Born in the Year 2000

Before The Drama (Episode 1 - Part 1)

Hi, my name is rose mulet. You don't know me yet, but you will. People always ask me why I want to be famous. Truth is...I didn't always.

*flashback to my family taking photos as an 11 year old, my parents ask to take a photo of me, I say no, they then secretly snap a photo of me, then I beg for them to delete it*

As a kid I was shy, reserved. I never let anyone in. I excelled In school, I learned to read and do math at a very young age. My parents put me in a special school so that "my gift wouldn't go to waste" I was doing 6th grade math in 3rd grade. I tied for the highest score in the country in a nationwide test, which led to me reciting tons of emails from colleges taking notice. I scored a 51/60, with 10 of the questions being at a high school level. My parents were happy, and I thought that I was too. Until one day I realized that it was only ever the validation that I craved. The special attention I got for being the "smart kid". Truth is, I didn't enjoy the countless hours of homework and tutoring at a young age. I hated it. But I wanted to be loved. The special attention I got, it was addicting. On the outside, everything looked great. I was living someone's perfect life. But it wasn't mine.

No one cared what I wanted. But I played along. I was the good kid everyone wanted me to be. But all of those years of not being heard, not having my desires listened too, it built up. I felt trapped. Even my own body felt like a prison. It was like a sick kind of joke. Everyone was telling me how lucky I was, and how successful I was gonna be. But if I truly was that special, surely I'd be able to succeed doing things I actually enjoyed. Surely, I'd be able to be happy...right? Because if I wasn't, then I wouldn't call that succeeding at all.

I remember watching tv shows as a kid, I felt sad because I couldn't relate to them. As silly as it seems, I would see the schools on screen, and they looked nothing like the school I went too. I just wanted a normal life. And so I begged my parents to take me to a public school. I was told I'd be wasting my brain. They didn't want to take me out of that school. The only thing that convinced them was my sister getting bullied, and the 2008 financial crisis making them reevaluate spending all of that money on our schooling. The one thing I didn't account for was the culture shock. I didn't realize just how different public school kids would be, and I wasn't ready for it.

I always knew I was different from other kids, I remember one time I was playing with legos and I wanted to build something using 1 of each piece, but this girl next to me was building something using all of the 3 pieces. I asked for one of the 3 piece legos, she said no, and that I could use a 2 piece and a 1 piece and it would be the same. But no...it needed to be a 3 piece Lego. I recognized there in that moment that that wasn't normal, and that anyone else would've been fine with that. But I wasn't. I was curious why I cared so much about something seemingly so trivial, why did it upset me so much? So that night I went home and I asked my parents "why do I think differently" that's when I found out I have OCD.

I was always a very sheltered kid. In private school, I had lots of friends. I would compete at chess tournaments and everyone would always cheer for me the loudest because of how much of a cheerleader I was for everyone else, wanting to see them succeed. Everyone at that school behaved, and if you didn't, they had no hesitation kicking you out of the school.

When I entered 4th grade though, everything changed, public school kids were saying words I'd never heard in my life. I remember my first day hearing a day saying the word next to me saying the word "dick" and being confused, having to look up what the word meant. My innocence was often used against me. It made me an outcast from the start. I made friends despite this, but I was clearly unprepared for how ruthless some of these kids were.

There was one positive though. I didn't have to try at all, despite being in honors classes, everything I was learning was stuff I had already learned long before. I was able to just enjoy life and not feel stressed, but any sort of work ethic completely disappeared. The next few years were better, a few kids called me "the human calculator" and it was weird having my mom be my 5th grade teacher, but I got to experience a normal childhood.