Things I Can't Get Over

-How small the world is
-How alone you can feel in spite of and sometimes exactly because of that
-My need for approval

Duh. Well adjusted people don't try this hard. I can't get over the fact that I'm on disability for a mental disorder I may not even really have.

The reason I want to study psychology is to help others like me through a system they were likely thrown into against their will and best wishes for themselves.

I figured I'd end up in a place like that someday. I knew as a teenager who had cried way too much for seemingly no reason or over little things I should've brushed off. I was picked on hard as a kid. I don't mean the other kids were shitty to me, like really nasty, but I was always singled out for something or other.

I was advanced but not quite advanced enough for the gifted and talented program, which made me feel bad because I felt left out of their meetings even though I was grouped with all of them. I had to watch them go off like secret agents and they'd never tell me what I was missing. I was purposely silent as much as possible to show my disdain. If looks could kill is accurate.

I had braces at age ten and a Herbst appliance which is this scary barbaric (they don't DO that anymore) cosmetic version of a headgear. I have six degrees of scoliosis and scary good hearing according to nurse Klinkerman. My mom knew a back brace would be just too cruel because I could eat an entire plate sized chicken fried steak at the Cowboy Ranch; my appearance was sad enough.

I always read to escape. I played video games with my sister and cousins and neighbor kids. I rode my bike all over town and jumped on the trampoline in our backyard which overlooked the city park.

I wasn't a total nerd. I couldn't be. I knew too much. That's what they didn't understand about me. I was pretty effing street. But I still went to church every Sunday and choir camp every year in Palestine and played handbells and was an acolyte, got christened and confirmed as a Methodist at age 12.

I drank my first beer at age 11. I huffed "NPR" yes, nail polish remover to get high because I didn't know I had drugs yet. And honestly I didn't really want to do them. Until I couldn't see why not anymore. I won the DARE slogan contest in fifth grade. "We all have a voice, to make the right choice" with an annoying, unnecessary comma for dramatic effect.

I threw away my mom's cigarettes when I was small. Eventually I smoked them because I missed her. I told myself it was because I didn't want to cry in public. Like it would be a new era. And it was. I've since cried in public numerous times anyway.

What is really wrong with me then? I developed poor coping mechanisms (unhealthy habits) to deal with childhood trauma I'd blocked from my memory...memories that came back to me the more recreational AND pharmaceutical drugs I tried.

Thing is, while I'm like a steel trap up here, I'm not infallible and it's been a long time since I was a little girl. I had to do some serious soul searching and some serious moral inventory and I'm almost 100% when it comes to forgiveness now.

I understand why people do the things they do. I can't let go of my need for them to tell me themselves i.e. respect me enough to own up and really make amends.

We wrong each other in the most petty and shallow ways and think ourselves righteous like we're teaching someone who's really just hurt and confused some lesson because they're not living up to societal norms of "social etiquette" or what have you.

Mental hospitals are some of the worst places you can send a rape victim suffering from PTSD. They hold you down with unwanted physical contact and the feeling of rape is simulated by that action of being bodily held down and shot in the bare ass with a drug to make you go night-night.

It's awful and I want to help make this shithole of a system better for future generations. I'm intelligent enough to he a doctor. Don't you dare laugh.