Recently, I participated in an event hosted by the organization, Dear World. If you are unfamiliar with the organization, I’ll give you a quick pitch on what their mission is.

Dear World’s mission is to bring people together, from all over the world, by sharing stories. They travel to communities, universities, and various other groups to give individual’s the opportunity to share their story, and to meet people who have experienced the same things as them. It is meant to remind people that they are not alone.

Last week, Dear World traveled to my university. As I am an aspiring photojournalist and am all about positive movements, I decided I would go to support this particular organization. Upon arriving, I was asked to share my story.

This is my story.

I was born into a Catholic household. I was raised to pray at night, before meals, and whenever I felt like I could not hold my burdens any longer. I was taught the 10 commandments, I followed them, and I tried my hardest to live in God’s image.

However, I was constantly thrown experiences and moments that made me question who I was, why was I here, and was I a mistake.

As a child, I moved around a lot, this lead to constant bullying, harassment, and exclusion. I was never one to ‘color within the lines’ per say, and as a child felt I knew exactly who I was. However, as I grew older, and the bullying continued - with each new school came a new bully - I felt that I knew myself less and less.

At age 6, I lost my sister. I had never truly understood what it was like to lose someone you loved so much, yet had never even spoken a word to. I never got to know my sister, share my clothes with her, talk about boys or even get to look into her eyes and tell her I loved her once. My sister was a still born, she had a closed casket funeral, and the only proof I have that she existed is a single photograph, some baby paraphernalia, a gravestone, and the memory of my parents coming home empty handed from the hospital, that has been burned into my head ever since.

At age 11, my father left. I have countless memories leading up to that moment, and I have many after. But nothing prepares you for the moment in which someone you thought would be there for you forever, leaves you completely.

At age 12, I developed depression, however, I pushed it so far down that even I forgot it existed.

In high school, I met people that were both helpful and detrimental to my well-being. I began to be sexually harassed, bullied because people did not believe me to be worth the time of another human being, and a variety of other things involving specific individuals in which I do not feel comfortable discussing.

I felt worthless. I felt as if I no longer had a purpose in this world.

I began to become more depressed. I developed anxiety, and with that, I began to close myself up to anyone, and anything. I had become so good at pretending that I was okay, that I fooled everyone around me. Senior year, I got to the point where I could not even be in large crowds. I could not go into places alone, and I could not tell myself one good thing about who I was.

This continued throughout the summer, into my first year of college, and into the next summer.

After my first year of college, after I spent a year trying to find myself in a place that refused to accept me, I decided to turn my life around. I transferred schools, I made time for myself, and I decided to go to morning prayer every day for my entire summer.

On one particular day, the gospel was as followed, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” Genesis 1:27, and for me that just clicked something in my head. I asked myself, that if I can believe everyone is created in God’s image and I am living in a world full of beautiful people, knowing that God makes no mistakes, then why can’t I look at myself that way?

For me, that was a huge turning point in my life. I began to be more open about who I am and what I have been through. I began to reach out for help more, and I truly committed to my therapy and bettering myself.

So when I stepped up to get my picture taken, I was proud to show off the, “He makes no mistakes” written across my body. I was proud to share my story, and I was proud of who I am today.