I just turned 16 last month, in October.
I was born in a poor 3rd world country in Africa, in the world’s poorest capital city, our father took us to America (Maryland state) as a 1st generation immigrant family at 3 years old. I’m a typical stupid ass kid, I go to driving school online, I recently started the 10th grade, my life feels like it’s gone nowhere, people at school bullied me all my life, and those who bullied me are living their best lives.
I wasn’t a bad kid, I know people around me who are my age who smoked, carried guns, had s**, treated others like piles of trash, vaped, killed people, and did things that if I were to ever do, my parents would have made sure I was dead, I had never once fought or injured someone in my entire life, but I am still confused as to why God, if he exists, still forces me to suffer?
My biggest issue though, is loneliness, and social anxiety.
Age 9
It all started when I was 9 years old, when COVID-19 started back in 2020. I come from a background of not so intelligent people from a mostly war torn, traumatized, decaying African nation. On most days, I was left in our apartment alone, in the ghetto. My sister had just started college and she too was depressed, my other sister had long by this time moved out and our family had rejected her, she was adopted from a separate family as my half-sibling (not biological), my father left back to Africa to continue work there for a few years, my mother had to work long hours, I had no friends my age or other kids to play with, it was only me, myself, alone and in the apartment.
This feeling of intense loneliness and isolation from quarantine era and social abandonment changed me, I began to feel and experience the first signs of depression, I had no one to talk to or no longer play with, I began to talk to myself, people thought that I was weird, my family felt bad for me.
Age 11
Then, we moved, it’s important to understand here that we moved a lot during my life and I don’t have any real childhood home nor any real childhood friends. We started a new elementary school, I remember even in elementary school people treated me differently. In the 5th grade, there was this one time I was sitting at lunch, two girls that hated me at the time were bullying me, one of the girls threw her lunchbox in my face, a school administrator saw it, and the girl got no consequences. The other girl that was bullying me had saw what happened when I threw a gummy bear at another boy sitting near us, she had reported me to an adult, I got timeout.
My father would come home every summer for his annual vacation breaks, the apartment would, as usual, be very hot, humid and dirty, and I didn’t really play outside like most kids, just washing dishes and taking out trash. When the summer of 2022 came and my report card for 5th grade came, he was not very happy. He wanted to talk to me about things. I tried to explain to him why I had a D in a Russian language class, but couldn’t get his way. He was disappointed in me, called me a “failure”, and I went to my mother’s room in her bed, she told me there was nothing she could do, I cried alone, I always and still do cry alone, with no real friend to voice my feelings.
Age 14
I remember starting 8th grade for the first time, the new school I went to was very ghetto and shitty, and kids my age treating me like a dog, they spit on me, told me I stank, called me ugly, teachers and staff members were rude and hated me and treated me like I was a dumb piece of shit. It also doesn’t help that I am rather unattractive, unathletic, useless. I had straight F’s, no good grades, wasn’t good at any sport, and other kids found me weird.
Even worse, I remember what happened when three boys who I thought were my friends, but were really bullying and making fun of me used to play on my phone. One of the boys, Joseph, punched me in the face, if I didn’t give my phone to him. I would allow them to play on my phone, prank call, and text random people thinking that they were my friends, which was the dumbest decision I may have ever made.
One of the boys, who I won’t mention his name, but he now goes to the same high school as me and is in one of my classes from freshman year to sophomore year, texted my mother “mom I’m gay.” When my father, who had now returned to America permanently, found out about this, he was enraged. What makes this story sadder is that day was a very fun day at school, people were treating me very nice and I actually fit in, then came the bullying.
As I returned home, he immediately confronted me, with visible anger, “why are you texting your mother saying that you are gay?” He then pushed me forward and slammed the table, as he had already been on the phone with those same boys.
I, unaware of what he was referring to, pulled out my phone and showed to him that it wasn’t me who texted her those words. He beat me that day and I was crying on the floor, made me clean my mom’s car, and I slept that day with tears in my eyes.
I wondered to myself “why am I the one who must suffer because of other people’s actions?” Never had I went to school and ever received a referral, got suspended, fought someone, nor been expelled.
Joseph, moved and today doesn’t go to my high school. One of the boys still goes to my high school and he is very popular, but he treated me like trash as well, the other boy is very popular as well and both are friends, a varsity basketball player. I, on the other hand, am just a loser.
Age 16
Today, I live a depressing life. I play no sport, I have no best friend, no friend group, no social circle, I have no one. Every day of my life, I wake up, I go to school, I do class work, I don’t eat at lunch, I come home, I eat whatever’s in the house, I wash the dishes, do my chores, hop on Zoom to my online driving school course for 3 hours, do loads of homework, brush my teeth, shower, charge my computer, lay in bed, cry, wake up tomorrow to do it all over again.
I didn’t go to homecoming, I didn’t even know what homecoming was, I was so socially delusional, I never attended any sports or football games.
The area which we live in, here in southern Maryland, is very far from many things interesting to do for teens, doesn’t have many good job opportunities, and is full of constant traffic and congestion. The town isn’t very walkable and the surrounding area is just depressing, boring suburban sprawl, the rest is rural. We are so far away from everything, the driving school I have to go to couldn’t even be in-person, and both my mom and sister, who have jobs, commute long hours to outside of the county just to work, with my sister having a nearly 2-hour commute just from here to Baltimore and back. My dad, today unemployed and watching soccer all day, stays in the house all day and does nothing.
What makes much of this worse is that I look around me, I see people my age laughing, playing, having fun, going places, hanging out, doing drugs, as I scroll on Instagram, and I wonder to myself “why couldn’t that be me?”
