After posting yesterday's blog I spent some more time reflecting over other things that I have found myself being afraid of and one of those things are the memories of my past. High school was nothing less that pure and utter torture, I was bullied in high school so much that I left the high school in my hometown and transferred to another high school in the Salem area. My peers just wouldn't give me a break and I really felt like I had no choice but to run away and start over. Although I made the decision to transfer high schools, I still hated living in my hometown and even now I have hated returning back to it. When I go back I can see the same looks and hear the same whispers that I heard years ago and they have just kinda stuck and traveled over time. I can't return and think of it as my home, instead I look at it as the nightmare I couldn't wake up from.
All throughout high school I needed that self-affirmation to keep going and I searched for it in all the wrong places. I held a resentment and strong grudge towards the peers at my old high school and those resentments traveled with me and in some ways they still stick with me. A turning point occurred in my life recently where I became aware of all the damage and wrong I had done in my life in result of the events that happened to me during my freshman year of high school. What I also realize is that never once did they happen to hinder me nor did God punish me for anything I had done bad. At the end of the day as an adult I can look a it and identify the blessings that came from it even though the pain was much more easier to feel.
Transferring high schools was the best thing that happened for me, I didn't run away- God saved me. I always kept my faith and always listened to his voice during the times where all I wanted to do was just end my own life. I never would give it a second thought because each and every time I would hear the voice inside of me saying "you have a lot to live for". Each denial I made to Satan that desired me to be in hell with him, I defeated it by not listening to him whatsoever. Yes there were some very mean and nasty people that made my life a living hell but now I can honestly and securely say with full confidence that I forgive them. I forgive them because the actions they did and the words they said are not who they are nor were they ever. There are still many that I am fond of no matter how much they felt it necessary to follow the crowd.
I was innocent, naieve, and I always had the best of intentions in any choice I made back then and those motivations and characteristics still reside in me today. They are what makes me who I am or at the very least have crated a foundation of understanding as into who I am and why. I don't set out to harm people and sometimes I do things or respond to situations because I haven't got a clue of what they mean nor do I have a full comprehension of what is going on. My mistake in the past has never been allowing myself the opportunity of full communication which is what I have decided to do from this point on.
Transferring high schools was a huge blessing. Although I didn't receive the best peer to peer treatment, I had amazing teachers that have done nothing less but continue to be a good representative and advocate for me. They always made me feel safe, accepted, and they made me realize that I did belong there and there was in fact a place in high school that I could call my own and fit in right then and there for who I was. This is why I equipment managed for so long. It allowed me to be involved with school athletics without having to actually play, I never played sports in high school because of the fact that I didn't want to be the girl out there with glasses nor did I want to be the girl to take my glasses off and not be able to see a thing. Equipment Managing made me feel like I was contributing to something important and it felt like I was always doing the right thing.
I never craved to be popular, all I wanted was to feel peace in high school and accepted for just being there. I was the person who had rumors spread about day in and day out. I was the one that experienced multiple peer to peer confrontations because someone would use my name to pull a prank on someone such as asking someone to snowball and writing my name on the invitation. Then of course there were the blabbermouths from my old school who felt it necessary to burn every relationship or friendship that I had with other students at my new school and did this by having to "enlighten" my new schoolmates of what my history was at my old school. Kids and teenagers are SO mean and honestly they aren't getting any better in our society of schools anymore.
Graduating from West Salem High School, I left feeling proud to be a Titan, certainly I still wish that there are students that I could reconnect with and allow them the opportunity to give me a fresh start and to see who I am as a person, the person that was always there that together my peers allowed Satan to work through each situation and destroy that person and truly mask it with suit and sin. The truth is that I have never been the naieve girl who "stalked" athletes, nor was I ever a threat to anyone's social status. Being around me didn't destroy your reputation, sorry I never had that power. Never have I been ugly, fat, nor have I ever been not worthy of care from people. I have always been smart and careful with whom I let into my life and the words I say to people. What I realize is that God created me a certain way and that way never changed, it was the influence of my peers that made me look at myself and see different.
