I’ve never seemed to be incredibly outgoing. If you ever meet the true me, I’m the loudest, most spunkiest and funniest person you could ever meet.

Many of you may just see me as that quiet smart person in your class. You may just assume that everything in the world was in my favor since I had so many friends and my grades would suggest that I was Harvard worthy. But what you truly couldn’t see was what was on the inside. I struggled for years to accept myself. In fact, “myself” wasn’t truly who I felt I was meant to be.

I often felt extremely lonely, despite all my friends. I never was texted first, or invited to do many things, and was often the one in the group who was left out of every conversation or group event. I was always self-conscious as I never accepted how I looked. All the other kids were so athletic and skinny and no matter how I tried, I just couldn’t fit in.

Whenever I wore something that I loved, I would get odd looks. I felt judged. I never felt well enough to wear the fashionable things that all the other girls found cute. I felt ashamed. Ashamed that I was that way. I often starved myself and would fall into negative trances that would overcome me. Maybe those trances were just depression at a few times. I felt like I was a pest.

Anytime I ever tried to let my true self come out, it was often knocked down by others by rude comments or jokes. That hurt my pride. As I got older, just like everyone else it became evident that I began to like certain guys. But yet, my insecurity about my own self held me back from socializing with them because I was afraid of rejection.

Afraid of being called down just due to how I look or how people assume my personality is. The truth is, no one has ever known the true me. Not even my closest friend. Only one person has ever known my true thoughts. Even then, nothing helped these negative thoughts from reaching into my mind. I just want to be accepted. To be treated just like a fun spunky person. Not like some weird person that just randomly dropped out of the sky. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’ve never accepted myself. And no one has ever noticed my pain until I’ve said something now. Just because a person looks so happy, jokes around and has so many friends with perfect grades, doesn’t show how their being on the inside.

Many of us are just putting on an act to make sure that our pain doesn’t show and make our situation worse. We’re afraid of coming out and getting help. When you see your friends next, make sure to hug them and tell them just how much you appreciate them for who they are. You never know, you may just have fixed their hidden problem without even knowing. Hopefully, one day, that special person will come along and fix my problems. Until then, I’ll just continue wondering who I am and if anyone truly cares.