There was once a time where I wasn't as strong as I am now. Even as I turn back the pages of my journal, I still feel the scars which are healing over my heart. As I type these sentences, the panic and tears well up inside me, threatening to burst forward. As I remember these incidents, my heart is racing faster and faster. There is no stopping now.
I was hopeless. Confused. I wondered why God would leave me in such a place where the only things I reaped were soul wrenching pain and heartache. I can see now why I was placed in this special and personal hell, but it was unknown to me then.
I wasn't experienced in the ways of the world, the ins and outs of social norms. I was innocent, pure and white as the fresh snow blanketing a field of white. Even that couldn't last, and dirtied footprints soon found it, erasing the beauty.
I am proud to say that I never gave up. Not once. I never succumbed the the gnawing power of my peers. However, there was one girl who did. I determined I would never become like her. She had stopped eating, and had traced lines which dripped scarlet across her body, in an attempt to forget the pain which stalked her, through night and day. Some nights I cried for her sake, other nights I cried for mine.
My life was misery.
I would wake up every morning with a new found fear resting in my mind. The anxiety would stare at me in the mirror while getting ready, and reside in the seat next to me on the car ride to school. It tapped me on the shoulder as I swung open the doors, unready to meet the demons which were waiting to pounce on my each and every flaw.
On the outside I looked at the world with a strong glare, but on the inside, I was as broken as a crushed china doll. I had realized the world wasn't my friend, and it wasn't a pretty realization. The ones who pushed me down, the ones who had nothing better to do but to strip away all the traits which held me above the raging sea of depression, don't remember me at all. They know I was in their class, but they don't recall anything more. The tormentors never remember their prey. I was nothing but a trifling matter to the phantoms who tore down my world and still haunt me to this day.
This is when I learned to trust God. There were moments when I could feel Him supporting me, leading me through the paths of broken glass and torn hopes. I leaned upon it for support, even when the leaders at church left me isolated and ridiculed, far away from His love as I could possibly feel.
Sometimes I thought it would be getting better. Someone new would walk into my life, giving me a glimmer of hope that something, anything could change. It never did. I was starving for a friend, for anyone who could stand by my side for longer than a week. The first real, bright ray of hope came when my dad announced that we were moving. I took the opportunity it presented of a new life, and tried not to look back.
My old home had left its fair share of marks upon my soul. It would take nearly two years for me to overcome the attribute of defense which I had so readily used in my past. I expected to be dissected and ruthlessly devoured, but I realized that God had led me, not only through the hell which I had experienced, but also to the people who would be my life-support system. Their open arms, their friendship, brought me back from the edge of insanity down which I was about to fall.
Sometimes I still wrestle with the fear of abandonment, of being left alone to fight for myself. But the more I live, the more I realize that I would not be the person I am today if it wasn't for the trials I had endured during that time in my life. Since then I have become independent, and have found happiness in the small joys of life. I don't care about the opinions of those who attempt to lift themselves up by lowering others. The scars are still there, but they don't bother me anymore. That's the funny thing about scars. They can take seconds to create, but decades to fade away.
