"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. 

"You'll never pass as a normal woman."

I'm transgender. 

When I came out to my mother, her only response was that I had to be more careful not to get murdered, because I'll "never pass as a normal woman."
 

"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 will never be able to make good decisions on your own."

When I was younger, my dad used to always ask me, "Why do you always make bad choices?" As I got older, it turned into, "You will never be able to make good decisions on your own." 

In early adulthood, he stopped saying anything when I made mistakes. He would just give me a look and walk away. 

Now as an adult with two children of my own whose father walked away, my dad tells me quite often how proud he is of me. He frequently reminds me that I'm doing a wonderful job with the boys, and he has a fantastic relationship with them both. 

But as close as my dad and I are now, I can still hear him tell me how I'll never do anything good, or that I can't make decisions for myself. 

Every decision I make, big or small, feels like life or death to me. I'm constantly calling and asking my dad what I should do, and he'll talk with me until I decide. He's a phenomenal father and grandfather, but I wish had been more understanding and less judgmental when I was growing up. 
 

"She sounds dumb anyway."

I moved to the USA from Costa Rica when I was 10 years old. English was not my first language, but I was doing pretty well. 

In 8th grade when I was 14, my school went on a trip to saint Augustine, FL. Everyone decided to get henna tattoos, but I didn't have enough money for one.

When one of the chaperones asked why I wasn't getting one, I said, "I just don't want a TA TU." (I mispronounced it because of my accent.) She laughed and told me to just call it a tat. I tried to say it that way, and then I told her that I thought that made me sound dumb. 

As I walked away she turned to her son and said, "She sounds dumb anyway." They started laughing. 

I turned around and told them that they weren't being nice, but they didn't care. They just kept laughing at the 14 year old girl who had an accent.
 

Sophomore Star

I have always loved performing, so I was thrilled when I was cast in a leading role in my high school's musical as a sophomore. 

After an awesome opening night, a boy who had graduated the year before (and who had been the lead in previous musicals) approached me backstage. 

He said, "I was so impressed with your performance! I'm awarding you the Sophomore Star!"  

He said that it was a secret, word-of-mouth honor given by the musical theater alumni to the underclassmen they knew would go on to do great things. He had received the award as a sophomore, and so it was his prerogative to pass it on when and to whom he saw fit. 

I think even at the time I knew that he was making this up, but I didn't care. It was so kind of him to find such a special way to make me feel important.

Even now, as an adult, when I am nervous before a presentation at work, I remind myself that I am the Sophomore Star, and that I will do great things.

Holocaust Girl

"You look so thin, you could be a holocaust survivor!" 

Said to me by an acquaintance, thinking I would find it funny. I didn't.