VANESSA'S STORY
She's got a killer voice, a great fashion sense, a HUGE heart, and lots of confidence. Basically, she's the ideal human being. I got to learn so much from her, and hopefully you guys can also.
Although Vanessa's on the quieter side, you can see that when she does talk, she's incredibly comfortable in her skin. When we got together to talk about filming brave stories, I was pretty surprised by how similar our experiences were in high school. Like me, she switched school and had to deal with adjusting to a new environment and making new friends. " I think in trying to find and make friends, I lost myself somewhere in the process." she tells me as she picks out a dress to wear for the photoshoot. For Vanessa, it began with smaller changes like changing the way she dressed and doing the same things that everyone else did. Within a few months, she realized that she didn't even recognize herself. " I lost all confidence in myself because I wasn't even myself anymore. I was trying to be someone other people liked," she said. And so that made her doubt everything she said because she constantly was questioning what other people would think. But as time passed, she grew tired of worrying about pleasing others because in the process she was killing herself over it. Constantly stressed and nervous, Vanessa began to recognize that all of this anxiety was not worth it. "I think I realized that regardless of how hard I tried to fit in, there would always would be someone who didn't like something about me, and it served as a wake up call for me," she reflects. And after recognizing this, she took small steps towards becoming herself again. She started to dress in a way which she thought truly reflected who she was, and started doing things that she truly loved to do, like singing. With these actions, the anxiety started to fade away, and the confident and beautiful girl I know came to be. Today as I look at her, I strive to be as confident and kind-hearted as she is.