<p>Growing up I always felt this burden of being perfect. My parents were perfectionists and everytime we don't do things right, we get called (negative) names. I am the third child in our family, I have two older sisters and a younger sister. The eldest and I have 4-year age gap; my older sister and i have 11 months gap; and the youngest and I have 8 year gap. Just by this, I think you get the gist of how my life is. Starting at a young age, I developed this so thing which I called “mask”, it is how I do things accordingly to haw people expect me, but then this became such a burden that I can no longer do it. I stopped pretending, suddenly everything fell apart. My friends were kinda draining, so i started distancing myself. My family was no better, they give negative feedbacks to everything. Then, pandemic came. I shut myself from the world. I felt relieved, it was soothing, I felt like a new person. But then, my family started calling me a black sheep, some who's full of misfortune, miserable, and everything else. I started getting low grades, although i did not fail they were disappointed simply because i was no longer the top of the class. Everything just stopped making sense, I started to fight back. I talked back to my family, I don't let my sister degrade me, my friends think that I'm unapproachable and everytime we have to form a grouping I am left out. I transfered schools, due to financial instability. From private school I was transfered to a public school. New people, new environment. I became too conscious of everyone and everything that I never talked at school except for recitations. it took me 2 whole months to gain new friends and it was cool they were accepting although the high expectations were still there as I became the top of the class. my parents were proud again as they could post my acccomplishment, I still feel not comfortable around them. I can talk comfortably only to my little sister because she likes me a lot, both of our parents were working so since then we were always left together we were partners in crime despite our 8-year gap. I got too immersed in writing this that I forgot what i was typing about…. upon this day I am still finding myself and I want to tell everyone that it surely takes time so be patient and try to find things you do for yourself not for others. Love yourself as nobody could ever do that better. Take care!</p>

do you feel like you're just pretending too?

My name is .... actually my name is not important. I can be anyone.  Your sister, your brother, your son or daughter. I can be your friend, your co-worker. I can be your boss or your employee or even someone you see on the street or your teacher or your student.

It's really not important. What is important is that for a little over 2 years I'm battling with depression, anxiety disorders and B.E.D which is an eating disorder.

The reason I want to share my story is because I'm still trying to understand how I got here. Up until the time my world fell apart I thought that I was in control of everything.  To be honest I had some panic attacks but I didn't think any of it and I was trying to control the short of breathing the heart pumping hard. Actually I didn't even know that those were panic attacks!

But what really drove me to start writing is that video .

The first time I saw that video I thought " awo it's a pity that people with depression go through that but it can't be that bad....I mean it's a dog, and dogs are good, companion, Right?"