A Dancers Tale

• Karina Pancuka, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2016

I am a typical girl with a secret. I have anxiety and depression. I have it because I am a dancer. Dancing is the most difficult sport in the world because everyone has to be perfect. People judge you if you’re too fat, too skinny, too ugly, too pretty, your hair is too long, your hair is too short, if you make one mistake, if you make no mistake, if you’re in the front or if you’re in the back. It is difficult because everyone judges you. Your friends, fellow dancers, dance teachers, parents, siblings, family and the hundreds of random strangers that sit in the audience hoping that you will fail so that their kid can shine.
So many people know about anxiety and depression yet no one does anything about it. They make all these speeches about how it’s a bad thing and about how it causes suicides but no one takes it seriously. They care about it but they still bully kids and make fun of them even though so many people tell them to stop. Those bullies get suspended and the police talk to them yet they continue to hurt people just to make themselves more popular and to make themselves feel better.
Hi my name is Alyssa. I am a 14 year old girl with anxiety and depression. No one knows that because every day I put on a mask and pretend to be someone that I am not. I wear a smile on my face and act as if I have no care in the world but in reality and on the inside I am scared, worried and sad but most of all feel lonely and insecure.
I feel like I cannot talk to anyone or I will get myself into more trouble if the bully knows that I told on them. I feel like I have no friends. I see all my other friends and they all have a best friend. They have someone that they can talk to, they have someone that is there every day by their side but most of all they have a sister and they can be happy all the time. I have no one and it is the worst feeling in the world.
I have fights with parents because I can’t tell them what is happening and that is the worst. Every day I consider killing myself because maybe that will make the world a better place. Maybe more people will be happy if I am dead. Every day at school I get picked on because I am not the most popular person and because I don’t have the coolest things. It is not my fault that I go to a school where most kids have heaps of money to waste. I can’t afford that stuff.
Maybe I should just kill myself right now. All I need is some poison and I have that right next to me. Now the world will become a better place. Now that I am leaving everyone will be happ…