Invisible Monsters

When

Dear Diary,

I went to see my therapist today. His name is Mr. Jenkins, a divorced middle aged man who suffered from the same ailments as me. Key word: sufferED. Meaning past tense. Meaning he gets me and what I'm going through and could possibly, just maybe be able to fix me.

Lord knows I need fixing.

He asks me what's been going on this week. Nothing out of the norm, I say. I mean besides the shady indirect comments from my dad about how much of a failure I am and the urges of me wanting to harm myself.

I like Mr. Jenkins. He isn't one of those boring therapists that only asks questions from the textbook instead of talking to me like an actual human being. That shit annoys me. I want advice not questions about how this and that makes me feel.

He also gets the urges as well. Not the self harm ones. The other ones where you want to harm others. The extreme need to put the hurt that you feel inside onto other people. And boy do I hurt.

"Do you know when this started?"

Yeah I do.

I wasn't always like this. I followed the golden rule religiously: Treat others how you want to be treated. Even when I got bullied, I still couldn't say an insult back. It hurts me to hurt other people like that. I couldn't force myself to do it. But...it was just so much bullying at once...I didn't know if I was doing something wrong. How could this be? I thought being nice to others would at least make some of them like you and stand up for you.

Didn't believe in karma anymore because the bullies didn't get in trouble and are living their lives just fine.

Third grade all the way to tenth. Bullying me on stuff I didn't even control. Not only in school but in public places like the bus and on the street. "Hey buck tooth beaver!" As if that was my brand, the only thing they see when they saw me. Taking my stuff and throwing it in trash cans. Drawing pictures behind my back and showing it to the whole class. Getting locked up in lockers. Boys publicly announcing that I was too ugly, too dark for them. Third grade. This shit started in third grade. It made me hate myself.

"Kids are ruthless. I had to go through bullying myself. So I know what you going through baby. Where were the teachers? Where were they when you were getting bullied and teased?"

Most ignored, one paid attention. The librarian took over when they threw my glasses in the trash with all of my books. She gathered all of us in the room and talked about bullying. It made me feel a lot better that she cared enough to do that.

"You see, if more teachers were like that then bullying won't be such a problem today. I applaud your teacher. She had guts to do what most teachers wouldn't. What about your parents? What did they do?"

Hah. My dad was of little to no help. In the end he told me that "You can't start a fire without wood" meaning that the bullying couldn't have had started by itself out of nowhere. To him that sounded absurd. He thinks that I started the bullying. When I told him about a guy sexually harassing me, that's exactly what he said. And he wonders then why I don't speak to him anymore. I hate him.

My mother did try to help, in her own way. Basically told me to be mean back, which at the time I mentally couldn't. I mean, I was afraid to roast them back and then have them attack me for the one thing I was constantly trying to hide. I was deathly afraid of people mentioning my teeth. Sometimes I would count how many days it's gone without someone, even a family member mentioning it.

My mother would also tell me about her and how it was WORSE where she came from and all these stories of what they did to her which also didn't help me at all. In fact, it made me feel worse. I kept it all inside because I'm exaggerating. That it's not that bad. Which it isn't, I guess compared to others but hearing that doesn't make my situation any better. It was bad to me. I felt horrible about myself, I couldn't look up and talk to people. I was an ugly duckling. God I hate myself.

"That's the worst thing a parent can tell their child. This is why in the black community, the depression and suicide rates, along with other mental illnesses, are higher than all the other races. Because we keep that shit inside, we see it as a "white" thing. Baby, you're human. You're not weak for feeling the way you do. But let me ask you one more thing before we go. When did you realize you had an anger problem?"

Ever since I could remember, I would restrain myself from attacking people. Always. I would jolt and stop myself from punching. I've never been in a fight. But the first time I realized that I may have something ugly inside of me was when I was 14. Freshman year. Brutal. I was in love with a guy who had a whole lot of baggage. Let's call him L. So I was in a room with L and two other guys. Somehow the conversation steered to my teeth. They were like "Doesn't she have an overbite" and throwing shots at me as if I were a statue. Talking about my imperfections like two people talking about the current news for the next couple of minutes.

I've never felt so disrespected in my life. Something cracked inside. I guess when you've been nice your whole life just to have shit thrown right back in your face as if you don't matter has an affect on someone overtime. I was boiling inside, anger mixed with sadness. "Hey Akeea, you okay?" Someone asked after awhile. I just stayed mute with a twisted expression on my face.

After school, I went to that same room and...I blacked out. I threw chairs around and a desk, screaming and crying all at the same time. L came into the room and pleading for me to stop, but all I did was sit down, grabbed a pen and began to write something on my hand. When I got out of my zone, I read what was on my hand.

It had "love" on there, but the one thing that disturbed me to hell and back was the word "kill". I didn't even know I wrote that there and I didn't even know why. I forgot about the incident a couple years later until my anger came back. Much more aggressive this time.

I'm tired Diary. Writing all of this shit is making me emotional again. See you later.