Looking back... in Free Therapy

Okok, so the craziest thing happened to me. The year 2020. OMG where the heck did this all come from? I knew things were going too well. I just KNEW it. But who knew that 2 weeks would turn into this? I am mostly a prisoner in my teeny tiny home and as someone who likes to go places and do things this has been beyond horrible for my mental health. My mental health is always on a fine line anyway. It’s a tightrope that likes to swing and sway a whole lot. Tons of people have these issues, I know I am nothing special. I just try to keep going because I failed getting out of this life in the summer between 6th and 7th grade. I remember it so clearly. It was July 3rd and I was going to this place in my town that had short bike trails in the woods. I was there riding my bike dreading the upcoming school year and the idea burst forth and I went for it.

I learned a very important lesson. If it’s not your time to go you will be stuck here, and it could end up a lot worse than before. My ride across the hood of a car, the car which happened to belong to my band teacher which is a fun fact, and over the roof resulted in a broken back, broken thumb, 1/2 my face ripped off, a huge gash in my upper left arm, and a giant concussion. I was stuck in the hospital for a while with it unknown if I would ever be able to walk again, and plastic surgeons checking out my face. My Mom cried a lot, she had thought I had died because the ambulance had it’s sirens on and then they stopped them, and in her mind that meant I had passed. She lovingly washed glass out of my hair for weeks.

Now one of the good, but maybe not good things, about being 11 and hit by a car is everyone thinks it was an accident. I am confessing right now it was not. I did it on purpose.

Why, why why why Pineappleprincess524. Your homelife was a dream. An only child with 2 parents who adored you. A sweet puppy. Basically anything in the world you wanted you got…why would you do such a thing?

Ahhhh 2020, bringing forth memories covered in thick dust to the forefront of my mind.

The mask.
The mask of doom.
The mask that is like the worst thing in the world I can even think of…

The first time I tried to put the mask on I had a flashback of when I was molested by a strange man when I was 15. I haven’t worn a button up shirt since, but this therapy session is not about that moment, though I have thought about it far too long. I had a lovely panic attack, which is not common for me because I try to avoid things that would give me one. I had no idea a mask would do that, but I realize it is because of how it puts pressure on the mouth and nose…

It’s amazing what is hidden way back there just waiting for the right moment to be released. I know that what I went through is not unusual. People are bullied all the time. Some people come out stronger. Other people not so much. To me it was very harsh and lasted for what seemed like forever, and what they said over the years of torment still chime in my head like annoying wind chimes that are slightly off key.

There was a girl and boy twin set in my class in Kindergarten. Yes, this started then. I am 1/2 tempted to use their real names, but the girls name is very unusual so I think it is best that I change them. Kim and Jim where blonde and blue eyed and adored. They were super popular both with kids and adults. The first time anyone ever said they hated me was from Kim. I was at her birthday party and she said, I hate you, you are stupid, you are ugly, go away. I told her mom because this was just out of my scope of reference but you know how adults are, oh she didn’t mean it. She would start to get people to do little things to be mean, and she was crafty so the teacher never knew it was her.

2nd grade is when it started to get bad. I had a break because she wasn’t in my 1st grade class, and she had spent a year figuring out how to make my life horrible, and she did. Many things happened in gym class. She had Jason S punch me in the stomach really hard. It was so bad I had to go to the emergency room. I don’t remember much except how much it hurt. We did have a meeting with his parents and my parents and the principal but he was this tiny thing, and I was bigger than him, and the adults determined that nothing wrong was really done.
Kim had Selena scratch my face up with her nails. My face was bleeding. I punched her and I ended up getting into trouble. Work would go missing and that was because Kim stole it and threw it away or something. who knows.

It was just little things like this for 2 years. I mean, typing that it seems weird to say, the one kid put me in the hospital. I had to see the dr over some other injuries but since I fought back it was always my fault. Little things and more little things…

4th grade was the start of hell. Kim was in my class again, and she made it her mission to put all the hate that she had into action. She and the girls would say, no one likes you, everyone hates you, you know even if someone said that they like you they don’t, no one will EVER like you, just on and on like some kind of negative mantra. They would push me down the stairs, they would slam me into walls, and then her brother decided that finding me outside of school would be ideal.

