I am twenty years old.

My parents got divorced when I was five.
I watched my parents both unfold in this divorce.
I never talked about it.

I lived with my mother.
I was raised in a Christian home.
I was raised in white suburbs.
I was raised around mostly white kids.
This was the root of my self-esteem issues.
I never talked about it.
I was molested by a close family member when I was seven.
I never talked about it.

We moved cities and states more than five times in total.
Until high school, I never wanted deep connections with anybody.
I was scared to move again.
I never talked about it.

My freshmen year of high school I felt depression and anxiety seep into my life.
I never talked about why.

My sophomore year of high school I began to contemplate suicide.
I never talked about why.

My second semester of senior year I was more drunk or high than I was sober.
I never talked about why.

My summer after senior year I started experimenting with drugs.
I never talked about why.

My depression began to build and build to one of what I thought was the highest point.
I never talked about why.

I moved with my father to escape my life where it was.
My first semester of college I felt myself unraveling.
I never talked about why.

I stayed sober my first semester of college except for the occasional drink.
My depression had skyrocketed as well as my contemplation of suicide.
I never talked about why.

My second semester I tried to continue to compress my unraveling.
I began to dissociate.
I smoked every day, almost all day.
I never talked about why.

My depression kept building into something that felt absolutely unbearable.
I never talked about why.

Suicide is all I wanted, all I thought about.
I never talked about why.

I lost all motivation for school.
I began to ditch school and failed all of my classes.
I never talked about why.

I moved back to where I spent my middle and high school years to escape my life where it was.
The summer of this past year, 2017, I was unraveled and there was no compressing of this.
I spent my past summer either drunk or drugged out and sometimes both.
I never talked about why.

I became addicted to drugs.
I never talked about why.

My depression and anxiety had taken over.
I lost my job.
I rarely left the apartment I then lived in.
I tried to avoid as much human contact as possible.
I never talked about why.

I deeply hurt those close to me because I was out of my mind – actions and words.
I didn’t have anyone.
I didn’t blame them.
It and why took everything out of me and away from me.

I am twenty years old and I never talked about my hurt and how deep my hurt was until I was twenty years old. I harbored my self-esteem issues, my depression, my anxiety. I developed self-destructing coping mechanisms. I, more or less, ruined my life.

I am twenty years old and although, I, more or less, ruined my life, I choose not to.

I am deserving.

I deserve to talk.

I deserve to be indulged in self-love.

I deserve to live my life beyond my molester. I deserve to live somewhere and not be scared but to embrace every place I’m blessed to see.

I deserve genuine happiness.

I deserve to be confident in myself and my culture and confident in the space’s I am at no matter what type of people are there.

I deserve my anxious thoughts to not run myself into a hole but to have self-control and self-awareness of what those thoughts are and hold to handle them.

I deserve to be not only motivated in school and work but thriving in both.

I deserve to be motivated and thrive in my crafts.

I deserve healthy coping mechanisms.

I deserve a blunt not a disgusting amount of hard drugs. I deserve my body and my mind.

I deserve healthy relationships my beautiful family and friends.

I deserve a life and a life that is lived to its fullest.

I am deserving.

I am twenty years old and this is my damn year.