Thank you letter to my bullies.

Thank you for running away from me because I was too loud to be your friend. Thank you for beating me because that is how you would get acceptance from others. Thank you for taking my website from me and turning it into one that solely was made to bully me while I was on a trip to Thailand. Thank you for making me feel like I needed to buy your friendship even if it was only for the walk home. Thank you for forgetting everything about me as soon as you got better friends. Thank you for turning every day I lived seem like hell. Thank you for running away in the halls as soon as you’d see me coming. Thank you for taking my body and my mind as if it was yours, using it and then dumbing it, making me turn against myself. Thank you for making me feel like I am unworthy of love. Thank you for calling me names until I felt like the only way to survive was to not do so.

You see, without all of those people who were determined to hate me, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t be this loud, brave, loving and a bit of a mess 20-year-old woman that is not afraid to be herself anymore. Without you I wouldn’t be able to turn my other cheek everytime something punches me. I wouldn’t be able to love with such a huge heart without letting it take me down if it wasn’t for you. I wouldn’t be able to walk through the biggest of mental hells and still come out smiling. But because of you all, I am able to do so. I can stand stronger than any of you ever would have thought - or wanted me to stand. 

Even though all of your voices still follow me every day and in every decision I make, I am able to accept who I am. I am able to accept that I will never be that quiet girl that can hold her tongue back, and I’m happy for that. 

Don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been easy. It has taken countless years to try to understand why I was so different, that you all picked me as the one you would take your pain out on. Why would none of you like me? Why would you all hate me? What was different with me, that no matter where I went everyone would still hate me? Whether it was at school or hobbies, there would still be people that picked me as their target. Still I keep wondering whether it was in the the way I looked or if it’s something in my personality. And I still can catch myself feeling like I need to change. Like that there is something in me that is broken, something that I need to fix in order to be worthy. 

But that’s when I tell myself, that there’s nothing in me, that needs to change. If someone doesn’t like me, then why should I spend my time trying to get their acceptance. If somebody wants to use their time on hating me, it is their loss. They really should have something better to do than using all their energy on hating me. 

You all have taken a toll on me, I won’t deny that. Trying to fix all the broken pieces that this world has thrown me into, as broken as you made me, has made my life extremely hard. I do not believe in that I would be worthy of love. I cut my friends off before they can cut me off. Trusting is really hard for me. The only ones I trust to love me and stay with me, have four legs and are hairy. 

But even though you all have made my social life a forever work in progress, I am still grateful for all you, because you have thaught me that the only person I need, is me - and a couple of dogs. Thanks to all of you, I know I don’t need validation from others to know I am worthy of more than what all of you made me feel like. Thanks to you, I am now the strong, badass woman with self respect that everyone knows me as. 

Thanks to you, I am me. And that’s more than enough. 

Scared to be happy

Those that know me, know that the past year hasn't really been my greatest. Hell, I can't recall a time that I have actually felt 'great' in the last five to six years, but last year I hit one of my worst rock bottoms so far. Some of you may know why, some of you don't, but that is a though subject that I am not here to share about, at least not yet. What I am here to tell you about is the fact that right now, I am happy. Or at least the happiest I have been in a really, really long time.

I have gotten rid of the toxic people in my life, some of whom I thought I would share the rest of my life with, but here I am. Happier than I was with them. To me, that was the beauty of finding my self worth. And as my ways of expressing it are quite upfront, some might think I am an enormous bitch - which I am not here to deny - but I am not afraid to stand for myself or the people I care about and everybody knows that by now.

I even graduated high school. Which was a miracle that no one, not even my family, thought would happen. I got a job that I actually like and I got some new hobbies that I truly enjoy. I got back to dancing, whether it's the routine of going clubbing (whether drinking or not) every weekend just to dance my ass off or the fact that I actually started dancing lessons once again. Dancing is something that makes me the happiest girl on this planet from time to time, whether I suck at it or not is a subject for another time.

But most importantly what makes me happy is the people I have been lucky enough to surround myself with. For once in my life I have people that actually accept and even love me for the person that I am. They accept my craziness and loudness without judging me, they stand by me at my best and at my worst, they don't try to gain anything from me nor do they try to change me. They're not ashamed to be my friend. They make me happy to be alive.

But as I have said the former sentence, I need to also put in words just how scared it makes me. I am scared to be happy. Because just as I said, life has its own balance between the good and the bad. Which is why I'm terrified out of my mind for whatever is the bad that is coming for me. I am scared that someone I love will get hurt, I am scared that I will mess up at pretty much anything I do, I am scared that one of those people that I owe my happiness to actually realizes that they don't want me around anymore and turn against me, I am scared that I will ruin any of those friendships once again. I am terrified out of my mind by any and every possible situation that might go wrong.

I am beyond anxious and scared of getting hurt once again after life has for once been good that it makes me scared to even live it.

Why do people hate?

It is truly a question I will never understand. Why do people enjoy the way they feel about themselves when they use their energy in something so useless and bitter as hate? Most of all, even if we do feel hatred towards a certain someone, why can't we hold on that hatred inside of us, but instead we often do the opposite by talking shit or just overall doing our absolute best to bring the other one down.

