"It's not your fault."

It was a few days after my 16th birthday, and I had some birthday money. My mom took me to the mall to get some clothes that I needed, and we stopped at a makeup store to get my acne face wash. After seeing how much it was, I decided that I wasn't in dire need, and that I didn't want to spend the remainder of my money on it.

My mom has had an ongoing addiction to narcotics, and I considered this day to be one of her good days. But something in her changed when I said I didn't want to buy the face wash. She grabbed my hand and forced me out of the store, yelling at me and telling me how ungrateful I was. I told her I wasn't being ungrateful, and she hit me hard in front of everyone. I was left alone, a crumpled mess of embarrassment, while she stormed off.

She yelled that she was going to get the car, so I waited. It took her over a half an hour, so I thought she forgot about me. It turned out, she was so mad and messed up from the narcotics that she ran her car into someone else's car. When I got in the car, she told me that it was my fault that she was so mad and that she hit someone's car.

I called my dad, broken. I didn't know what to say. 

The one thing I will never forget is my dad telling me, "It's not your fault. It was never your fault." 

And to this day, I still believe him. It's never your fault.
 

"You're going to be a failure."

One time my mom took my sister and me to the beach, and she dropped us off while she went to look for parking. Once she had found a parking spot, she texted me to meet her and lead her to the spot where we were sitting. Since it was a particularly crowded day, I had some trouble finding the spot where we'd set up. 

It wasn't long before she started exploding at me, calling me retarded for not being able to find where we were sitting. Even after I started crying, she continued to insult me. The worst thing she said was, "You'll never make it in college because you can't even do the simplest of tasks. You're going to be a failure." 

She never once apologized for how she treated me. 

Now that I'm a freshman in college, I suffer from depression and anxiety because of fear of failing or messing up anything I do. 

"Get a life!"

In the past I've struggled a lot with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and bipolar. Lately I've been struggling with agoraphobia, or the fear of going outside. I've been indoors 90% of the time for a number of years, and I'm trying to work through it now.

I stopped going to public school sophomore year. I can't handle the environment, with timed expectations and feeling like people have their eyes on me when I mess up, so I take classes at home through the school. Every so often I have to go to the high school to do paperwork or something. My anxiety gets to me pretty often, but I try my hardest to relax and keep my head up. Keeping happy is my way of getting back at all the misfortune in my life, even if it's difficult. 

One day as I was getting ready to go to the high school to do some errands, I decided for the first time in forever that I wanted to dress up a little. Feeling confident makes it easier for me to go outside. It makes me feel like if people look at me, they won't judge what they see. 

As I was getting ready to cross the street to go home, someone sped by in a car and screamed at me, "GET A LIFE!" 

I stood and stared at the street for a moment. I felt like a paper thin glass bottle getting dropped on the ground. I wanted to sit down and cry, but I wanted even more desperately to just go back home and be inside. Indoors, nobody would call me names or tell me what to do with my life. 

I wanted to stop that car and shriek into his ears, "Do you know what you've just done to me? Do you know what I am going through? It took every single ounce of my energy to get out of bed today, and you have the audacity to tell me to get a life. I'm trying. I'm TRYING to get a life and I'm TRYING to maintain it. You don't know what it's like to get up with the intentions of going outside, look at the front door for fifteen minutes, undo the deadbolt, and then start crying and go back to bed because people like you make me wish I had never been born. I hope you're happy with yourself. I worked up every last bit of courage I had to walk out the front door today and you shattered it. You took it and threw it in a trash compactor." 

The three words he screamed at me made me feel empty and alone. It kept me wondering what I did wrong. What did I do to deserve that scream? What did I do to make you hate me? Just exist? 

Since then I've been working on going outside more. It isn't as scary now as it was then. I went out all on my own today and applied for a number of jobs. It feels good to smile and look people in the eyes, shake their hands and introduce myself. Even if I don't get the job(s), I'm happy with myself because I tried. 

I have a life. I'm doing all I can with it. With what I've been through in my life, trying and succeeding even at little tasks is more than just "enough." 

I'm excelling in places I never thought I would, and that is what makes me happy.

My Nose

When I was 15, I was unamused by Beyonce's Super Bowl performance, so I posted a picture on Tumblr with a comment about how she was dressed like a hoe or something like that. I don't even know, it's been years, and I don't really have the same mindset anymore. 

A famous blog found it, posted it, and I got thousands of death threats in the course of 2 days. Funnily enough, the death threats weren't what bothered me. When people weren't attacking my statement, they started attacking everything they knew about me. One person told me my nose was huge and ugly. 

Prior to this, I had never seen anything wrong with my nose. It looked like a normal nose to me. Then, it was like, bam. Every day all I've ever been able to see is how big my nose is. How ugly it is. Even four years later, I look back at pictures I took then and notice that they were angled differently because I apparently didn't know what an ugly nose I had. 

