16 Years Old

This year started off rough for me. I struggled with absences in school, not because I wasn’t trying, but because I didn’t feel like I belonged in the environment. Then, COVID-19 hit, and the world changed in ways I never expected. At first, it was terrifying— the uncertainty, the new rules, the lockdowns. But at the same time, it was a strange kind of relief to finish the rest of my sophomore year online.

However, this year also marked a significant shift in my mental health. My anxiety worsened, and I started experiencing panic attacks for the first time. So while the world around me was changing, I was grappling with a lot of personal struggles, trying to make sense of both the global crisis and my own emotional turbulence. It was a time of uncertainty on every front.