Painful Past Issues and how I Healed Them

Painful Past Issues

Just some general info on me, so I’m a 22 year old male, currently in the process of getting hired at a job while going to school in medicine and working on my art projects on the side, hence the photo. For privacy reasons, I won’t reveal any specific information regarding myself.

So to me, the worst part of my life was middle and high school. I still feel like I have repressed feelings of sadness, anger, frustration lingering inside me somewhere. There are some days where these feelings tend to come out and just ruin my mood and day due to too much stress.

There are also moments that remind me of the painful times of my childhood past which ruin my day. I also think that because of these traumatic moments, I have “issues” talking with women. To be honest, I’ve been told this before by a woman friend and I noticed it myself but I’m more “comfortable and open” with men while my experiences with women tend to end up being awkward or me being closed off. Talking with women is just one symptom of what seems to be going on with me, negotiating with employers or being assertive with my professors are another.

The Middle Years

During my middle school days, I was bullied. I had friends but they weren’t really the true friends who would stick up for me. Things such as money were taken from my backpack, my school ID was taken from my wallet and graffiti-ed then put back into my backpack, things thrown at me such as pencils and erasers and had my locker graffiti-ed. I’ve had a girl out of nowhere tell me to stop sitting next to her because I looked like a monkey, had another girl called me “ugly” and made up rumors about me “stalking” her just because I asked her for her number for notes and a class project.

I believe this is what increased the bullying and made things worse for me reputation-wise. My friends knew the rumors weren’t true but none of them said anything, stood up for me or even came to talk to me to see if I was okay throughout the year. The last year before high school which was 8th grade, there was a winter formal dance. So there was this girl that I knew since elementary school and here and there we would talk when we got the chance.

She was one of the very very few people who would talk to me nicely and actually seemed to genuinely “care” about me. All of my friends had dates and I wanted to go to the dance so I asked her. She told me I was sweet and thanked me for asking her but I was rejected and just devastated. I eventually “got over it.” I wasn’t devastated because she said no, that was her right. It was because when she did I was left facing no other options.

High School

High school years; the bullying pretty much stopped. My friends all had girlfriends and hung out with their girlfriends during lunch leaving me just hanging out by myself during breakfast and lunch throughout high school. I tried to hangout with other people but I felt as if I didn’t truly belong with them. Well; long story short, I was usually alone throughout high school not knowing and experiencing true friends and not experiencing any dances or fun with a girl. Looking back I can see how that was my own fault, too afraid to ask any out. And too afraid to ask guys to hang around with. It was elementary school damage on top of my childhood damage that were the obstacles to trying.

During my sophomore year, I asked a girl to winter formal dance and was rejected. This didn’t hurt as much as last time and I started to ask more out. I went to lots of events during my junior year and started to engage with more people. I got one date in my senior year by asking a girl to prom. Turns out she already had a date but set up a date with me a week afterwards.

So there ya go, my middle and high school in a nut shell. Never experienced a once in a lifetime prom, never been to dances, was bullied, was a loner. The worst part of my life. During those times, I hated myself. I use to “ask” God or whatever divine entity there was why I was born the way I was and why was it my fate to be as unfortunate as me. I was jealous of a lot of other guys for being better looking, for being able to experience things such as prom with a girl, for being more fortunate than me. It was about this time that I started stress eating and I noticed the scale moving ever upward months after month. Not fun.

How I pulled myself Out

Over the years after high school till now, I’ve been trying to figure out my feelings and dealing with them but haven’t really quite understood them and how to stop making me feel this way. What I did do was, I just knew that I had to keep going, work hard in school and get my license in the medical field and start making money and building myself. I took up hobbies such as running, minimal weight lifting, fishing and hiking to vent out my feelings and stress.

But as far as I came throughout that process, I still felt empty like there was a part of me that I just couldn’t get back because I never had a happy teenage life or childhood. I think that feeling was the root of the frustration and anger I felt. So working with my momentum I decided to seek out a therapist and worked with him for over a year. What a difference! That combined with finding groups to go hiking with and hang out afterwards made me feel like a new person.

I’m now studying harder and experiencing more joy with my art. Sometimes you get stuck and need someone to give you that boost.

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