All I would hear from whoever, right,
my teachers, my friend's parents,
my coaches, all I would hear was like, "Wow, like, look at what your family's
done since y'all got here, like your brothers,
are going to such good schools, like, you're next."
"You're going to do that, too."
And like the first couple of times,
it was like, "All right, like I'm proud of my brothers."
"I'm proud of my family."
Like, "Dang, like, maybe--maybe I can do that, too."
"Maybe I can go to a good school or whatever."
But every time after that, it became this like--broken record
of just, like, "You have to do good. You have to succeed."
"You have to go to a good school
or you're going to let us down. Or you're going to be a failure."
And it became this toxic pressure.
And so, on top of that too, my parents came to the U.S. for me
and they would tell me that they came for the American dream.
Right. They came to give me a good life.
And so I'm thinking in my head, like, "I can't let it--I can't let them down."
It was a lot of pressure, especially for an elementary school kid.
I started having these sort of racing
thoughts. Looking back, it was probably a combination
of like anxiety and ADHD that was just kind of causing these really fast thoughts.
And so, for those of you that are unfamiliar with racing thoughts, right.
It was never like good things,
like, I would never wake up and be like, "Oh, I can't wait to go to school."
"I can't wait to ask questions. I can't wait to talk to my teachers."
"I can't wait to do good things and try hard and do extra homework and do extra
credit and meet new friends, and talk to people."
"This is so awesome. I feel so good."
"This is great."
"I can't wait." Like it was never anything like that.
Right.
And these are thoughts that to this day I have to manage, right.
They're things like, "Just--just don't even get out of bed."
"Just don't even bother. Just don't even try."
"Why'd you do that?"
"Why'd you say--that was so stupid. They're--they're laughing at you."
"Why'd you even try? Like, just--just go home."
"Just don't even bother. Just stay in bed."
"Just don't--just don't even try."
So, I kind of kept on.
I was managing those racing thoughts
a little bit as they came, but it started to get worse.