Therapy Letters - Words that Heal

| Six |

Dear middle school,

You may be unaware of the hidden and broken people inside your walls. Let me enlighten you. In sixth grade, I was an innocent little girl. I had just moved in the middle of the school year the year previous, and I was anxious about starting middle school. I had two friends and one acquaintance on my bus, and the rest in the sixth grade section were people I wanted to be acquainted with. They sometimes made fun of me for being so innocent, and they almost never included me in their conversations. I didn't mind because I was blind to the fact that they didn't want anything to do with me. I tried to keep my distance when it was clear they weren't going to talk to me, but I did try to join in their conversations every once in a while. Toward the end of the year, I had my hair cut short for the second time in my life. I loved it. I loved how it made me look older and prettier. The next morning a new guy in my grade who started going on the bus with me said I looked like Dora. He then continued to make fun of me while the other people laughed. Including my friend. I wanted to die of embarrassment. I wished for my hair to grow back to the way it was. I hated how he made me feel like that.I made some great friends that year. It was the best year of my life. I felt confident going into the seventh grade now that I knew what middle school was like and I had a newly gained not so innocent mind. Until I had someone's mother text me using their daughter's phone that they wanted me to stay away from her. I entered seventh grade in a messy ball of panic. Maybe I was taking the whole more mature jokes thing a little too far. What did I do to make the girl's mother hate me? She was homeschooled that year, so I never got to ask. As the year progressed, I sat with a large group of friends at lunch. They mostly ignored me and talked to everyone else. I didn't mind at first, but there is only so much listening to other people talk to each other silently while being ignored one can take. The bus wasn't getting any easier to handle. The guy had left the bus, but the people I wanted to be acquainted with started to take pictures of me on their phones and post it on their social media on mornings when I accidentally fell asleep for a few minutes because I had stayed up late doing homework. They laughed at me and threw insults at me. I had made a new friend with a girl in sixth grade that year. The bullies started making fun of her more often too because we talked and laughed together. Then people at my own lunch table started to seem to hate me, though I didn't know why. My friend who was on the bus and sat with me at lunch that year had pulled me to the side at bathroom break at one point and said that people were talking behind my back about the way I dressed. I thought I didn't really care because honestly, they were just cowards for not coming up to me and saying it in my face. I realized it did hurt though because I started to feel self conscious about what I wore every morning. I never cared about what I wore before. I had always been fine with T-shirts and jeans from Walmart because that was what my family could afford. It wasn't my fault I was small and could only fit in kids clothes. I wished to grow taller and gain more weight more than ever. I was jealous, I'll admit, of people who said they wanted to lose weight. I see commercials everyday about different ways to help people lose weight, but all I wanted to do was gain it. I had always been underweight. I'm still underweight today. I eat more than I should for someone my age and that was true back then too. It was so easy for me to lose it. At least everyone else had something they could work with.Eighth grade came, and I was feeling more and more outcastes by my family because I didn't realize I was pulling away from them.

Everyone really hated me then. Even friends I've had for a few years then had suddenly found someone better to talk to. I walked the halls as a shadow, sometimes even wishing to die. If no one wanted to talk to me, why was I here? What was my purpose? People only talked to me when they needed something. Usually it was advice. Then they wouldn't speak to me again. I tried to tell my friends multiple times how I felt, but they only half listened then went back to ignoring me. My only wish that year was for just one person to either say I was valid. I was their friend. They would talk to me and hang out with me like friends always do. Or at the very least just punch me in the face. Just tell me if I annoy everyone. Tell me I'm not easy to get along with. I hate speculating and then having everyone tell me I'm wrong especially if I'm 99.9% sure I'm write. Just some one, anyone, tell me that I wasn't wanted anymore and set me free to disappear forever.