By graduating from West Salem High School and having had gone through my experiences all throughout high school as a teenage girl who had a deep desire and craving to have some sort of attention or relationship with a guy eventually ate at me in places where my inner self esteem was effected. I found a "beauty" within myself that was fake and phony. I relied on hair extensions, good selfies with non revealing angles, and of course the internet to gain affection and affirmation from young men who were into women like that. That attitude and assumption of what others needed to see in order to like me at the very least was essentially what attracted and connected me to the man that would I would remain in a relationship with for nearly two years.
The relationship started out pretty intense but there was something about him that drew me in and I couldn't explain it. Within a very short amount of time we had connected and really became understanding to one another. It was a complex relationship that's for sure but he gave me attention that I never experienced and it made me feel good to be able to say I had at least once in my life. Eventually the relationship became very mentally abusive as I was never enough. All the while he would play his video games and would just chat online to ex girlfriends all day and would talk to me all about it and how much they meant to him and how his desire was to be with them but he obviously wanted me too or he wouldn't have been there.
It's because of my desperation to feel cared about that I decided to stay with him and I committed myself to him for almost six months and he decided to leave me and move to California for an ex girlfriend. So I attempted to have a fresh start and move to Arizona for a second time. Eventually I got lonely and my physical wants and needs became more important when he decided to reach out to me again. Eventually I let him back into my life and decided to share a home with him which was when the real trouble started. There was a lot of physical abuse that occurred within the home and there was just a control he had over me that I couldn't explain rationally.
I had come back home due to the passing of my grandmother, ahh she was always an angel. But during those months of being at home I was dead inside, everything that had ever given me faith before being my grandma was gone just like that. After a summer season in depression I had discovered that I was expecting a baby. Deep in my heart I knew that I was expecting a girl and that her name would be Faith because she represented so much. It was my daughter who essentially gave me the confidence to leave my boyfriend at the time and really take pride and truly make gestures to show that I too am important and that I deserved to be safe.
Ultimately the new found role of motherhood was a challenge on it's own from the pregnancy and birth to the weeks after. It was during those weeks that I became very needy and low in my self and felt as if I needed that affirmation of feeling wanted again and I couldn't quite connect that I had enough in my life at that time, but Satan tricked me into thinking I needed more which is when I allowed myself to let another young man in who would change my life forever.
At first he seemed perfect but then as time went on his true colors revealed itself through the removal of my daughter at just four months old due to abuse and maltreatment of the young man to the obliviousness that I had towards him. It was a severely abusive relationship that sent me down a very long and narrow path with a shorter time duration.
However, although this road seems dark and curvy, it ultimately led up to me finding my church, accepting Jesus into my heart, having that ultimate change of attitude and desire, that year of really letting my faith grow within side of me and truly taking that year to fully accept and know who Jesus was on a more intimate level. That year allowed me to grow, escape the cycle of domestic violence, get the therapy I needed, and it also allowed me to start school which would ultimately lead me on a more impacting journey.
It was through school that I discovered I never wanted to leave and that being an educator is what i needed to be in life. I loved my classes and the support that I received through the walls of the institution and it inspired me to move forwards and truly make something of myself for not only my children but for myself as a person.
Ultimately I of course regained custody of my daughter and of course had my son all in the same time frame. Life hasn't been easy since but if it hadn't been for those rough years in high school I wouldn't have headed down the road I did which in the end lead me up to where I am now which I couldn't look at myself and see a better person. I know the growth and the changes I have gone through to get to where I am and because of it I am more confident and proud that I got here and I thank Jesus every day for that sweet victory He allowed me to have.
Being afraid of my peers and my hometown has kept me prisoner for a long time because I have found in the past that it is their approval I care more about which is highly unfortunate. But what I realize is that life moves on and so do they. I have been blessed with the opportunity to converse with an individual who played a significant role in my not so happy times in high school during my freshman year and being able to acknowledge that I have forgiven not only him but everyone else as well did nothing but make me feel like a more lighter and less stressed person. God forgave me and showed me by having Jesus die on the Cross, the least I can do is pay it forward and forgive others too. We are all young and naieve in our lives but it is those who forgive us that will always turn the situation around in our perception and allow us to see that they were all just blessings in disguise, and that my friends is the most beautiful reality that one could ever discover in life.
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