Looking back now it's really surprising to me that I still carry that hatred for my nose. It's not crooked or hooked or anything (which is perfectly normal and sometimes beautiful for noses) but I am still, to this day, really self conscious about my nose. That's what stuck with me, I guess.

"Just look at you!"

I caught my boyfriend cheating on me again. I knew it was stupid to stay with him, but we had been dating since my freshman year of high school, and we were going on five years, so it terrified me to leave him. Each time he cheated on me was for a different reason, so I simply asked, "What's your excuse this time?" 

He looked at me with fury in his eyes and blurted out, "Well just look at you! You've let yourself go. You do not look the same as when I first met you. I know I don't look the same either, but I'm not as bad as you." 

I was stunned. I was a 150 pound 15 year old girl when we met, and stood in front of him as a 180 pound woman. 

I didn't even cry. I just excused myself from the room. 

I don't know what possessed me to stay with him for another year. He never even apologized. The most he ever said was, "That was a bad choice of words." 

After that night, I exercised constantly behind his back. To this day I'm a fitness freak, only because I'm scared to death of gaining weight and having another person fall out of love with me.
 

Acceptance

Ever since I was little, I dreamed of going to college. Learning and knowledge have always intrigued me, and my parents never went to college. I was determined to be the first in our family. 

I spent the entire summer of my junior year applying for scholarships and to universities all over the US. I received a letter back from my first choice college, saying that I had been accepted!! 

I ran inside to tell my family. When I told my father the good news, he said, "It's not a hard college to get into." 

My heart shattered. I had worked so hard to get into my first pick, and when I did, he wasn't even phased. That's the moment that really stuck with me.
 

"Incessant piece of crap."

When I was a sophomore I had a horrible, horrible breakup with a guy I dated for a little over a year. He ended up leaving me for the girl he had told me for months was "just a friend". 

After he left, I tried to at least salvage my friendship with him since we had once been very close friends, only to get a reply from his new girlfriend telling me I was an "incessant piece of crap" and that, the universe would be better off if trash like me killed themselves. 

This put me in a really dark place, and it just got worse after my emotional support (my dog I had since I was a toddler) died in my arms, and two puppies I adopted after her death died weeks after their adoption. 

After that, I began to believe what she had told me. I began blaming myself for the deaths of my pets and began wishing I was just dead so no other creature would have to suffer my existence. 

It took a long time and a lot of therapy before I was finally pulled out of the dark place her words had sent me to, but even to this day if something goes wrong her words echo in the back of my mind and linger like a shadow following me.
 

Career Day

When I was in 7th grade, I mistakenly thought I was supposed to dress up for career day. I didn't know any better. People made fun of me for it, telling me I was weird and stupid. They laughed at me and joked about me. 

This was the moment in which I became extremely aware of myself. I started to get my entire self worth from other people's meaningless jokes, side comments, and attention. 

I am now in 11th grade with social anxiety, and can't even talk to people I don't know or only sort of know without crying and hyperventilating. Those comments definitely stuck with me.

"I've always loved you."

It was 2010. I moved to a new town and was starting my first year of high school. I saw this guy around school all the time. He was a year ahead of me. I wanted to get to know him but I was too shy. I was just the new girl. One day, he approached me, and from that one encounter, we soon became best friends. But for me, shortly after, I realized that I loved him.

I could never tell him, because I didn't want to ruin what we shared. Years went by, and I got into a relationship in late 2012. He had been dating a girl since the year before. Things were going well. We were such great friends. Yet, despite having a boyfriend and caring about him, I couldn't help but love my best friend still. I'd fantasize what it must be like to hold his hand with our fingers intertwined. Or what it would be like to gently plant a kiss on his lips. 

But it was only in my dreams.

A few more years went by. And we both got out of our toxic relationships. It was 2014. I had just graduated from high school. We were at my house one day in the summer, laughing and drinking Capri Sun, having the most hilarious conversation, when he suddenly fell silent and whispered to me "You know...I've always loved you." 

I was stunned. At first I thought I was dreaming. But when I whispered "what..?" He smiled and said it again. "I've always loved you."

It is now 2016, and we are happily with one another. And I couldn't ask for anything more than to be with my best friend. Always.

"Damn waterfall!"

I feel this story is a little silly, but it did really affect me when it happened.

I've dealt with bullying from preschool straight through high school. By my sophomore year, I thought I'd convinced myself that nothing else could hurt me, that I've heard it all.

I was in a club meeting after school and I wasn't really feeling it. I stepped out to use the bathroom. 

The halls were quiet and the bathroom was empty. Then some girls came in after I started going, and one of them yelled, "Damn waterfall!" The girls laughed loudly and left.

I didn't see them, and they didn't see me, but it really bothered me for some reason. 

I've had a very shy bladder for about 5 years after. 

It's the same feeling people get when they're eating chips, like they're chewing too loudly, even if it's not actually bothering anyone.