rdm_ation

Please read first: I am okay.
A little nervous that I'm actually posting this, but the title of this post is appropriate. I need to get this out there because I don't think some people really understand how the things they do and say can affect others. Which is the reason this is staying on public, which terrifies me in a lot of ways. Even for me, this is being open to insane levels.

The Dam Breaks.

Years of being told you’re nothing, and you start to believe it.

If you watch a dam break all you see is the final flood of water. It’s not, as many people think, a single explosion. It’s a build up of tiny cracks, threatening, threatening, until it’s finally too much. That’s when it fails. Tracing the original crack is nigh on impossible.

Fat.
Pig.
Don’t you know what that means? Everyone else knows.
Say it. Say it. I dare you to say it. Go on. Swear.
Prude.
Bible-freak.
Why don’t you ask your god to make us stop.
Isn’t this just the best? Us friends playing sports we’re all so good at.
You actually play netball? What a fucking joker. There’s no way someone like you could be any good.
No wonder you’re so fat, you can’t even run.
Hopeless.
Teacher’s pet.
Suck up.
Know-it-all.
Smartarse
Why do you always bring your lunch? Can’t your family afford to give you canteen money?
I don’t see why anyone would be your friend. Can’t you tell they’re only pretending?
Oh I love your top. I’d ask to borrow it but I’m sure it’d be too big.
Did you do your hair today? Because it looks good for once.
As if I’d go out with you. As if anyone would.

The surreal thing about that list is that I could keep going. It’s not even the different kinds of insults. Or insulting behaviour. The guys laughed, sniggering at me behind my back. The girls were ice-queens, who only deigned to talk to me to make back-handed compliments. They acted like angels in front of the teachers, but dropped that facade as soon as they were out of sight. There was no one catastrophic moment where my school life fell to pieces. There was no one event that made me run and hide. Running and hiding from the constant taunts became my life. The scariest thought to me now is that this didn’t seem abnormal. I didn’t question that this is what I had to do to survive school – I didn’t realise that simply surviving should never have been my aim.

I am a terrible liar. Always have been, always will be. Except when it came to putting on my masks. My mask at school that said ‘I don’t care what you think of me’. The mask at home that said ‘I’m perfectly happy, don’t worry’. The mask with my only two real friends that said ‘please notice I’m not okay’ and ‘just let me enjoy your company’ simultaneously. I had no doubt that said best friends loved me. They were also social butterflies, and the most popular kids at their schools. I also had no doubt that they couldn’t understand. The only time the mask dropped was when I was alone.

Dear Diary,
I feel so corny writing this, but writing here makes me feel like someone is actually listening. Even when I know they aren’t. I don’t want to be a burden – so here I go. I hate school. I’m always hanging on to the outside of a group. They plot to get away from me at lunchtimes. I read. The teachers pity me, I can see that. Not that they do anything about it.

More often than I’d care to admit I slept on the floor because I didn’t think I deserved my bed. They told me I was worthless often enough that I started to believe it.

I didn’t think I had any right to be unhappy because I had my family, a nice house, a church, it was only school. I never wanted to seem ungrateful.

I counted my good days as ones where I didn’t cry myself to sleep.

I was stuck.

Dear Diary,
Amanda was such a bitch today. She always is, but today she was utterly horrible. I hate having to get changed in front of them all for sport. How is it that they’re so thin? Maybe I should try to eat less. Maybe they’d back off. How, though. How. My parents would question. I already throw away half of my lunch.

I still had my moments. I learnt not to say anything unless answering a question from a teacher, or if i had a cutting remark ready. I accidentally kicked a soccer ball into James where it hurts. I fought back. Sometimes. For the most part I just withdrew into myself and became a generic version of me that some girls could at least pretend to be friends with. I knew that, and was willing to take anything I could get.

Dear Diary,
Today, Claire hit me. It hurt. It’s the first time it’s ever crossed the physical boundary, accompanied by a snide comment.
I hit her back.
I promised myself I’d never stoop to their level.
But damn, that felt good.
The best bit? Mr C saw the whole thing, let me off with nothing, yelled at Claire and made her run laps for the rest of the class. It’s almost nothing compared to what they do constantly but someone cares.

Those moments were few and far between.

‘Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me’ I hope whoever coined that proverb died a horrible death. Words can hurt more than anything. Quoting that at me does not help.

I hated the person I had become, who I pretended to be. I felt worthless. Helpless. I couldn’t see any way out. I just wanted to stop. To stop everything. I could think of a thousand ways to make it stop. To stop this person I hated from even existing. No one at school would even care. I would always come to the same point: I can’t do that to my family. They loved me, even though I didn’t feel I deserved it. I didn’t try. The idea was there, but the conviction to go through with it wasn’t.

The mask became harder and harder to keep up. Then, I fell in love with a friend of mine from church. I tried harder. I giggled with my best friends. They encouraged me to tell him. I couldn’t even imagine him liking me back. I was convinced that there was no way he could.
I asked him to go out with me to the movies. He said yes, but after he came back from his holidays. I didn’t mind, I was used to waiting. I had 3 weeks of pure joy before I found out that he’d misunderstood. He didn’t want me. Just like almost everyone else.

Distraction, hope, and the sheer possibility of something better were powerful incentives to keep going. When they were stripped away I cracked. I was utterly broken. The mask fell away. The next thing I knew I was buying a new uniform, touring a new campus, facing the prospect of a school full of new faces. Despite that I wasn’t scared in the slightest. The first time in a long time that I wasn’t scared at all. They couldn’t be worse than the people who stole 5 years of my life from me.

I ran. It was the best thing I ever did.

And before anyone asks, yes, this all happened and more, and I have changed the names.