I’m a Therapist. I Still Worry About Forgetting My Pain.

I always cried.

In bathroom stalls at school. Alone in my room. During the beginning, middle, or end of songs I pretended not to relate to.

There was a time I didn’t understand what was happening in my body—only that it hurt. That it was so loud. Everything felt too bright, too sharp, too heavy... so heavy. My internal storm never cleared. It just lingered.

I was the teenager who walked through the world like an open wound. I felt everything. And I learned quickly that the world isn’t kind to what it doesn’t understand.