So, I think we can all agree that high school is pretty horrible. It’s like an amalgamation of Lord of the Flies meets Mean Girls and I’m pretty sure the girls put the head on the spike in high school. Women are horrible to each other. I’m not sure why. Maybe it dates back to having to compete for the most virile male to breed with for shelter and protection or some ridiculous shit like that. I don’t know and don’t particularly care. The history of gender relations is not relevant to our topic today.

High School Trauma

During my high school years, I basically kept my head down and lived my life. I had friends and I participated in school activities but when I went home, that was it. I didn’t talk to anyone or hang out with people. I needed to decompress from the constant barrage of fuckary that occurred and does occur in any given high school on any given day. Every teen movie ever created has that stereotypical scene of the teen girl talking on the phone non-stop because she’s a girl and can’t help herself…right? Wrong! I locked myself in my room with a television and books and disappeared from the world. As I’ve discussed in previous blog posts, I’m an introverted extrovert which means that I’m comfortable with people I know but find new people, new situations, or just continued exposure to people exhausting. You can image how 8 hours a day of EXPOSURE and maneuvering like I was from House Lannister would wear on me.

During my teen years, especially in a high school as small as mine (my graduating class was 58 people) there wasn’t a lot of room for error. There were only so many people to be friends with and making enemies could destroy – not only your social standing but just your every day life until you graduated. Depending on what year you were, that could be a very long time.

I never pretended to be something I wasn’t. I just didn’t have the energy. I thought about the shit that came out of my mouth and how it might effect me with other people before I said it but that was about it. Also, i found being friends with boys much easier and more satisfying. You either love me or hate me and I don’t give a flying fuck either way. Guys get that and are more accepting of it. Women find it off-putting. I am a pragmatist and a realist but I also value myself. I understand completely where my strengths and faults lie. I am confident in myself and my capabilities. This unnerves some people, makes them uncomfortable, or even dislike me. That’s fine. Your issues are your issues.

On the other hand, for most of my life, I’ve struggled with my weight. Sure there were things about my body that I would have liked to change but I wasn’t going to exercise to do it (as we’ve previously discussed…I HATE EXERCISING!). What this meant was that when people called me fat, it didn’t really bother me. I understood that I was taller, heavier, and just larger than the other girls. It was simply a fact.

Here’s where this comes full circle.

When I was in high school, there was this one particular person – we’ll call her Lucy here – who was HORRIBLE to me. I mean actively shunning me, calling my names to my face (fat cow – you know the usual ones), or talking shit behind my back. For whatever reason – which I didn’t understand at the time – she couldn’t deal with me. She became my arch-nemesis. Quite frankly, I just liked the idea of having an ARCH-NEMESIS! I have problems. You see why I write urban fantasy…

And after high school was over and I moved on with my life, I still remembered how shitty Lucy was to me. It didn’t bother me so much anymore, I had friends. Real friends that I didn’t have to shield my thoughts, remarks, or comments. I could be myself which made all the difference in the world.

Then came facebook.

Facebook is the cesspool of humanity but it’s great for trolling people you used to know. Fast forward 20 years, Lucy and I are facebook friends, mostly because I’m nosy and I need to know everything about everyone.

What I came to realize through Lucy’s many many MANY posts about herself, her depression, her lack of self-worth, and her self-image issues was that it was never about ME. She was a horrible shit to me and possibly others, because of HER issues and no one else’s.

As her daily outpouring of her fragility and the leading questions/posts hoping that others will tell her how great she is or how good she looks populate my feed, I can’t feel anything but sad. I don’t have the energy to hate her anymore. I’m glad that she’s found a way not to hate herself and instead is investing in her own well-being but something about this rankles. There’s no 12 step program for this. There are have been no apologies to the people you’ve hurt and possibly damaged along the way to your enlightenment. I’m glad that you feel better about your self-worth but I think you really need to take a hard look at yourself as a person and realize that you were shitty to people. Maybe that’s what you should be worrying about instead of how your boobs look in a sport’s bra.