"You look like a boy from behind."

/

When I was 11 years old, I hit puberty. I got taller and thinner overnight. I developed faster than the other girls, and they all made fun of me for it. 

I came home crying about it to my parents and they told me to laugh it off. 

Over the next few months I became even thinner. I was a stick. 

My stepmom and my dad told me, "You look like a boy from behind," because of my lack of curves. They continued telling me this for years. 

I'm 19 now and I still think about my "lack of curves" and how I "look like a boy from behind." 

I cant shake that.
 

Then, one day.

/

One day, when I was in the first grade, I was playing on the playground at school. I was never very outgoing and I didn't have a lot of friends. A second grade boy came over to me. He looked at me and said, "You aren't pretty." 

As a child, my first instinct was to say, "Yes I am! My momma told me I am!" 

With that, he quickly lashed out with, "Well, she lied." 

As I grew older, his words stuck with me. They took a bigger toll on my self confidence than I would like to admit. Something so seemingly small that happened to me as a child in the first grade impacted me for the next ten years. 

Then, one day when I was a camp counselor, I met a boy who told me he loved me. I thought I was sitting among the stars. No one outside of my family had ever told me they loved me before. For the first time since first grade, I felt like I was pretty enough. Like I was wanted.

Time went on and so did the relationship. Then one day, he spoke four words that cut me deep. "I don't love you."

I felt unwanted, unlovable. I was depressed for the longest time. 

Eventually I figured out how to enjoy just being me. I loved being myself again.

Then, one day, I met an amazing man with a great personality, and equally great looks. I was a second semester freshman in college. I quickly learned about him: his past, his family, his likes and dislikes, his dreams. He made me feel loved, wanted, and important. I loved him more than I ever thought I could love someone. And for the first time in a while, I knew I was good enough. Life seemed to fall into place. We talked about marriage, children, and growing old together. 

Then, one day as we were Skyping, he dropped his head in silence. Then he uttered the words I thought he would never say. "I don't think we're going to work. I don't love you". 

I was more than devastated. I was so heartbroken, I couldn't even cry. It was almost like my heart broke into two pieces, and then a million more. I could feel my heart shatter like glass in my chest. 

Days went by and I tried to hide the pain, but the nights were long. Often times I cried myself to sleep, other times I fell asleep from the pure exhaustion of crying so hard the night before. 

Weeks went by and I still missed him, but the tears stopped. Slowly but surely, I started to be me again. 

With the help of my best friend, I realized I was depending too much on others making me happy, that I had forgotten how to make myself happy. 

Now I am happily single. I enjoy every day. I'm going to take life by the horns. I'm going to keep knowing that I am pretty, I am wanted, and I am loved. 

Then, one day, I'll get make someone else feel the same way.

"College?!"

/

As a kid I always knew that college was the end game of going to school. You do well in school so that you can get into college. It was an assumption I had. 

Then one day when I was about 7, my college dropout mom said to me, "College?!" Followed by hysterical laughter. "You won't ever go to college! There's no way we could ever help you pay for it. And good luck paying for it yourself!" 

I've struggled in school since then. But not because it was hard. I always tested well. I just never put in any effort. I wasn't going to be a doctor or a lawyer, so why did it matter? I just wanted to be a mechanic or a construction worker after that. That was what everyone in my family did that had dropped out of high school, and they had their own lives, nice trucks, houses. I just wanted to quit school and get to it. I felt like I was wasting time there ever since my mom made those comments.

But I had to stay because my family wanted me to have a high school diploma. 

The same people that told me I could never go to college.
 

"You're a mixed breed."

/

I am Caucasian, African American, Irish, and Native American. I have caramel light skin and extremely curly hair. So I always stuck out like a sore thumb.

When I was in school the question I always got was, "What are you mixed with?"

Once I got to middle school, it turned from genuine curiosity to physical and verbal abuse. 

People would drag me by my hair or spit gum in my hair, so I had to cut it. 

People said things to me like: 

"You're a mixed breed. A mutt."

"You have no place in this world."

