I Found Out I Was Jewish. Then Everything Changed, Jodeci Joseph’s Story

I would say that I went through a very destructive mental health period from the age of 17.

And I think that was that kind of battle, like you said, between you putting on an act, but realizing the act was so inauthentic that it kind of made you reassess your whole being essentially and like who you are as an individual.

And so I went through a really lost period for many years and I did a lot of therapy and EMDR and different things to help me come back to who I was.

And I would say now, obviously you're never like a hundred percent happy with like who you are and you still have like doubts and you still have anxiety and you still have thoughts about what people think of you.

i would say like i feel like a level of contentment in myself and a calmness that i never had before um and i think yeah a part of that is kind of just being okay with me right and i think with being different and all these things you can focus on those things so much but once you go through a period of i went for a very diff like people talk about their midlife crises like i have a lot of friends who actually older and they talk about like they're going like they're in their 40s and they're like I'm going through really like that period of being lost.

And like really struggling.

And I feel like I had that from the age of 17 to 20.

Same.

I got a

head start, everyone.

It's like you break and you shed that dead skin like a snake does.

And it's extremely painful.

But then you get such a huge head start in growing up.

And you won't be the same 80-year-old as your friends are.

You know what I mean? You're going to reach 80 at 50.

It's just the way it is that you keep pulling wisdom quicker, even though we don't all choose a bumpy road.

But when you do, you start to really appreciate it.

And the people around you will benefit from it too.

so you mentioned that at 17 what caused the break do you think was it just the last straw was it meant to be like how do you see that happening to you

yeah it's a good point and it's very interesting like it's it's bringing up a lot in me like all these conversations about identity and also about like being okay with oneself i think it's such a such a relatable um process that so many people go through this journey of like Who am I? Where am I? But it basically started actually at 14 because of these behaviors that I was trying to do.

I was, you know, I kind of made a name for myself being the class clown and being the joker.

And one day I came back from vacation, summer vacation.

I'm not holiday, vacation.

Thank you.

Thank you for translating.