"Weird kid" means different things to different people. One thing most of us have in common is the experience of feeling like an outsider.

If you hopped in a time machine, it wouldn't matter if you met First-Grade Me or High School Senior-Me or any moment in between, I would probably being having a hard time. I was the proverbial "weird kid" (sometimes "the quiet one", the "loner", and any number of 'other' qualifiers). My friend groups were inconsistent, I didn't dress like anyone else, and I was socially anxious. I sat on the outskirts of every scene you can encounter, despite having a locked-away "theatre kid" personality I didn't let breathe until I was in improv groups in college. (Running into people I went to school with isn't my favorite activity, but they're certainly surprised when I do.)

It's the oldest story in the book: I was different and I was bullied ruthlessly - to the point where being invisible would have been a luxury. I was strange, and not loved for it. Jerks brought raw eggs to school to throw them at my head, locked me in a supply closet and outside the school building, pushed me down stairs, shoved me off lunch benches, vandalized and stole my possessions, and posted endless and inescapable cruelty online.

I became silent for a while. I started to avoid certain school spaces. At one point, I got rid of my cell phone, changed my names on social media, and shut down accounts. (You can't stop people from talking about you - but you can stop them from reaching you when you need to go home and be in a safe space.)

Unsurprisingly, I never really understood the "life is a zoo" war-zone of it all, and never quite reacted as I was expected to. As a sister with two brothers, used to tough love and play-wrestling that goes too far but admittedly conflict-avoidant, I can take a hit and walk it off.

So I walked it off.

I started kindness campaigns, left affirmations in people's lockers without knowing who would receive them, gave presentations on empathy and anti-bullying, and I responded with activism when nothing else worked. It wasn't particularly effective, but it showed true colors - and ingenuity.

As I grew older, I started to realize that what made me different gave me an edge. Inevitably, shutting down and hiding wasn't the answer.

“My advice to you is please don't ever sit in your room and lock yourself away because you don't think you're good enough.” - Catherine Tate

During those years, I buried myself in fandom and in arts projects. As I started to wake up, I started to share some of the things I was writing, filming, and creating on my own. When I got away from my hometown and went to college, I started performing, practicing self-care, treating anxiety and depression, got a radio show, did life-changing internships, and pursuing what I loved until I started to find "my people."

The greatest secret of adulthood: there are a lot of happy, successful, fulfilled and even later-in-life-charismatic former - and maybe forever - weird kids. (One more: nerds are the ones voted "most likely make it" by the real world.)

I made it out. This is what I have to say from the other side:

Dear "Weird Kid",

I was just like you. I'm still like you.

Let me tell you something people don't tell you when you're young, and it's hard, and when "it gets better" isn't enough because you just can't picture it.

Creativity is a sometimes-indistinguishable step away from originality, and wherever there is someone taking risks to do what has never done before, there is social deviance --- and with this, some degree of ostracization, which can be so, so isolating.

The reality is, if you don't fit into any boxes - no one's putting you in boxes. You're left out, but instinctively (as we are social creatures) start "FEELING left out".

If you've always been on the outside looking in, it gets reduced to not being included. It's difficult from that perspective to deconstruct the dynamics of your life, stepping backwards to see that something amazing started all the separation in the first place.

Depression can come right out of the loneliness in trailblazing. Anxiety rises from not knowing what's next on the roads you're the first to pave, and from not knowing where you fit into a boxes-and-labels world.

It seems to me that the reason confidence is so culturally emphasized -- aside from the fact that people try so hard to figure out who you are and what you're worth just by going on how you yourself feel about those things -- is because you need to smile when you wander off.

You need to believe that when you step forward in the dark, your feet will hit the ground. This is partially so you can hold it together long enough to do something incredible --- maybe even be lucky enough to generally feel good about it --- but also so that risk-taking doesn't freak onlookers out so much.

When you make that exploration attractive by seeming to enjoy it, you don't seem communities and groups rail against it as much. That's when creators become leaders.

When you're just a seedling though, and all that you'll grow into is still hidden below the surface, it's hard to tell. Only you know your roots, how deep they go, how nourished you are from inner power. The double-edged sword is that you can't see how everyone else is doing below the surface either --- so they have no idea how far you go, and you don't know how amazing you are because you have nothing to compare it to.

Let it grow. Turn your face to the sun, soak up the rain. Do it fully, boldly, fearlessly, and independently. Getting every drop of every drink, taking it all in, stretching and fanning out --- that's something you have to do for yourself. No one's going to do it for you, so you might as well really invest in that development (the mind, the body, the spirit) with your whole self and without concern about how anyone else is sizing you up. It's a solo journey, so don't worry about who's watching. It's the one thing in your life that is all on you ---- so it right, and don't get distracted.

At the end, you'll bloom. You'll give back to this incredible world you've been taking in. You'll create and introduce beautiful things. All you took in, you'll turn into something magnificent. It's then that you realize that in order to have meaning and purpose, to make a difference and really do something incredible for the world, you have to really fight for your place and focus on yourself and hold yourself accountable and not worry what everyone else is doing.

I learned pretty young that if you don't fit into pre-established boxes, you get left out entirely. "Outsider" is a waiting room. With that said, remember this: don’t fear being left out. It means they couldn't put you in boxes.

What I want for this world is for kids to stop worrying about fitting in. You don't need to change yourself so that they can label you and stick you somewhere and limit you to what they think that you should be, you don't need to conform to those parameters, instead, I want to see you. I want to see the real you. I want to see you find your people, find your tribe. The ones who are like you, the ones that are dancing, the ones aren't stuck, the ones that didn't feel the need to be things that they aren't that everybody else is.

"In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.” - Albert Camus

Stay true to who you are.

You really will be okay.