Throughout high school you meet many people and think they’re cool. You meet people that live a life you know about, and you meet people that tell you about their life.

But what about the people you meet but don’t know anything about? Well, here’s the story of senior Claudia Adame.

Now Adame might seem like a regular girl that gets good grades and has a good time, but there’s a story behind that smile. She grew up without a father figure, therefore her mother was her only parent. And times were tough for the Adame family since her mother didn’t have an education and had to work very hard in the fields to provide for the family.

For a good while, financially and emotionally, things were hard. When high school came along, things only got worse as her mother kept getting sick.

“It hurt me because she was the only person I had,” Adame said.

The whole time Adame was scared of becoming a foster child. She didn’t want to lose her mom most of all. Adding to that, her brother had dropped out of UC Irvine and fell into a great depression.

Seeing her loved ones so drained drained her as well.  In all of this misfortune Adame felt as if the whole school was against her because of the way she dressed and acted. What got her through high school was doing her own thing and being herself.

This wasn’t the first time Adame let this story out. As her talent at Ms. CI she read this story to everyone who attended. Throughout the day, leading up to the event, she felt nervous.

“It was me opening up,” Adame said.

What actually made Adame open up that night was her own gut feeling telling her to do it. She wanted others that were going through hard times to know that they weren’t alone.

On the outside, she seemed fine and confident with letting it all out all. She was telling herself  “I can do it.”

It was hard for her to let everything out, she says, “But sometimes you kind of have to play it off.”

The advice she would like to give others going through hard times is, in her words, “cliché things.”

Adame said, “I would tell them to keep pushing, to not give up, things will get better.”

The best thing you can do in her perspective is fake it, tell yourself that today will be a good day, stay focused and most important stay busy.

“Use things that keep you sane and have people around you that support you,” she said.