I am Jemmy. I’m 17 years old. I used to believe that with my parents, nothing bad could ever happen to me. They loved me; they cared about me; they made me feel like a princess. Then, one day, everything changed. They divorced, and my father had to get married to another woman; my mother remarried to someone else too and I was forced to call him, “daddy”.

Most parents don’t realize that divorce destroys kids. My life changed when my parents divorced. My mom had to take me away from my father. The 25th of December, 2016, I got a phone call from this women saying that my father was dead. He was involved in a car accident. That’s when I could see that my world was over. I felt lonely and I felt afraid.

How would you feel when the man who used to say, “no one will ever hurt you, baby girl”, the man who used to say, “no man would ever make you cry cause daddy is here”, is no longer there to keep you safe? I felt safe with him. I felt happy, but now that he’s gone the world is killing me. The world is making me cry every day; the world has turned daddy’s little girl to a sorrow girl.

Many teenagers like me out there are going through hell; some are forced to do what they don’t want by their own parents. It’s hard to be who you’re not. You gotta say no to things that don’t make you happy; you got the power to change your own life. Don’t let other people change your life. Be you; life is too short to be depending on people. Yes, we should respect our parents, but they have to respect our decisions too. They have to let us learn from our mistakes, not theirs. I ain’t sharing my story for fun. I’m sharing my story to tell teenagers who are going through the same thing as me to be strong and try to change their own life.

Smoking, drinking, and partying won’t change your life in any way, it will only destroy you even more. Change your life in a good and clean way. Many teenagers don’t believe in God, but trust me, when your life is a mess you will need him. Just believe in yourself. Giving up is a choice; trying is success.

I say I got the power to change anything. #Beyou!

Tell us: In what ways do you think divorce affects children?