Crowd Surfing

Freedom is the capacity to exercise choice. To be able to live with your choice you have to believe it is the right one, there is no other viable option. To choose to go against the flow, to decide to take control and live by your own expectations can be the heaviest choice we make. Some do not even consider this an alternative. They let the waves carry them, never getting a chance to make their own marks on the sand – crowd surfing.

Peer pressure doesn’t just come from people of the same age. Pressure comes from everywhere but the heaviest of them all is the kind that comes from the ones you love. May I remind you that a child should be loved regardless of what they do, it doesn’t matter if he/she deserves it or not.  Parents only want to see their child succeed, survive the jungle of life. And all we children ever try to do is please our parents, make them proud of us. It’s a cycle, I know.

I’m not ashamed to say I was depressed as a child up until my late teens. As early as 5 I was suicidal because the crowd rejected me and pressured me to belong. When I was 9 I had enough of people bringing me down with their words of mockery and expectations. I decided to do things differently, to do it for myself not for anyone else – strive and do well in everything I do just to show them I can despite the odds. By then no one can tell me what I can and can’t do. It’s a brave move for young adults and teenagers but very dangerous for a child. But in a world that demands too much it is inevitable.

And now in my decision to lose the extra pounds the crowd is near. The crowd will always have their opinion. They’ve called me incontrollable, gluttonous and many more. Many said I wouldn’t make it but when I started losing some of the fat the crowd demanded more.

There is a reason why bulimia and anorexia were never heard of 100 years ago. That was when people died simply of disease or starvation due to the lack of food supply. Now people just drop dead because of the dumb decisions they make like simply not eating.

I do not need to explain why the suicide rate is booming and why suicidal people get younger and younger. Depression has a cause, it does not choose a gender nor does it choose an age. And unless the crowd stops demanding we will start losing 5 year olds to them.

I wish our youth would just stop and realize what I did – that I no longer have to kill myself in the process of pleasing the crowd. I refuse to give them the strings of my existence. I wish families would be there to build not to crumble. We are not supposed to burden but help, cheer in moments of triumph or even failure.

I write not to brag or to vent. I refuse to turn a blind eye towards our barbaric ways. I will not stand and watch as a child is reared and then trampled. Everyone deserves to be accepted for who they are not for who you can turn them into. If we end up a Prozac nation we wouldn’t be a nation, we would all just be dead.