When I was younger, people used to tell me I was sick. It wasn’t a question, it was a fact. “You’re sick,” they’d say. “You need help now.” No matter what I did, no matter how I acted, it always came back to that – that something was wrong with me. They didn’t say it out of concern, but like a label they placed on me. “You’re mentally not okay, you’re sick.”

It was like the world decided my brain was broken long before I even had a chance to figure out who I was. So, I tried to fight it, to prove them wrong. I wanted to show them I was capable, that I wasn’t what they said I was. I pushed through years of trauma, masking everything, just so I could seem normal – whatever that means.

Now, I’m almost 25. And here I am… mentally ill. That’s what I’ve been told for years, and that’s what I’ve come to believe. Even when people around me now say, “You’re not mentally ill,” I still feel it deep inside. “You’re okay, stop making it a big deal,” they say. They brush it off as if it’s nothing. But how? How can they just sweep away everything I’ve felt for so long?

After years of hearing “you’re sick,” after fighting it, struggling to keep it hidden, they now say I’m not? What does that even mean? How can they tell me what I’m feeling isn’t real when I’ve lived with this weight my entire life?

It’s exhausting. It’s like a constant war inside my head – the stigma, the expectations, the pressure to just be “normal.” I’ve tried so hard to stay alive, to keep going even when I feel like I’m drowning in this. People don’t realize what it’s like to wake up every day and fight the same battles over and over, with everyone around you acting like it’s not a big deal. Like it’s all in your head.

But for people like me, it is a big deal. It’s real. And no matter how much I try to mask it, no matter how much I want to believe them when they say I’m okay, I know deep down that I’m still struggling.

To everyone who feels like this – you’re not alone. We fight in silence, but we’re still here, still surviving. And that’s something to be proud of.