When was the first time they attacked me away from school? I do know I was always alone when it happened. And I was alone often because I had no friends at school. Would you seriously take that kind of risk??I am just skimming the surface of what I went through. School after all is 180 days and she made sure something nasty happened during each and every one of them.

I think the first time I was attacked away from school was when I had just crossed the river on the footbridge on my way home in 4th grade. Right after that there was a right turn and a little walkway under the highway bridge. I walked in and suddenly I was pounced on by a bunch of kids. They slammed me on the ground, and hit and kicked me. I started to scream and they wrestled me around and someone sat on me and they covered my mouth so I couldn’t scream. They pinched my chest and said I would get cancer like my mom (Oh yeah, my Mom was going through cancer treatment at the time and she was not doing well, isn’t that lovely?) They yanked my hair and it was just a blur. I could not fight back because there were so many of them. I think someone got spooked that someone was coming so they ran. I lied there for what seemed like forever because I was so dazed about what had just happened.

I was jumped like this a few times a month. They would call me all kinds of nasty names, they would shove grass, dirt, whatever into my mouth. They would drench me in water. Just about anything you can think of. And it was always like 10+ against me. I had done nothing to them. Nothing. Kim had just decided she hated me in Kindergarten.

But why Pineappleprincess, why walk alone? Why not tell adults? As I already explained, the adults always determined it was my fault and I had no friends to walk with. Anyone associated with me became contaminated with my cooties I guess. And I had to walk, I had no other choice. I did take different routes but there were only so many so odds were that they would find me more often than not.

I received the gift of another detailed flashback just the other day. Thank you mask. I tried a very soft see through one from etsy, joy joy…Bam and another panic attack. See, this is why I need to get this stuff out I guess.

I had ridden my bike to the library, which was just a 1/2 mile of a mile from my house. There was a dirt alley in the back of the library that I liked to ride down. I turned left, went and parked my bike, and then I went to go back down the alley to get home. Only this time as I got a little bit from the library it happened. Suddenly I had what seemed like hundreds of mud bombs thrown at me, hard, oh so hard. I think some, or maybe all had rocks as their core. They descended upon me like hungry locusts. They did not hold back. They yelled how fat, how ugly, how stupid I was. They punched and kicked me and held me down and poured water over my head while covering my mouth and nose. It became very muddy and they just started to plaster the mud all over me calling me a pig and saying this is how pigs are and how they live and how I should be happy that they are doing this for me. That attack was a very bad one. I had bruises for a long time. When I got home my parents were aghast and I said what happened, but somehow, just like every single time I had told, it was turned around to be MY fault. It was always MY fault.

The hundreds of times they kicked me, knocked me down, held me down, stole things from me, dumped my lunch from the table on purpose, everything, everything, everything was my fault.

I was attacked on the regular like that from 4-6th grade, and I just could not deal with the idea of this happening for the next 6 years, so that is why I had a meet up with the car.

The start of 7th grade they did surround me in this lobby like area near one of the gyms. They called me Frankenstein girl, because my face wasn’t fixed yet. And taunted and teased but they never did a large physical attack in school, and the 7-12 school was literally within sight of my house. I spent my time in the band room and ignored them as much as possible. I never went to the lunch room, and I was excused from gym class for 4 glorious years. Thank you back for getting me out of FOUR years of gym class. At least there is something good that happened here.

I have been told that I must not have fought back, but I assure you I tried, I was just outnumbered. Every adult failed me. I did talk to my Dad about this one time when my Aunt was here. We had a chat and it all came out to her. My Dad said he had no idea it was that bad. He though it was just kids being kids.

So that is why I am screwed up. One reason anyway. But this happens to everyone, but I have a hard time coping with it.

me