Romeo & Juliet

Annika Fisher-Eddy (she/they)

Editorial Team Member

I’m currently in a sticky situation with someone. Basically, I met someone, but we're not allowed to be together for complicated reasons.

For context, I recently started attending group therapy. I’ve been really enjoying it. I think it’s really helped me mentally to be able to talk to other teenagers who relate to a lot of the things I struggle with. 

In order to attend the group, I had to sign a contract. That contract had a lot of rules, like everything that is talked about in the group must stay confidential, and actions must be put into words. But another rule on the contract was that we aren’t allowed to hang out with members of the group outside of the sessions.

I remember walking into group on my first day feeling really nervous. There were just two other people there that day, and both of them were boys. I felt pretty awkward at first, I’ll admit. I warmed up to them pretty quickly, though. I remember on that first day, I was talking about some of the things I struggled with, and one of two boys who were there that day connected with a lot of the things I talked about. I don’t want to use his name in this blog post for privacy reasons, so from here on out, I will call him E — he has also requested that I tell you he looks like Jim Root from Slipknot but shorter. I felt like E and I had a lot in common. It felt really good to have someone I connected with that much. 

Later in the week, I was feeling really sad. We have a group chat for group therapy, so I texted the group to tell them that I was feeling really upset. E replied to me and asked if I wanted to talk directly to him through DMs about what I was upset about. I said sure, so we started texting each other privately. I explained what was making me upset, and he said he related to it and gave me advice based on his experiences. I started to like him during that conversation. 

We continued to text each other when one of us was feeling upset, and we connected really well. It made me really happy to text with him, and when I received a text from him it made my day. It still does. I sort of suspected he had feelings for me since we texted each other privately so much, and by then, I was pretty certain of my feelings for him.

One day, he confessed that he had feelings for me. I told him I had feelings for him, too. Ever since then we’ve been talking. 

Here’s the sad part: because we met each other in group therapy and we aren’t allowed to hang out outside of group, we aren’t allowed to officially date each other. The rest of the group knows that we like each other, and the leader of the group has allowed us to keep talking as long as we spend the last five minutes of each therapy session talking about us. 

Right now, we’re sort of in an unofficial relationship in which we text each other everyday and we see each other once every other week at group. I wish I could see him more often, though. I’d see him every week, except group is on Wednesdays, the same day as the meetings for this magazine, so I can only go to group when I don’t have magazine meetings.

E is currently 17, which is the maximum age to be in our therapy group. He’s going to turn 18 in November. Hopefully after he turns 18, we can officially date each other. I’m also going on a trip to Europe for a month, and there is a chance I will be discontinuing group after I get back, and E and I can start an official relationship if I leave, too. But until then, I feel kind of like Juliet. Just like Juliet, there is a boy who I want to be with so bad, and he wants to be with me really bad, but we’re not allowed to date each other. But it’s a bummer, because I know for a fact that we make each other really, really happy, and I think we’d be really suitable for each other. I’m also worried that we’re going to drift apart between now and when we are allowed to date. But I keep telling myself, if we really are soulmates, then we won’t.