I used to wonder what was so wrong with who I was that made people hate me.

I’m writing this story, because I know somewhere there’s a hole in everyone’s chest, that just makes them always wonder why people did it. Why people bullied them.

Was it my freckles, my hair, the nose? Maybe I was just annoying. What was I doing that could invoke the wrath of people I hardly knew?

Surely it was me, surely I was at fault. I must have provoked them with something I did. It must have been me. No one would be that cruel unless something was obviously wrong with me.

When you are rejected by what you think is the world, I can understand anyone coming to this conclusion.

It feels like being stung in the heart day after day. The pain from their words and then all the hurt and tenderness in your body that comes from the slow and burning venom of self consciousness running through to your head.

It was like they couldn’t see the fact that they were the reason I couldn’t sleep at night, that I was crying in my pillowcase because of something they did or said. That they had drenched me in this darkness when I had done nothing to deserve anything but a little light.

It had gotten to the point where I was actually depressed about being who I was.

I lost all of the self satisfaction of being myself. Being happy was foreign in a place where people were nipping at your heels for having a different way of thinking.

I couldn’t stand it anymore, not being able to be me. Not being free to smile, or to feel joy. Not being able to live because they didn’t like the way I did it.

So I just stopped listening. I stopped changing for them.

I don’t even remember how it started, or when, but what I do remember is waking up one day, with a message in my brain that said, “Don’t believe them.”

It will be ingrained in my brain for the rest of my life.

Within a week, I transferred to a new school and forgot everything they ever told me.

I made new friends, who didn’t think my jokes were stupid. Who didn’t tell me I was ugly, who didn’t laugh at my failures and point out my flaws.

I started dressing how I wanted, and I felt comfortable in my own skin again. I felt beautiful. I felt wanted and accepted. And I still feel that way.

I read more, laugh more and think a lot less about how the world sees me. About how these people, who had tormented me, think of me.

I became a person with self-pride. A person who smiles and laughs everyday, and loves life.

I am who I am, and I found people who love that.

And the reason why they do it? The reason is nothing less than the fact that we let them.