THE TEENAGE OPPRESION WE FACE

When someone tells you that they had a “shittty life”, you automatically think of one full of guns and drugs.

My shitty life is nothing like that; in fact, it is a luxurious shitty life. I live in a house where food is inside my refrigerator at all times, I wake up every morning to go to school without fearing of getting shot, and I have friends who don’t invite me to a drunken party, but rather a study session.

But, there is surely something that is shitty, or rather, that is dying in my life. And as much as I am not socially allowed to say it, there is a part of me that envies those who have a shitty life in the hood. I envy their expressiveness, as what I was told is to keep quiet and always agree. I crave for their voices that are allowed to scream, as my voice only comes out in the form of sweet laughter between friends.

The life I am trapped in must be a different shithole than theirs must be; it is one that is lonely, dark, and cold, where everybody puts on a smile and nobody has a voice, as if anyone would hear you, even if someone did.

As I grew up in my house of love, the horrors kept building within myself.

The first time I saw my mother getting beaten up by my father, she promised me to lie and never tell a soul. The time when I saw my father rape my mom, she held me tight and told me that it was none of my business, but they were ok. Violence and silence were regular visitors in my family, which I have grown fond of over the years.

Then came the silent depression. One, where my mother was too sick to cook, and I had to, for months. She was just sick and had a very bad cold, but everything was going to be fine, according to her. By the time of that age, I’ve learnt to keep quiet about “problems at home”; making myself a perfect secret hideout, which came in handy, as well as the reason for my inner torment for years to come.

By the time I was 16, I had been beaten, cursed, and used up, which I all “consented to”, just because I did not know the word “no”. The chat with friends about our boyfriends’ complaints never went deep enough to speak of their secret abortion they had, never telling a soul. The worries we speak of for our grades never reached the topic of how our parents may be psychodic, and they have been forced to sleep in the veranda of their house, eating scraps for years.

Behind the words, “I’m just cold,” were bleeding barcodes, “I bumped into something,” were boyfriends or fathers.

The shitty life we grew up in had nothing to do with guns and drugs, but it took lives away more often than the hood. It had nothing to do with gang violence or beat-ups, but rather with our voices and “no”s taken away. Our lives came from oppression, opinions, and “shut up and behave”s. The life of the hood is one I can never imagine, nor can I come to compare my life with. Still, at least they know who to look in the eye and blame when they get shot and go out, but we can only look at ourselves in the mirror and wonder, “Where did I go so wrong that I ended up here?

Yui Nitta is a second-year student at Okayama University in Japan, studying Anthropology. She writes, drawing inspiration from her Japanese American background, and explores ideas through stories and essays, hoping to publish works that inspire and connect people in the future.