Through the Darkness

I'm a 22-year-old, jobless girl from a middle-class brown family where being a girl and not being conventionally pretty feels like a curse. Since childhood, I’ve only seen fights, struggles, and stress—my childhood memories are just trauma. I’m the darkest-skinned in my entire family, and that’s something I’ve been judged for my whole life.

By 9th grade, I hit the peak of my depression, and honestly, I’m not even sure if it’s gone now. Anyway, I’m currently doing my bachelor’s, and my mom is the one paying for everything because she works. The thing is, as time passes, my face is becoming more and more asymmetrical, which has started bothering me even more than my skin tone. My hair used to be so thick, but now they’ve thinned out so much that it brings me to tears just looking at them.

Another huge issue is that I forget things so easily now, like my focus is completely gone. When I think about yesterday, it just feels like a blur. All I have are fragments of painful memories from childhood—harassment, family fights, people making fun of me, leaving me behind, all that stuff.

I don’t have the money to go see a specialist or afford any treatment. My pictures are awful, no one even likes me, and honestly, I’m just exhausted. I thought I’d give this a shot. I’m Muslim, so suicide is haram, and I just want someone to tell me what to do because I feel stuck.