As a young child, I grew up being very outgoing and very open. I was a good kid with a high sense of morale, strong integrity and an unending desire to be a faithful servant of Christ. I never lied, I never cheated, I did exactly as I was told and I asked for forgiveness for all of my mistakes. I went to a private school through third grade, and entered the public school system in fourth grade. Suddenly “being cool” and having “cool” friends was important. I wanted these things; I didn’t know I wanted them at the time, but I did. In some ways, I still do.

In seventh grade, I started hanging out with a different crowd; I pushed respect boundaries, I swore often and I began hanging out with people I thought were “fun.” I drifted away from the people who were loyal, people who I could be my true self around. When it came crashing down the next year, I became seriously depressed. I became an empty shell, filled with nothing more than dark themes, hatred and an obsession with wearing all black. Suddenly my only friend was someone I couldn’t talk to in person, and who was in the same situation as I was. The darkness inside us fed off of each other, perpetuating a seemingly endless cycle of misery. All of my friends at school seemed fake and self-absorbed. I don’t blame them anymore; it’s hard to be yourself at that age, when you don’t really know what ‘being yourself’ looks like.

I was determined to create secrets that could never be told, so that I could hold myself above others, as if having wicked thoughts and “being mysterious” somehow made me more intelligent, more experienced with life and its trials. Of course, it was a facade. I needed healthy attention while simultaneously telling myself that I didn’t need it - wouldn’t I be an attention whore? I failed to recognize the importance of attention; in this society using the term “I need attention” comes across as arrogant.

I drifted to a new group friends. At the time, they could have been considered low-profile, quite unlike the group I had been pursuing the year prior. A couple of them had been through what I was going through, and I found it easier to cope with what I had done to myself. I began the process of understanding what it meant to seek out positive relationships. I needed attention in a respectable way, not what I had been doing for the year prior.

It’s been six years, and the revelation that wanting and needing attention is not a bad thing only occurred to me after going through the journal I kept at the time and analyzing every word I wrote. I used to seek out attention from my peers, by doing things or saying things that seemed bold, only to eventually realize that I could never satisfy those people I sought it from. I would never be content because I was looking for something that wasn’t real, wasn’t me. This kind of attention is toxic; it never satisfies and only tempts us to cross the line further. Learning to seek out attention in a healthy way (via sports, religion, community service, a good friend willing to listen, etc.) will almost always have a more positive impact than initially realized.

Never be ashamed to seek out attention. Everyone needs it. But do it in a way that will motivate or inspire you, make you content or more welcoming to others. Seek it respectably.