From the first social situation in witch I was ever thrust, there was an unspoken, unknown truth looming in the air that would forever follow me the rest of my days: I was irrevocably different...a freak, if you will, to the biased, judgmental social majority.
Now, after many years of wondering what the hell was wrong with me, I realize my irrevocable position in society. In hindsight, I wonder why it was not more obvious. It was as if my peers had discovered long ago what it took me a decade to figure out for myself. It is like a secret being whispered in the safe confines of the girl's locker room, allowing it to be known forever, but never released past those stone walls. It also makes me wonder, why was it kept a secret from me for so long? The points, stares, and harsh jeers of my classmates were full of knowing and understanding, yet my receiving ear was so naive...uninformed of the information they knew.
My complete junior year, and partial senior year of high school would prove to be a slaughterhouse of sorts. I, being so overwhelmed by my newfound information, would displace my hatred on the rest of the world, not stopping for a second to realize how I was being no different from the people whom I so openly hated. I never thought for a second that maybe someone among the crowd was like me: lost and alone, constantly wondering what they had done to deserve my undying hate, having never so much as crossed my path before.
In hindsight, that thought led me to another musing: what if the hate that so many people forced on me was no more than I turned around and forced on them? What if their hate was just a way of displacing the only emotion they had really ever known? I have spent many torturous, waking hours of my life contemplating this scenario from every angle. Perhaps the lives of these people were just as unfortunate as mine, and they needed to transfer the hate to something, or in my case, someone. Perhaps it started with one bully figure...someone who cut others down for no reason other than for their own sick gratification, and everyone else just followed suit, for some reason unbeknownst, even to them. Or it could have possibly been a combination of the two theories.
Then I contemplated, out of all of the other students, why was I targeted? Going back to my first musing, maybe it was because in their act of displacement, I was the one who reminded them most of what they had come to hate: the detached, aloof soul who would be the most beneficial target to release their emotions on. Perhaps I'm just the one who reminds people of everything they grew to hate...or maybe it was less subconscious than that...maybe they just saw me as the weakest link because I wasn't constantly surrounded by a posse of superficial support.
Looking back, maybe I was, ironically, the most secure of them all. If you analyze the situation closely, it is almost impossible not to see the underlying insecurity of my peers. So perhaps I reminded them of everything that they wish they were. First, there's the obvious fact that they needed to hurt someone else to make themselves feel better. Second, we go back to the fact that I was mostly a loner. I didn't need a group of people with me to feel safe...I could achieve my own illusion of safety without the backboard of superficial support from my peers. They, on the other hand, only felt comfort in traveling in packs...all of them. You would barely ever find any of them alone, and you would most certainly never find them attacking anyone without the support of their group. Not only did that make me a seemingly easier target, but that reminded them of what they truly wanted. I would argue that even at a prepubescent age, we all had the desires of a much more developed adolescent. We wanted to feel some sort of attachment, yet still, little by little, gain as much independence as we could afford. In a strange way, I achieved that independence more easily than they could, and they did not know why. In all fairness, neither did I
Maybe my theories are all wrong...maybe I gave them a reason to hate me that I have since pushed out of my mind, and not considered over the years. However, whether I had my security all along, and it was the reason for the torture I received, or I gained my security because of the torture, I am undoubtedly more secure in my life today than I would bet any of my peers are. When you have a family like mine, gossip gets around, so I undoubtedly know more about my former peers than they know about me. In my class of eighteen, I have since learned that three of the girls have gotten pregnant before graduation of high school, one has been in and out of rehab for drugs and alcohol, three have either failed a grade or been held back, one is dead, and there's no telling what has become of the rest of them. Some, I have received an abundance of information about, while others, I have never heard being spoken of since I left that school, never to return...