Cold winter afternoons were a favorite of mine. The low temperature in the air was therapeutic; in some way, it shed the pain of felt rejection right off my skin. I felt better as I stood alone outside, hyperaware of my status as a social outcast. Over time, it started to feel like nothing. In each moment I was drowning in the water around me, be it a group project, or gym class, the anxiety made haste to return. The cold weather tamed my fear in every way.
I noticed how my trauma shaped me conveniently, at least when I was younger and adaptable. For example, I knew in many ways I was beyond any doubt stronger than my friends. There came some pitiful moments of them complaining about their lives. I would wonder why I never shared my hardships with them. I knew they didn't care, but was there something more to this pronouncement for my actions?
I wore it on my sleeves. I had a deep disdain for my own regard of my suffering; I denied I was. Unless I was crying, I would suppress my feelings that same instant I refused to feel. It must have been my restrained will to appear weak responsible for this. I did own the persona of an unapproachable, emotionless girl who lacked a name.
She. Her.
On one occasion in eighth grade, him.
Fuck me.
However, I was okay with the fact that no one knew me. The isolation granted me the privilege to write as an outlet in class. I was invisible. Never did I speak a word to anyone who I didn't know as my friend or an acquaintance.
Even they would abandon me, mentally. Inevitably, there were years and semesters I had no friends in my classes. Nothing intrinsically came to my rescue. I punched a hole in a wall at home over my anger that my history class consisted of obnoxious popular students, zero of the peers being anyone I could remotely relate to. Slowly, I started to realize my friends weren't even people I could relate to.
For one, I would never ditch someone who had nobody to hang out with. Secondly, I wouldn't treat my old friend as a peasant just because new friends seemed more beneficial for my status quo, which involved me being out for myself the whole time. Instead of being human, these people chose to throw me into an oncoming bus and vitiate every will I had to be one myself.
So I began to hate them. My people. Those frauds. Losers.
It wasn't until I was about to turn seventeen that I changed my social life. By smoking weed, I bonded with someone who was burned by my friend circle. It fell on a day close to the end of the year. There was a tornado watch and the sky was turning green. I tagged along ditching class to get stoned after informing her what my best friend revealed about her personal life and further intended to disclose to others.
That's right.
Little did I know what waited around the corner.
My addiction issues lived hand in hand with a nightmare of a reality. I didn't expect to develop generalized anxiety disorder in my final year of high school. As a result of befriending the stoner, and skipping the first week of school, I lost every friend aside from her.
It fucked me up.
I had no one, nothing to look forward to. Nursing school in the subsequent year did not excite me. I began to ruminate over the point of living in general. To me, there was only art that could save my complex from remaining shattered. I began to communicate my pain through writing poetry more often, and drawing moody portraits. I couldn't tell if I was growing backwards. I knew my borderline mindset could only tolerate so many realizations of betrayal before I fucking gave in and self harmed.
I remained a failure for many years afterward. Despite having graduated, I was nothing. Stayed nothing. The experience of that year killed everything inside of me, therefore my intentions were to amount to nothing in life other than to stay invisible.
Being visible only made things worse. After turning eighteen, I began entering toxic relationships and developed a sex addiction. Never cheated on anyone but got snubbed pretty badly in the process, by exes who prioritized seeing other women over what my needs were.
To be loved.
Cherished.
Wanted.
Not fucking convinced that I am good for one thing, and that is when no one is there, and only I am left. Tortured emotionally to every degree, never in my life had I screamed hysterically over being mocked for needing stability from someone who had no intentions of being good to me. I didn't go to nursing school over how sick I wound up over our relationship.
Why did I put myself through this? I believed I didn't deserve anything real. I let my first boyfriend turn me into a single fragment of who I was before I met him. I once shined brightly. I was so beautiful. And I only meant one thing mankind.
A fuckable walking kick-me sign.