My journey from Russia to the United States of America

Setting: High-school In Russia

“I remember there was one friend who wanted to hang out with me but I was like: "I'm too busy, I'm sorry, I don't want to hang out with you".

I felt like I almost convinced myself that: “Ellie , she's initiating contact to hang out with you but realistically she doesn't actually want to" and that's why I felt okay rejecting her friendship…”

Setting: School in Russia

‘If I had friends that I was confiding in I think they would have told me: “Ellie, that’s not true , you’re not worthless, your life is not meaningless”, someone would have said that. However, because I didn’t have these friends around me to counter my negative thoughts, I would just kind of tell myself things like: “Oh, Ellie, you don’t have any friends because they don’t want to be your friends” or “Ellie things suck right now but you deserve it“….’

Setting: Transition From Russia To The USA

“The only the way that I would cope with it was: I would go to school and then I’d come back and I would have a quick 10 minutes cry almost every day. It was just part of my routine, I didn’t even question it, and I just knew I have got to ring it out and then I can do my homework.”