By Chamberlain Dre.
As a child, I was always labeled the ‘sharp’ one. My mind, so eager to share the ideas it had proudly created caused my mouth to never stop moving. This got me in trouble at times but it also saved me. People who knew me tagged me as a bright young boy with an effervescent spirit. However, at the age of eleven, I hit the lowest point of my childhood. This life crisis caused me to be placed on medications to improve my physical health. Still, not even my ill health could dilute my chipper mouth or quench my bubbly spirit. But that was also the first time I began to fill myself drifting. It was the first time I noticed that there was darkness hovering on the outskirts of my mind. No one noticed because I never let it overshadow my outward personality. I was still bustling with life, albeit a little less than usual.
During this time, I made major life changes. I switched schools and decided not to let the darkness in my head control me. Soon enough, the childhood innocence I thought I had lost was back. I made a reputation for myself as the loud outgoing lad. This made me noticeable to my peers and the adults around me. I made many friends easily due to my ease of conversation. I was even seen as a leader amongst my peers. For many years, I was thriving.
Then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t.
Gradually, I became as bubbly as Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Now, I have been replaced by someone who doesn’t care whether they have 1 or 100 friends. I pretend to be fine at school, then I lock myself in my room for days, just trying to make sense of it all. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Am I the mask of happiness I wear at school or the empty boy who comes out in the lonely hours of the night? When the mask I wear slips and my brooding, silent self comes out at school, I feel very vulnerable. Almost like someone will find out a secret about me and that scares me.
While I might seem content, my mind is racing with impatient thoughts. I feel so alone. Not because I lack friends but because no one knows who I am. I don’t even know my true self. I am going through the worst kind of existential crisis. You may be wondering why I have not shared this with my family or friends. The truth is that I don’t feel comfortable saying how I feel. In the past, I would sit in front of the mirror and just cry. I’d talk to the mirror; like it had all the answers. The one recurring question would always be – who am I?
These days, I don’t feel anything. I don’t laugh genuinely because all of my smiles are forced. I don’t get scared or even sad anymore. I am not sharing this to seek attention. Apart from this piece, I have never revealed this part of me to anyone. Even my journal does not have this secret. I am too scared to repeat my former mistakes, to overshare and have it escalate. And I don’t want those I love to worry about me.
But in secret, I crave an acknowledgment of my pain. I want to be seen. I want someone to notice. Notice when I’m not laughing at a joke I should laugh at. Notice the ease with which I isolate myself. I want someone to notice my occasional silence. That is when I am most myself. Notice when I am sitting alone at the lunch table, uninterested in what used to draw me in and rile me up. Notice that even when I talk, it’s not because I want to. It’s because it is what is expected of me.
If you feel the same way, know that I wrote this for you. What gives me great comfort is that whatever earth-shattering pain exists in my world at any given moment has been felt before. I am not feeling this destruction alone. I never want to believe the lie that nobody understands. Pain is inevitable, but when I let the light of those who have been there before guide my path, healing is inevitable too.
Love. Light. Peace.
