The Steps to Realization

Hey everybody! This particular blog post is something I've been meaning to get off my chest for a long time and knowing that I have to live day to day without people understanding what I've gone through is heart wrenching. The reason for my being, the reason for the way I think is all from my life of being bullied. 

It all started in middle school where everybody started to change and begin the process of maturity. I guess I didn't fit in well with everybody else changing and I was being teased about my eyebrows which in fact was the biggest thing I was bullied about from then to now. It was always about me cutting them, trimming them up, all the crap about making sure they weren't so thick. I tried to brush it off for the most part but it would get to me...a lot. I actually did trim them and touch em up because I felt that I would be liked more if I did. Well I was liked more, but I also wasn't happy.

I felt that I was in a hole, constantly trying to get out and meet up with everybody else... but the hole kept getting deeper. I kept burying myself deeper and deeper into the hole through the many attempts of trying to change myself for the better of other people. Years after however I learned to be content with my eyebrows and they are thick and I am proud to have them on my face. However, they weren't the only things I was bullied about.

If you could guess by the picture, I was constantly and still am being labeled as an Oreo black man. I apparently am, simply put, a white person with black skin color. This has been the biggest thing which affected my outlook of life, my outlook of people, and the outlook of myself. At first I thought I had the strength to fight off the attacks but it subconsciously sank into my psyche and I started to have identity issues. 

I started to lose my sense of self because I didn't know whether or not I would be labeled with white people or black people. I constantly kept switching back and forth from trying to act like a black person and acting like a white person to satisfy other people.... without first satisfying myself. I would listen to only "black" music... I would wear baggy clothes... I would try to speak with slang... hated it. Then I would speak with proper english... listen to "white" music... wear clothes like white person... hated it.

Every trend I followed I kept losing who I was and kept trying to fit in because I felt as if nobody liked me for who I was... so... I started to not like me for who I was. My actions, my voice, my body, my face, my everything... I didn't like. I let the voices of the outside world speak as my inner voice. I wasn't even able to recognize my own voice because I kept having other peoples voices speak for my own. 

The worst thing though... was even though I saw myself in the mirror everyday... I couldn't mentally picture my own face. For the longest time, I didn't even know what my face looked like when I tried to picture it in my mind. It was always the face of someone else... someone that I tried to be... someone who I wished I was... and I was depressed because I couldn't be that person when I tried my absolute hardest. 

It was as if I kept putting on different masks... different personalities... different identities... that I completely lost sight of my own. It was torturous, heart wrenching, soul crushing. I would spend nights constantly battling something in my mind... something which I couldn't figure out. It was emotionally exhausting. 

I would write notes to myself in a diary... explaining the trauma I was experiencing as I entered into college. College... where the trouble truly started to unfold. To sum it up, instead of nights battling, it was nights of tearing. Nights of yelling into my pillow... trying to find who I was. It sucked. It sucked hard.

But salvation came to me one day. Salvation which completely turned my life around and salvation which I will never, ever forget. It was salvation through God who spoke to me through someone whom I hold dearer than anything else. My mother. She gave me the most inspirational, most heart warming talk and honest to God, it turned my life around. She is who is making me the successful man writing this post. She is who put wings on my back to allow me to fly out of that hole. 

She inspired me to look at what I have, to look deep within myself to look at what I also have on the inside. To understand that I won't be everybody's best friend. To understand I won't have the endless talents other have, the flashy skills that others have, and to be completely content with it because I do have talents that others don't have. I have a mother like no other. And I have God who constantly is helping me find who I am.

So the overall message? Well... I guess it would have to be this: Stop Bullying and think about the lasting harm you're putting onto others. Think about what they have to go through every night knowing people hate them. I did. I did for the longest time. It's not a fun trip. So stop the teasing. Stop trying to change them. Stop saying they're something that they're not. Because they are somebody. They are somebody because God made them. God made them for a reason and they deserve to know that reason is for something special. 

I hope reading this will help you understand the effects of bullying. Think about it and apply it to your life. Have a wonderful evening.