How did I get here?
When I started writing this, I sat here and told you my entire sob story. I told you all about how I was bullied. How I was stocked, my car was keyed, my family was slandered. I talked in long drawn out paragraphs, telling you all the gory details of these peoples reign over my life. How they basically decided what I did everyday, who I spoke to, how I carried myself. I allowed them to mentally cage me. But I decided that's not what you need to know about how I got here. You need to know who I am as a person, understand who it changed me into, and see where I want to go from here.
My town is the epitome of "small town USA". Everything from the dinner, to the gas station, to the grocery store are locally owned and operated. Instead of pedestrian crossing signs we have horse crossing signs. It's an hour+ to the nearest shopping mall and 25 minutes to the nearest Wal-Mart. No stop lights fit in our tiny town, so we just have stop signs. Heck, we only have one police officer. Not that we really need him. Any home you walk into has at least a shot gun heated by the front door. Anyway, in a small town like this, everyone knows everyone... and their neighbor's mother's uncle's 2nd cousin's wife twice removed. You get the gist. So if your dad happened to be the star football player that didn't know an enemy you were expected to hold up his legacy. As life had it, I was actually quite good in sports, it was just the "didn't know an enemy" part that I unfortunately didn't share in common with him.
Before I was outgoing, never met a stranger. I never missed being on the academic achievement list, competed in multiple different kinds of competitions, and participated in at least two sports all year around. We always had the "end of the season" cookouts at my house for whatever sport was ending and had friends that came through the front door without even knocking, because my home was their home too. But that came to an abrupt stop, and my entire world changed. |
Things I enjoyed doing became things that gave me legitimate anxiety. Why play sports or participate in cheerleading when you're constantly going to get badgered and humiliated by your fellow athletes? Why compete in a pageant when I know instead of a cheering section, I'd have a hate section screaming from the stands? Walking into the local grocery store was a mental task in itself. Ever play the "phone game" as a kid? Everyone sits in a circle and starts whispering a sentence into the ear beside them. That person then whispers it into the ear beside them. By the time it gets back around, your sentence "the frog is green" becomes "that frog's name is Christine". Rumors work the same, except they don't even start out nice. Adults judge and jump to believe anything they hear just as peers do. So that stock clerk or cashier you have known all your life, and has known your family all their life, are giving you a dirty look; and all you can think is "what did they hear and what do they think of me?"
It became total isolation. If this were medieval times, I would have been what "shunned" would have looked like; and anyone who spoke to me knew their fate would have been the same. So there went both my extra curricular activities and social contact. I became withdrawn, depressed. My academics started to reflect it, too. So add that into the category of "what went down the drain my junior year". |
Nine months later, I'm contacted by a State Trooper who heard through the grape vine what was going on in the small community and wanted to help. Two criminal counts were found on the ringleader of the operation along with one criminal count against one of her minions. The school was found at fault for neglecting to acknowledge the problem.
You'd think this would have ended it all, but it didn't. The mental and emotional hole was already dug too deep to climb my way out of. I was livid. At first the rage was just toward the group of individuals that caused all this, but then it was toward everyone. Everyone. In my head, everyone was out to get me. Everyone was starting or helping to spread a rumor. My coaches hated me, my parents resented me, my friends were embarrassed to be around me. My life was a bubble of negativity that I couldn't pop. But I'm sharpening my needle. I'm done living in the cage this experience has imprisoned me in.
You'd think this would have ended it all, but it didn't. The mental and emotional hole was already dug too deep to climb my way out of. I was livid. At first the rage was just toward the group of individuals that caused all this, but then it was toward everyone. Everyone. In my head, everyone was out to get me. Everyone was starting or helping to spread a rumor. My coaches hated me, my parents resented me, my friends were embarrassed to be around me. My life was a bubble of negativity that I couldn't pop. But I'm sharpening my needle. I'm done living in the cage this experience has imprisoned me in.