I have a problem. It's rather big. I like to judge people on everything. How smart they are, how they look, what interests them, and the choices they make. But why do I judge people when I don't want to be judged myself. Ever since I was in middle school I was bullied and judged and emotionally torn to pieces by my peers. It's not okay to do these things by any means. At a young age we come into contact with horrid things that should not be discovered until a much later age. And the things we undergo change who we become. When I was in middle school I experienced more bad things then I have since leaving middle school. I wish I could have had a better experience but that was my journey. When I was in 6th grade I got bullied by the popular girls in my grade because of the way I dressed. I was a tom boy ever since I was really little. I played soccer and loved to play outside and be dirty. They made fun of me. They called me names. They made me an outcast. Luckily not everyone is as cruel as those kids were. My group of friends didn't care that I dressed the way I did, they liked me for who I was not who I appeared to be. Never had I heard a curse word until I entered into middle school and suddenly a whole slew of them came at me at once. The ones that hurt the most still stick with me til this day. I don't think it's even necessary to repeat the because I'm sure by the above we all can imagine what the words were. I came back for my 7th grade year of school and the same things happened. Throughout that first year some of my best friends from where I lived became popular and moved on. No longer really associating with me during school. I was still bullied by the same people and just kept pushing through. That summer I decided I was tired of being bullied and being accused of being different in a bad way when I knew it wasn't in a bad way. I was tormented emotionally and I was tired of it. When I came back for my 8th grade year I changed the way I dressed. I started wearing tight jeans and cute shirts and carried a purse. I still had the same friends but people stopped picking on me and looking at me like I was an outcast. I joined the soccer team and was trying to be more "normal". The bullying changed me. And I'm not saying I'm angry that it did. But who's to say that I had to change for them. But thats how it happened. Throughout my 8th grade year I had some great friends and some great memories. My best friend wasn't so lucky. Infact til this day I don't really know what all was going on but I noticed her arms were covered in scars all the time. And I asked her about it because as I was young I was no idiot to what was going on. She told me that she had tried to kill herself and was cutting and I just didn't know what to do. There was a lot of things that could of happened. And as it played out I still talk to her today and see how she is doing. Theres just a lot about middle school that I hated but the friends I made that were my real friends stayed with me through high school. We were all different in our own way and thats what brought us to be close together. Some how I made it through that and now I am finding myself at the point where I judge people and am that cruel person. And it's killing me inside. I don't know how I got to that point. I feel like I am partially that person I grew up hating for being so mean to me. I need to fix this. I don't want to be the person that makes someone elses life miserable. I don't want to be the reason someone feels like an outcast. My goal is to try and resolve this and be able to know that I can breathe again. This has been literally suffocating me and I need to break free from it.
On another note. I think I have lost my mind. I'm trying to stay calm and not freak out over everything but my patience is really thin lately and my heart races and i get stressed and really anxious about things. I don't know what is really going on any more and i am finding it hard to focus. Nothing seems to be going the way I thought or saw it going. It's just chaotic.
Naomi, this is a powerful look back for you. Let it drive you forward to who you are called to become. The past doesn't have to dictate our future but it can be a stepping stone to writing a better story for your life. You've already taken a big first step by writing this honest evaluation. Keep pushing forward.
ReplyDeleteNaomi, I too was bullied all through middle school -- red Annie afro and coke bottle glasses will immediately make someone a target when the class size is under 20 kids. Although I couldn't change the way I looked, I changed the way I acted; I got into a LOT of fist fights. Then I started fighting for the kids who wouldn't/couldn't fight for themselves. Today I realize this is why I feel the need to "save the world". Bullies will always be out there -- "friends", colleagues, bosses, dates, etc -- and the only thing that will change is the way we deal with them.
ReplyDeleteI've learned that although I can't go punching every person who looks at me cross-eyed, I can use the biting "humor" and sarcasm and wit that I didn't have as a kid. Mean people suck and (although it's little comfort at the time it's happening) they do it bc they feel inferior in their own right.
On another note, the heart racing, stressing over everything, etc can be a reaction to all that you've just outlined. It could be who you want to be in the future wrestling internally with who you are now. Trust me. I've been there and I've been medicated for it. Take the help because it only gets better and it gets you where you want to be quicker. Talk to someone because it quickly becomes overwhelming. I'd hate to see you waste six years of your life self-medicating like I did.