In the previous post I outlined the beauty and happiness that was my early childhood and elementary school days. I cannot say what followed was anything like that. I went into 6th grade naive about how friendships worked and the cruelty kids could show. I came from a school where everyone wore the same thing, we all wore uniforms. I don’t remember there being social divides. I assumed middle school would probably be the same. So I went in wanting to make friends and reunite with my oldest and closest friend. It just so happens that person went to the same middle school I did. We weren’t put in any of the same classes. That didn’t matter to me, I figured we’d been friends most of my life nothing would ever be able to change that. When I realized they had new friends I was excited to meet them, maybe they would be my friends too. I learned that was far from the case. It started small. People I thought were my new cool friends criticized what I wore. I didn’t have any of the name brand clothes. I couldn’t afford them and they didn’t exactly fit me well for my shape. I wasn’t as skinny and that was something I was reminded when I did try to wear the clothes that would make me fit in. I began to loose confidence in my looks, was I really that plain looking? Was I really fat? From there I began to get more lonely. I realized the people I was hanging out with didn’t actually like me at all. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to turn to my old friend but I had become labeled a nerd. Not cool at all, someone you didn’t hang out with if you were popular. As a joke that person’s friends had one of them ask me out. I didn’t know better. I was flattered. I said sure. They all knew about it of course and I was humiliated. Looking back the joke was stupid. Sure it made me even more self conscious but that isn’t what hurt me the most. What hurt was that my supposed best friend, someone who knew me better than anyone at that school, had turned their back on me. Compared to the friends they had there what was I? Some hapless nerdy girl, nose always stuck in a book, teachers pet, a looser. It got worse when their friends found out I had had a crush on them. I was a laughing stock. It was also around this time that my diagnosis was finalized and I started my medication regimen that I am still on for the most part. Prior to 6th grade the doctors had been bouncing around diagnoses and treatments. That was all in one year. My first year of middle school I went from excited and enthusiastic to broken and alone. I got angry and the next year I decided to make other friends and hope they would be better. I also decided that if I was going to be a reject I may as well make the most of it. It took another year to refine how I wanted to be of course. I did make friends, ones I loved dearly and still think of often. Friends who didn’t disparage me for my looks, enthusiasm towards my education, or my passions. But I still never let them all the way in and kept them at a distance as much as I could. I didn’t want to get hurt or humiliated again. Now 8th grade I look back on semi fondly. I had found a way to dress that was comfortable to me. I wanted to radiate a vibe of leave me and mine alone or else. It kind of worked. I was truly happy and slightly amused at how it worked out. I was even student council president and one of the main people working the student morning News show. That year I met a very special boy who I had no clue would become so important to me. He was in my brother’s grade and went to our church for a time with his family. He was so quiet I don’t remember ever hearing him speak. He was just there in the background. I am ashamed to say I broke a guy’s heart that year. Not the special one. Some kid who asked me out. It ended with a fight and a we’re done text from me. After that I got called a “heartless guttersnipe” by his classmates. Which shouldn’t amuse me but of all the things to call me that one was pretty good. I mean I was also labeled frigid and cold. I didn’t care at the time. I wanted to be left alone. I decided by that point that it was better to be feared than loved. You don’t get hurt that way. When that year finally ended I was so grateful. I wouldn’t have to see most of the people who had hurt me anymore. We had chosen different high schools. It was a chance to start over. I was headed to a school for people who shared my enthusiasm for learning and perfectionist nature. I hoped this would be the new start that I needed.