Findlay R.

Photography by Ally Szabo

If you’re reading this, your pain shouldn’t go unnoticed. 

One afternoon in middle school I got picked up early from school. I didn’t know what was going on, but something was up because I was told to wait in the front office while my mom came to get me. When she arrived she didn’t say a word until we left the parking lot. She then told me that my sister, Anna, was being admitted to a hospital for depression.

I remember that my first thought was to ask questions. I immediately internalized the pain I was feeling because I figured that I would be of more use if I was trying to help than if I just cried about it. I wanted to be a benefit before I was a burden.

This was a mentality that I had already learned from watching my other sister, Molly, battle anorexia. If I could handle supporting one sister, why couldn’t I support two?

That became my motto throughout the coming years, while I watched from the sidelines as both of my sisters battled mental health. There wasn’t much I could do to help them aside from not bothering my parents. I told myself that their attention was better off fixed on helping those who really needed it. I started observing more and talking less. Not knowing at the time that internalizing all of this pain would make matters worse.

As the months and years went by, I internalized more and more unanswered stress. Watching my sisters verbally and physically fight my parents late at night, hearing them try to explain how much pain they were going through, and saying goodbye to them when they left for residential programs; it all felt horrible. I loved my sisters so I promised myself, for their sake, I was going to be a benefit before a burden.

This could only last so long. The longer I tried to keep up my façade that I wasn’t feeling any pain the worse my situation became. I started questioning my own self-worth, I spent all day playing video games, and I stopped caring about my grades. But despite this downward slope I kept quiet and focused on myself, silently hoping someone would ask how I was feeling.

On the hardest days, when my stress was at its highest, I found myself trying to send subtle signals to my parents about how I was feeling. Without realizing it, I was sighing around my parents, speaking very briefly in a quiet tone, hoping someone would realize something was off.

After a while, my parents picked up on the messages I was trying to send them. I started going to therapy regularly and I learned healthy coping skills to deal with my day-to-day stress. I finally started to feel some relief. Slowly, my sisters started to heal and I started to feel like myself again.

Over those years I learned a lot. I learned compassion because you truly never know what someone is going through. I learned how to support people by doing the little things, like asking how their day went and sending them random texts. But I also learned that sometimes you simply need to ask for help, because nobody’s pain should go unnoticed. 

Findlay R., Villanova University

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