"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.

"All the weight"

My mom was dating this guy a while back, and he brought us up north to meet his family. His dad was an awful person, to put it nicely. 

As my brother and in were waiting in the car to leave, he came over to say goodbye. He stood at my window, looked inside at me, and yelled to my mom's boyfriend, "No wonder you have a flat tire, all the weight's on this side of the car!" 

I was barely 13.
 

"You're really smart for an ugly girl!"

When I was 10 or 11, my class split up into groups and competed to see which group could put a puzzle together the fastest. I essentially finished our group's puzzle on my own, and the boy I was working with said, "You're really smart for an ugly girl!"

It took me a long time to get over this. 

Pretty Melanie

I attended a small Christian elementary school with only eleven students in my class. Out of six girls, there were two Melanies. I was the tall, chubby Melanie. The other Melanie was like a golden, perfect swan. 

In 5th grade, we all participated in a track and field event, and everyone started rooting for "Pretty Melanie." 

I spent the next 15 years battling eating disorders.
 

Between Classes

One day when I was 11 and in 6th grade, everyone was in the hallway switching between classes, and a kid I thought was my friend told me to go kill myself. 

Seven other classmates who were around agreed loudly and high-fived the original guy for saying what they were thinking.

Captain Morgan

My mother's ex-husband was an alcoholic. His drink of choice was Captain Morgan mixed with Mountain Dew. I would smell it on him when he came home, I would smell it on him when he screamed at me, and I would smell it on him when he beat me. He would tell me how fat and useless and stupid I was, and I could smell it on his breath. 

To this day, I have trouble accepting compliments, and I can't stand the smell of Captain Morgan.

"Life will always work out for someone like you."

The day after my boyfriend and I broke up, I sobbed about it on the phone with my cousin, who was three months younger than I was. 

For hours we relived our childhood memories and the games we created together and holidays we spent together. We talked about how excited we were to see each other in three weeks, when she would have her new car and I would be done with my semester. 

She told me, "Life will always work out for someone like you." 

She turned my tears into laughter. 

She died an hour and a half later in a car accident. 

I like to think that God, if there is one, knew he was going to take her and gave me one last time to relive everything we did together and how much we loved each other. 

During that phone call, I told her for the first time, "I know you look up to me, but I want you to know that your big cousin looks up to you too." I felt the urge to say this, out of nowhere. 

I miss her every day, but that last conversation is what keeps me together. I'm so thankful for whatever in the universe gave me that solace to be able to say goodbye, even when I didn't know I would have to. 

I live by her words, that life will work out for someone like me. And she gets to look down from heaven and watch it happen.
 

Mannequin

When I was 12, I had to go swim suit shopping with my mother for a one piece to wear to my cousin's church camp. After picking an orange swim suit to represent our group's color, she pointed and the clear plastic mannequin the swim suit was on and laughed, "Oh look, even the mannequin has bigger boobs than you do!"

Rape Joke

When I was only 7 years old, in second grade, I was teased about my weight and my choices in clothes. No girls wanted to be my friend and guys called me ugly all the time. 

What stuck with me was that one day, a boy who I had a crush on told me the only way I would loss my virginity is if I got raped. 

I wonder how he would feel knowing that that is how it happened. That I lost my virginity against my will.
 

"You're too fat."

Once when I was in middle school, I was joking around with my dad and we were just having a grand ole time. Then I tried to climb on him, but he wouldn't let me. He said, "You're too fat to be doing this." 

I immediately stopped and ran and locked myself in my room and just cried and cried. I could hear my mom yelling at him for being such a dick. 

To this day I'm still conscious about my weight because of him, even though I'm a 130 lbs and 5'7" college girl.