#gcgo

I WAS WAITNG. I WAS FKIN WAITING O FOR THIS LILY U ARE UNBELIEVABLE

2011 || 2015

It’s so weird. I look at these pictures and I see two very different people. In 2011 I was battling intense depression, cutting, denying my gender identity (as well as my sexual orientation, but less so) and about 101% sure that I wouldn’t make it to my quinceañera. To put it simply, I was lacking a lot of confidence. 

Let’s flash-forward about two years. I looked like this:

But more importantly, I looked like this:

2013, I was 13 (turning 14 in about one week) and in the hospital, getting ready for neurosurgery. Now, the medical specifics of my need for hospitalization and neurosurgery are long and--quite frankly--boring. Long story short, I had a seizure in the middle of my 8th grade math class. 

I was already having a tough year, having moved from my home of 7 years, Minnesota, and being placed in a less than LGBT+ friendly Christian academy. So the whole seizure thing kinda felt like a slap in the face. I was already the new kid, I didn’t need to be a medical anomaly at my school. But the deed had already been done and I was in the hospital. When I returned to school after being out for a little over a week, I felt othered. On one hand, I was being babied and coddled by a bunch of small children and slightly younger girls who had known me for about 5 months, but on the other hand, I was being bullied and tormented by a bunch of asshole-ish guys who I had to spend the entire day with. I was an emotional wreck. I so badly wanted to be normal, but with my constant battle with my gender identity and the fact that I had stitches and a titanium plate IN MY HEAD, normal just wasn’t practical. After two years of being self-harm free, I relapsed. 

A few months later, I was fine. I hadn’t relapsed (though the thought had come to mind) and I made a very important decision. I came out. Right here. On this blog. A few minutes later, I told my mom. I cried all night and she held me. 

So, we’re in my freshmen year of highschool now. I’ve gotten into writing songs and had just finished making a garageband demo of my first song, “Dear September”, I loved it (note the use of past-tense, I hate that song now). It was an anti-bullying song, a form of self therapy and a song that, with some work, could do what music had done for me, save lives. Naturally, I wanted to share it with someone who I kind of admired as a songwriter. For the purpose of this post and to avoid Tumblr Drama™, I won’t be naming this person. They do, however, have a blog on this here website and are still actively writing and posting originals. Anyways, when I tried to reach out to them and maybe receive some good ol’ songwriter-to-songwriter support, this happened:

I was devastated. I kinda gave up songwriting and felt like I couldn’t trust my own art. I had let my one healthy coping mechanism be taken away from me, just from a few careless words by some person on the internet. I kept writing a little bit, but it didn’t feel the same. The magic wasn’t quite there. The songs were dull and didn’t really reflect me, but instead the happy, lighthearted persona that I had put on in my everyday life, on and offline. For nearly a year I struggled with thoughts of suicide and self-harm. I wrote out countless suicide notes and developed some pretty awful insomnia. Finally, my freshmen year came to an end. Remember how I said that in 2011 I didn’t think I would make it to my quinceañera?

I did.