Nostalgia and pain are running through me. I had to re-read the facebook message I sent ten years ago to the girl I bullied in grade school. I have to say, nicely written. Good job, me. I explained my side thoughtfully and concisely. If that won't get me back into heaven, I don't know what will. Today was bad for many reasons, but I was heavily reflecting on my bully days. I think about them at least once a week. For the past 20 fucking years. Like DAMN, I think I'm hurting more than the girl I tortured! Karma? No, it's having suuuuch a big heart!! And such a big threshold for shame. I can hold like, so much. It's haunted me since it happened. The bullying lasted maybe 1.5 years, which is 10 years in pubescent years. I remember thinking I was brainwashed, influenced by those around me. Which was absolutely true. But I was also such a little tortured soul! So angsty and sad at the world. There was so much self-loathing and pain that the bullying felt so fucking good. It was, pathetically, nearly exclusively cyber bullying. I'd type that fucking roast, hit enter, and my body would be shaking from the thrill. It was such an unfortunate yet satisfying place to put the sourness that was inside of me. I remember apologizing back then, but those were the AIM days. It's as if the conversation never happened, obselete in it's impact. So, I ventured onto the (pre) Meta wasteland and said my apology. It had been haunting me, it still does! It's like I can't get over the cruelty I put onto others because I'm still not over that period of my life in general. The reason I linger in those early pubescent years is because that's when life switched for me, and I no longer liked it. I loathed it. I loathed myself and those around me. It was majorly impactful looking back but at that time, it was just life. It felt as if that is what life will always be and the past, even a year prior, felt like a lifetime ago. Each year of my life has been drastic from the last, and grade school was no exception. The body is changing, limbs stretching and puffing. Hormones are being put on blast that have never been there before. Cliques are forming, your identity is becoming more grounded, and you're way different from that kid you were a year ago. I found these changes horrifying. I didn't understand what was happening to me. Like little aliens invading my brain and making themselves comfortable, while I fought against them in the only way I knew how- by hiding them. Surely if no one knows the whack shit that's going on up there, I will be okay. My main goal was to keep calm, keep things to myself as to not cause a scene. I didn't want judgement. I feared judgement. And these changes happened fast in the grand scheme, but again, life passes so slowly at that age that it makes you blind to truly how corrupting the hchanges are. Like, I thought everyone stared at their fat rolls in bed and cried. I thought it was just what we did. "Yeah, Lindsey is the tiniest girl in class but I bet she feels the same way every night." When I cried myself to sleep every night, I remember finding a cute little sparkly icon on iconator.com about the same thing, and I thought, oh okay, this is normal! But I quickly realized these things were not occuring amongst my peers, along with other feelings I had. The realization that certain things occuring within me (self-hatred, low self-esteem, depression) were not happening to my friends, and that scared me. I was odd. I was being weird. I have always, always had a gripe with being perceived as weird. It is one of the few things I wrote about in my journal as an 8 year old. M discomfort for being different is a deeply profound ache that I've spent my life trying to hide from. If I act normal, no one will know I'm not! They won't have anything to tease me about. I think the fear of others doing to me what I did to that poor girl kept me in place. I also felt a karmic debt for that- like I can never be mean to anyone again. Anyways, back to the point, being weird. I am weird, I have awlways been comfortable expressing my hair and make up differently and perhaps more boldly than others. But personality? Noooo< I cannot be the creep! THe weirdo! The loser! I will not have people talk badly about me so harshly, as I did about others with my friends. I cannot be the underdog or I will fucking die. That always felt like the alternative- either suppress who you are or you will die. It felt like it'd be the end of the world if I talked about this dark side of myself. THey'd laugh at me, they'd hate me! I'm worthless loser, and no one wants to be my friend so why try. These words are not my own. They were absorbed after years of hearing it. They do stick, as much as I fought them. I didn't want to be like the kid who tried to hang himself in the school bathroom. I didn't want to be a spectacle. I was deeply scared of going to a mental insitution- the kids online said that if you tell anyone you hurt yourself, that they will send you there. It horrified me. Not even the hospital itself, although it did, it was mostly the fear of people knowing. Knowing that I feel these strange thoughts, and that I am different from them. I wanted to be normal so fucking bad. But I never felt right. I fet like an alien at that oint. These disturbin feelings were making a home in my boy, and I didn't know who the fuck they were and what they were doing. But that was who I was. I suck, that's who I am. I'm fat and disgusting, that is who I am and I'm angry at myself for that. The social anxiety kicked in and all the sudden I was hating my personality. I'm not fun, I'm not kind. I simply have nothing to offer! So, I bette be quiet. I do want to speak a lot of the time, but the words won't come out. I want to be happy, I want to be a part of things. But that's fucking lame. No one gets me and I wish they could so badly. I won't give them the chance, because it's futile. I'm too far gone to ever be better, and I will wallow in this for years to come.