So idk if anyone will see this but I want to share my personal experience as a directioner in the wake of losing Liam Payne.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a die-hard fan the whole time the band was together, but I was IN IT my freshman and sophomore years of high school.

It was 2011-2013, I was a teenage girl going through some tough stuff at home. And by “some stuff” I meant my dad was dying of brain cancer, and we moved to a new state where I didn’t know anyone. My dad passed away end of summer before my freshman year. I missed the first 2 weeks of school, got unenrolled, had to re-enroll, then got put on the counselor’s list of people to keep an eye on.

Of course I was depressed and antisocial and anxiety ridden starting at a new school. I moved from VA to TX and the culture shock was real I can’t lie. Then I heard some girls in my freshman English class talking about one direction. I had heard of the band but never really gave them any attention.

I remember going home that day and memorizing all the words to the Up All Night album in my living room. I remember making lyric art with the *skinny* crayola markers, and dedicating every tumblr post to 1D so that I could make friends and not feel like such an outsider. I remember having a common interest with other girls that made us feel like a community.

Then twitter got big and the #bring1Dtome challenge happened iykyk. (It was a really big deal okay) we stayed up all night and competed in a series of challenges with other directioners across the country. Long story short #bring1DtoDallas won the contest.

The only way to get into the private album signing before the concert (a prize of the contest and one directions first American performance) was to buy an album from the Barnes and Noble store in the mall. If you were the first 150? (Idk the number) of people in line then you’d be given a free poster and a WRIST BAND to get into the concert at the then named, Dr Pepper Ballpark, along with your collectors edition album.

So, naturally me and my 3 new (and only) friends piled into my 17 yr old older sister’s hand-me-down Yukon XL and slept at the mall the night before. (Duh). We blasted Up All Night songs with other directioners until after midnight and didn’t sleep at all because we were soooo excited.

Then morning came, people started lining up at 3am, news crews were there, mall security was there it was a big thing, this was at the Stonebriar mall in Frisco Tx for any of my older fans who know what I’m talking about.

So the doors aren’t going to open until 7am, mall opens at like 6am (don’t quote me on these times I’m guesstimating). 5:30 rolls around and we take a lap to assess if we can even get a spot in line… for those of you who don’t know— stonebriar is a two floor mall and the Barnes and noble has two entrances one on each floor, it’s one of the first stores near the parking garage entrance.

5:45am-The line is wrapped around the side of the mall at the bottom level. My friends and I start to lose hope of getting these wrist bands.

5:57am- our spot in line is shit my older sister realizes we’re disappointed and she says she “didn’t sleep in the car for no reason. You’re getting those wrist bands, follow me”.

5:59am: My friends and I haul ass to the second floor entrance and my sister says “when they open the door walk in, go down the escalator, sit in line and act like you were there the whole time.” And we did.

We got our wristbands and albums. We were on the news (in the background of someone else’s interview lol) and we started the countdown for the concert.

Let me add some additional context. I was a 14 year old girl who’s dad just died, who lived with a depressed mom, an unmedicated schizophrenic oldest sister who had just had a baby (so my niece, who was born 3 days before my dad died), a bipolar 17yr old older sister who had anger issues, and two younger siblings in elementary school that i’m trying to shelter. The living environment wasn’t great to say the least, cops were called multiple times (by me). No charges were pressed.

My dad was diagnosed with stage 3 brain cancer when I was starting 8th grade, it was aggressive, treatments were expensive, our house in VA was foreclosed, my mom moved us to TX bc she had distant family there and available family grave plots, his cancer progressed and he passed away in August 2011.

We moved to TX in May 2011 at the end of my 8th grade year. Beginning of Summer before freshman year my mom moved my dad into hospice care. We would go to visit every other day and take turns feeding him and telling stories and it was heavy and sad. He passed away 2 days before school started.

One direction was the only thing I had to escape and bring any sense of joy in such a heartbreaking time. They brought me so much comfort, they brought me friends, they brought me a sense of being a normal teenage girl who’s dad didn’t have cancer, who’s sisters weren’t attacking each other, and who’s mom wasn’t threatening to 0ff herself.

So anyways, we got albums signed before the concert. it was very quick not like a meet and greet, they were all sitting in a row at a table, we walked through in a line and spoke to them all I was so excited I forgot to record on my camera, everyone was sweating bc it was 105 degrees outside, best day ever!! they were even cuter in person.

I just want to thank every Directioner who ever made me feel less alone as a struggling 14 year old. And I want to say that if you’re grieving Liam or one direction you’re not alone, I’m there with you. They were my safe space and loving them was…is a personality trait.

Anyways I stored those albums in a closet my junior year, then went through a house fire where everything got smoke damaged. We moved like 6 times that year. It was rough.

idk why I haven’t cleaned the albums but that’s what it is, and it’s a sobering reminder of the fact that I was going through so much but these boys were always there for me. I’ll clean them soon.

I’ll never be a boy-band obsessed teenager again, and I’m thankful to those boys for giving me happy memories during that time of my life.

If you read all that thank you and I love you 💓