Dance Through Trauma

April 20, 2021

As I watched a YouTube video (a few minutes ago) about a boy being bullied by his school peers for his shoes, I experienced a flashback of something somewhat similar that had happened to me. Back in 2015, I was in the cafeteria eating lunch. My classmates at the lunch table noticed my brand new shoes, which were LeBron shoes. It was quite popular back then, so I received a lot of positive comments. The shoes were about a hundred dollars, which made a girl from my classes happy. The expensive cost of the shoes and the quality excited people because of the emphasis they input. However, a student didn't like the fact that I had the shoes. After he saw my shoes, he told the rest of the classmates at the lunch table that my shoes didn't look right on me, with laughter. A lot kids didn't like me as they saw me as the "weird," "gay" kid. They used to bully me because of how I acted, which appeared feminine, leading them to insult me with the word "gay," which was often used as an insult many years ago by many people due to ignorance. It only made my denial of my sexual orientation worse because I still hadn't accepted my attraction to men. I just remember how he laughed along with the other kids about what he had just said about me and my shoes. They thought that my shoes only fit on people who were much more "cooler" than me because again, I was the weird kid. I only watched them laugh and stayed silent. I was so tired with the world, and I still am to this day. Imagine how sick I have been with humanity for so many years? It makes me angry how those kids made me feel worthless. They didn't know the damage they had caused on my life with trauma, sexual orientation denial, and discrimination. Firstly, their bullying led my brain much more closer to PTSD, an illness that emotionally tortures me everyday. Thanks to them, I have to remember their past cruel actions all the time without ever having to mentally rest. Secondly, I was actually gay (and still am as that never changes), but in denial, which isn't healthy. What's healthy is accepting your sexual orientation. Their homophobia, however, blinded them from my suffering. What's so funny about natural human attraction. Maybe they should've fixed their sense of humor. Lastly, my "weird" behavior was because of a difference called autism, but they were so quick to judge. I didn't even know I had autism, but you should never judge someone without knowing their full story and the science behind everything they do. Meaning, the only people we should judge are ourselves, as we best know ourselves. We will never know anyone completely, so do not judge, ever. We shouldn't feel bad for being different because of the unfair judgement of others! The only fair judgement is self-judgement. It's kind of ironic for me to say as I'm basically judging the bullies of my past, but I still stand by what I said. I just have a complicated mind, so I can be full of irony. I already know that the bullies of my past all have science behind how their brains worked, but a traumatized mind doesn't see that. I guess I'm just communicating with both my conscious and subconscious.

- April 20, 2021