S E L F
Being 15 / 16 was such a confusing time for me.
I had all this anger & disappointment in my heart I had absolutely 0 idea how to channel, or constructively utilize in the right way.
I lashed out often, and my reactions were at times disproportionate to what was really happening around me.
I consistently felt like something unexpected was going to happen, like the rug was going to be pulled from under my feet at any moment, and I had no control over it.
The people around me, despite probably wanting to, were not receptive to my trauma. If anything, people judged, laughed and committed to misunderstand where I was coming from.
Being misunderstood is something I’m overly familiar with, like knowing ahead of time that I shouldn’t say this, or do that, because it would be perceived a certain way and I didn’t want to deal with the consequences.
Despite myself, my past trauma was inhibiting my growth as a young adolescent, who’s supposed to enjoy her youth, and prepare for a life full of opportunity to excel.
I wasn’t supposed to wake up begrudgingly,
feeling choked up and constrained, as if my current reality was slowly closing in on me, eating up the last bits of life I had in me.
I couldn’t shake it.
It wasn’t all bad though. I still found moments to explore who I truly was through risk taking..
Dakar, Senegal is undoubtedly conservative. We are an islamic nation, with strong cultural + social pillars that don’t always allow you to express who you truly are freely.
Even though I couldn’t go all out, I did what I could, which was really just exploring partnerships with the opposite sex, being out and about (just to be home before curfew, which was always when the party actually started lol) and going the extra mile to make myself feel like my life had been and was in fact, normal.
I was an awkward teen, but social media allowed me to portray myself in a way that was socially acceptable + gave me the chance to immerse myself in a society without considering what my story had been thus far.
There was traumatized Anna, and then there was Anna Delphine out in the world, with a sea of differences between them.