimes I won't even realize I was in a depressive episode until I'm out of it again.

I have a girlfriend, and she's an angel. I won't talk about her as much, for her and our privacy.

I identify as bisexual and nonbinary, which has caused a lot of terrible shit in my life. I'm not apologetic about my identity, but I understand that people have a hard time understanding it. Don't be afraid to ask me questions about what certain things mean or how to navigate it. I won't get angry with you for trying to understand.

I prefer to main generally anonymous, because I'm a kid. I'm also going to keep every person that I talk about in the future anonymous as well, for obvious reasons.

Why I started this blog:

I wanted to start this blog to share my experiences with certain topics, like my anxiety and/or depression, sexuality and gender, bullying, interests, sex, religion, etc. This is not to get pity points or to flex, but to bring awareness to very normal topics that people my age don't talk about, even though we all experience it. I'm going to try to post a couple times a week, but I am pretty busy with school and my relationship, as well as family stuff, so no promises!

Again, this is about MY experiences. I'm not trying to speak for anyone else. Mostly, I'll be giving play-by-plays of experiences and processes I've gone through that relate to the topic at hand. For example, if I'm talking about my anxiety, I'll write about everything that has happened from my first memory of anxiety to my diagnosis to my experiences with therapy to current-day panicking and coping.

Please please PLEASE give me topics to talk about in the ask tab. Also, ask me any questions you may have about my experiences or any topic you're wondering about. I'm extremely open about my life and opinions. I'll talk about everything I possibly can to help people and make them feel that they're not alone.

Thank you :)