"You need to go kill yourself. The world would be better off."

I guess you can say I'm a rebel or a loner now, but I'm turning twenty soon and this is something that has always still stuck with me. I could never shake it. 

Now I take a high pride in being biracial, but back then I could never understand why people didn't like me. 

"Your own mother doesn't want to be your mother!"

/

When I was twelve, my dad and my mom split up because my mom had a serious drug and alcohol problem. I lived with my dad, who eventually got a new girlfriend. 

Of course having her as the new mom-like figure in my life, and me being an immature teenager, I always told her that she wasn't my mom and shouldn't act like it. It always made her furious, which I enjoyed. 

But I'll never forget the last time I said that to her. We were arguing outside of my brother's school in her van, waiting for him to come out. Full on screaming and pulling each other's hair. 

When I said it, she replied with, "I know I'm not your mother! I don't want to be your mother! Your own mother doesn't want to be your mother!" 

I let go and sobbed into a big ball. 

She felt terrible, but I'll never forget how her words made me feel. 

I knew my mom wasn't around, and I had always blamed myself for that for absolutely no reason. But now my dad's girlfriend was giving that fear a voice that would always play in my head from then on. 

"I picked him but I didn't pick you."

/

My mother's husband always disliked me and frequently physically and verbally abused me. It got worse when I started fighting back, at around 9 or 10. One day we got into a vicious argument, and he locked me out of the house. 

My mom eventually came home and asked why I was crying on the porch, and I told her what had happened. She told me that I was instigating trouble with him.

I asked why she always sided with him, and her response was, "I will always side with him. I picked him but I didn't pick you."

I've never forgotten that. 

Every time I see her, that's what I think of. I'll never forget that she didn't "pick" me. 

Ever since then, I've never picked her either. And I never will.

"Boys can't be sexually assaulted by girls."

/

When I was in high school I struggled with my sexuality. I never dated, never 'experimented.' My freshman year a female friend of mine asked me out, but I declined because I didn't have feelings like that for her. She said okay, and we continued to be friends.

Before the end of the year she sexually assaulted me, at the school, when nobody was around. When I tried to tell people, they dismissed me and said that I was lying because she wasn't attractive and I was ashamed. And many people said, "Boys can't be sexually assaulted by girls."

Years later I moved across the country and began to move past the trauma of being assaulted. A girl who was acquainted with my roommate came to our apartment and told me that she thought I was attractive. I removed myself from the situation and went to bed, the reminder of what happened last time made me sick. 

Then she forced herself into my bed and I was sexually assaulted again. She said I couldn't tell anyone because they wouldn't believe me anyway.

That will never leave me. 

And even now that I am in a happy, loving relationship I still get a spike of fear when someone reveals that they find me attractive.
 

"You are by far the most loving person I know. You're also the most gullible."

/

When I was 18, I was in a very physically and emotionally abusive relationship. He moved into my apartment, took over my life, got me pregnant, then left.

I moved back home with my parents and went back to school. I got an awesome job, and my son and I moved out on our own. We were doing fairly well. 

Then when I was 22, I got pregnant again. My boyfriend said, "Get an abortion and I'll stay. Keep it and I'm gone." 

I was crushed. I didn't get an abortion with my first child back when my life was a wreck, so why would I do it now? So he moved literally across the country. And I was, yet again, left pregnant and alone.

After I had my second son, the boys and I met with my best friend for lunch. I was having a rather emotional day and I started to cry. I said to him, "When I love, I love with every ounce of my being, so why do I only find these guys who play me like a puppet?"

He reached across the table, patted my eyes, grabbed my hand, smiled at my four-year-old, looked at my newborn, and said in a soft, sweet voice, "Sweetheart, for as long as I've known you, you are by far the most loving person I know. You're also the most gullible. Anyone can tell you they love you, and you will believe it every single time."

Since that day, I haven't been able to believe anyone who says they love me. Not even him. 

Now he says I need to loosen up and try dating again. No thanks! I've learned my lesson, and the boys and I couldn't be happier on our own.