A human being does not grow, not mentally nor in the eyes of the others, when they talk shit about others. Quite on the contrary, if you have even the slightest bit of sympathy all you will feel is disappointment towards yourself after making up lies about others, just for one cause, to make them look worse. More or less importantly, when you keep talking shit about others to a person, this person will soon come to the realisation that this is all you do and your trust in their eyes will quickly be gone.

I have a strong belief in the fact that every lie will eventually come out one way or another. And personally, I do believe that talking shit comes to face the reality as well. You simply cannot hide behind your lies forever, for a while yes, but not enough to last.

I found out that somebody that I used to know a couple years ago kept talking shit about me behind my back to people that I don't even know, neither do I think they knew me, or cared for that matter. I'm not saddened by the fact that this somebody kept talking shit, it's quite usual for anyone and everyone to be talked shit about, but the way this certain person took something quite personal for me, my love for my dogs, and turned it into the opposite. Accusing me of being violent and aggressive towards them. And as anyone that has ever known me or wanted to hangout with me knows that I put my dogs needs before mine, sometimes a bit too much. But in all honesty, I have never loved anything as unconditionally as I love my dogs, they are the only ones that actually accept me for the person I am. Which is rare for someone like me.

The way people take the truth and twist it completely around, making the person they're talking about seem like the worst people ever born is what disgusts me in more ways I can say. It is normal, no matter how sad it is, for people to talk shit about you behind your back, that I know.

There has been countless amounts of people that keep saying how I am weird, too extra, too loud et cetera, but those things I know to be true, and I also know that many can't handle them (aka my personality), which I have learned not to care about.

But what hurts me the most is finding out how people twist your whole personality around, not really caring about the consequences or the feelings that are hurt in the process.

I am not saying that somebody telling lies about the person I am is turning my world around, no. But it does hurt, finding out how many people actually think that I do, or ever could do something that is so deeply out of the reality.

But all in all, I have come to the realisation that if people really trust the preconception enough to not take interest in someone else, not wanting to get to know the individual personally, it is also enough for me to know that they were never worth getting to know.

The people you surround yourself with

These past couple months I have finally started to truly realize the difference between the good and the bad people you surround yourself with. The people that make you feel like your greatest self versus the people that bring you down. 

It isn't easy to see the difference between those people though. And even if it is, it still extremely hard to even start to get rid of them. Sometimes you even think you deserve them and all the shit they put you through. And just to be clear, you don't.

When I was a kid, I was bullied a lot. Everybody hated me when I moved to the town where I live now, and since I didn't have friends I bought them. I tried my very best to buy the acceptance of the same people that made my childhood a living hell. I tried to get them to like me even though I knew that the next day they'd make me cry my eyes out once again. All this so I could feel like I wasn't so badly hated and an outsider even for one tiny second. But all it did was me ending up using my (parents') money for absolutely nothing since they still bullied me the next day and the day after that. 

Why I am telling you this is because I want you to understand that I am a great example of a human being that clearly doesn't want to be alone. I need other's acceptance to be able to live with myself. Just like any other person, especially a kid/teenager in this society of ours. To get that acceptance, we often don't care about the quality of those 'friends' we try to gain. We just care about the fact that it looks good in the eyes of strangers. We just care about the fact that we aren't completely alone.

But what we usually don't realize is that we are alone in a situation like that. A human being can be alone even in a room full of people. Even in a room filled with those fake friends.

Those fake friends do appear in way more ways than just the school bullies I had when I was a kid. Fake friends are everywhere. They are the people that only care about themselves. They are the people that have never in a three-year friendship asked you how you are doing and truly cared about the answer. They are the people that don't listen when you tell them something. They are the people that put others above you every chance they get. They are the people that make you feel bad about the person you are. They are the people that never check in on how you are doing. They are the people that you know wouldn't visit you if you ever were in a car accident and would end up in hospital.

They are the people that you most certainly don't need to surround yourself with. 

When you recognize the bad people in your life, you can start letting them go for your own good and personal growth, but even more importantly you can finally see and appreciate the people in your life that truly love and cherish you for the person that you are. 

Who am I?

Nineteen years old. The start of a woman. Dog lover. Dancer at heart. Passionate. Free spirit. Sarcastic. Charismatic. Loud. Brave. Messy. Affectionate. Sympathetic. Talkative. Eccentric. Extrovert. Impulsive. Strong-minded yet insecure. Clown yet bad-tempered. Joyful yet anxious. Caring yet brutally honest. Wild yet concerned. Courageous yet delicate. Flawed yet me.

I am many things yet no one in special. I am the kind of woman you either grow to love or hate. I am the kind of woman that is unapologetic about the way she is.

Actually, I do my best to embrace it. I know who I am, I know I have haters yet still, I am who I wanna be. I am me.

I am someone that is unable to not make a sarcastic retort every five minutes. I am someone that is all over the place yet sometimes one of the most insecure people in the room. I am someone who isn't afraid to speak her truth yet is scared of the outcome. I am someone that finds beauty in everything around her, yet is unable of finding it in herself. I am someone who does her very best to see a smile on people's face around me. I am someone that loves too strongly yet has never been in love. I am someone that acts as if she has never been hurt, despite having been through hell and back. I am someone who doesn't fear to be laughed at. I am someone that hides a whole another world in her mind only because she has trouble putting her thoughts in words. I am someone that intimidates many others around her.

I am someone that has the heart of a troubled mind.

And now, I am someone that has a platform to express herself at.