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A letter to my 14-year-old self

Jul. 6, 2017
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You’re in a super weird time of life. You’ve started a new school and you’re away from your best friend, and it’s tough. I know you Skype with your best friend every day and see her every weekend, but I also know that school is really lonely right now. You’re making friends, but you feel out of place. That’s okay. You’ll get closer to those friends soon and things will seem better.

Well, actually, things are going to get worse... 

but then they’ll get better.

Right now, you’re unhappy and you’re not telling anyone. Crying yourself to sleep every single night isn’t normal; being sad and scared all the time isn’t just how high schoolers go through life. You’re silencing yourself by not telling anyone what’s wrong. Stop it. Speak up and tell someone what’s going on. Don’t feel like you have to be silent while you’re suffering. Please. Don’t let things go on like this. This won’t get better until you work on it.

This is the time of life where you are suffering from extreme anxiety. You’re going home early every couple days because you’re having panic attacks constantly. Some mornings, you wake up sobbing and have to go back to sleep and go in to school at lunch. Some of your friends are going through similar things, but even you don’t fully understand what’s going on, so how could they? Your friends are really supportive, but it’s not quite enough if you can’t support yourself at all. It’s really hard at this point, I’m not going to lie to you. But that’s not going to last forever. I promise, I promise, I promise. You’re not going to feel stuck and stagnant for much longer. Just push through and things will get better soon.

Brace yourself: 14 is a tough year. It’s an in-between year, as most of the teenage years are. But you’re going to experience sadness and anxiety like you haven’t before. You will find closeness in a best friend like you’ve never had before. You are going to realize that what you’re going through is, in fact, anxiety, and that realization is going to really shake you. You will climb the stairs to your new school every day, dreading the hours ahead but excited that this marks one day closer to your last day there. You will learn a lot, not only in school, but about yourself and your relationship with other people and things. It’s going to be new and difficult and strange, but you will get through it.

Above all else, I promise you that you’re going to get through it.

Much love, 

17-Year-Old-Me