Hey, my name is Angela Seto. I recently turned 18 about a month ago. I don't have much variety in my hobbies. I mainly draw a lot and play video games. Reading isn't exactly my thing, but I do happen to read closed captions on videos that I watch on YouTube if I have trouble understanding what they're saying. Anyway, I've had a lot of trauma from when I was little, and that caused me to struggle to make a lot of friends as I got older. The trauma also happened to continue into my high school years, which made it even more difficult to do anything at around my current age. I'll explain the first part about my young childhood, and then I'll move on to the more “recent” things that happened in my life.

          I think it was in my preschool years where I had my first ever bully harassing me. I don't remember who that bully was or their name. I think it was a girl named Yo Yo. She may have been older than me or younger than me. Regardless, she was a bit taller than me. I don't know the exact reason why she started bullying me, but she did. She scratched me, pushed me behind my back, stomped on the back of my shoe to make me almost trip, and even tried to kick me as we're both going up the stairs.

          That sort of experience traumatized me at that early age, and it continued until I got to my middle school years. I'm actually glad that I didn't get to see her again at the same school I used to go to. There wasn't much to talk about in my middle school years except for the end of it. And you all know what happened during the end of middle school and the start of all of our high school years. That's right, it was when COVID began, and a lot of people were suddenly dying from it.

           Somehow, that added more to the trauma I'm still experiencing because I was never expecting the news from my dad that two of my aunts died from COVID. I already know that people would be losing the ones they love, but to have that actually happen to you is just too much to handle. Quarantine was also a struggle because I've been isolated for so long, and on occasions, I'll get lonely because I don't have any friends around me to talk to or keep me company. It's not like I have many friends in the first place anyway. I've already struggled for this long. What more can I possibly do from this point if I'm stuck at home?

          It didn't really improve from there until I got to the end of 10th or 11th grade. A bunch of my friends who were one grade higher than me (yes, I actually did manage to make new friends even though I said I struggled to do so because my mental health wasn't the greatest at the time) was already at the point where they had to leave for college. They were actually the sweetest people I've met, and I can't believe I didn't get to spend that much time with them because I've been holding myself back from making new friends. Afraid that I'll mess up and lose the only chance to hang out or spend some time with them because my mental health was really bad at the time.

          Alright, enough with this sad and depressing stuff I went through in the past. Time for the good experiences I had in the more current times of my life. I managed to make more real-life friends when my dad took me to a movie theater and restaurant with his friends and their children. They were two girls who were younger and maybe shorter than me. We had a blast after watching a movie that came out not too long ago, and we had fun eating with each other, too. I actually got to meet one of my friends again very recently when my dad and I were invited to go to a private skating event where all members of service get to go there for free. Even though I'm not an expert at ice skating because I only went ice skating once and I've fallen a bunch of times on my butt I still get to spend some time with one of my friends after all those years have passed (technically, it wasn't that long since I've last seen them since it was only a couple of years before but who's counting?). The funny thing is that the trip to go ice skating happened not too long ago. It was only a couple of weeks that passed, but I still missed them since I'm at the point where I'm preparing for college. I'll still try to keep my old friends in touch on whatever social media platforms they have and talk to them whenever I need comfort or consolation. I'm not going to be afraid of trying to ask for help again, like when I was younger and didn't know how these sorts of things work.