Liliana

And this was when I started middle school.

So I'm in sixth grade starting middle school and it was kind of scary, but it was also like kind of cool.

And I'm like during the tour of the school, the guidance counselor is leading me around and she asked me like, what kind of grades do you tend to get?

She was like A's, B's, C's.

And I just kind of was like, yeah, A's, B's, C's, like just repeated that back to her.

And my parents were like, no, you know what happens if you bring home a C.

And I was just like, gulp, you know, like, geez, like that's the thing.

They felt comfortable bringing it up even in front of other people and seeing how scared I could get in the moment.

Like, it's really weird.

But at the school, I kind of felt like I felt like I had a decent friend group because previously I was just always like at the previous school, I was just always bullied for being ugly.

I think I had like maybe one friend the three years that I was at that school.

But at this one, I felt I fit in a lot better.

There was a group of people kind of like misfits, like, you know, everybody was starting to form their own little cliques in middle school.

And I found, you know, a group of kids that all seemed kind of like kind of troubled, I'd say as an adult.

But yeah, those were my people and I felt comfortable around them.

So I felt like I had I had a good group of friends.

and I liked it there I liked the the school and stuff but at home like everything was exactly the same just constantly walking on eggshells all the time yeah just just being scared all the time not being able to sleep like that's another thing like my parents I don't know I either couldn't sleep or I would sleep like way too much and that's something I still struggle with because my sleep is just hard to regulate because of everything that was going on and

Yeah, it's like I was under so much stress like to go to school, get good grades or else I receive physical violence, come home, protect my siblings from sexual abuse, get sexually abused myself, get physically abused like over every little thing.

And I'm cut off from the world.

I have nobody to talk to.