Geraldine M Linares

Six feet under

You would think being different would be something someone can be proud of but in the society we have built, it is difficult to love yourself as you come. My entire life I have been treated differently, mostly because I haven’t had a stable home and as a kid, I moved around a lot. I come from a low-income household and being raised by a single mother makes it even more difficult to have a stable home. I grew up with my sister and my mom, and when I was five we moved to Guatemala to meet my two half brothers that my mom had to leave in Guatemala to come to the states. Moving to a new country was difficult for me because I had to get used to things I had never experienced before, a new environment and new people. It was hard to adapt because I didn’t speak Spanish fluently and I didn’t understand the situation we were living in. When I started school I couldn’t understand my teachers well and my classmates started to notice that I didn’t exactly fit in. There was one boy in particular who would call me names and tell me to go back to my country, they would call me “gringa” to be exact, which means foreigner in Spanish. At first, I didn’t pay much mind to it but as things started to escalate I was hurt by the boy's actions and I would cry because I didn’t want to go to school, the boy started to get physical and would hit me and hurt me and I would tell the teachers but they didn’t care. At last, my older sister saw he was hitting me while we were in recess and she went up to him and punched him in the face and he never bothered me again. I look back at it now and I laugh because he was just a kid but I do hold the adults accountable for enabling his behavior. While that was a painful experience of being outcasted and bullied, when I came back to the United States it was even worse. I moved back to Boston in 2011 and living in Guatemala for four years was difficult, experiencing poverty and hunger was traumatic so when we came back I felt I was in a haven where I wouldn’t have to wonder if I was going to eat dinner that night or not. However, starting school was difficult because kids are ruthless and they only know what they have absorbed from their environment and their role modes… Many times they learn the bad things about their parents. When entering school I took an English exam and a placement exam, my English was terrible that I could hardly understand and not speak it at all but my placement was great I even skipped third grade. My first day of school was terrifying, I didn’t know anyone and everyone looked at me weird, I was most definitely the outcast. I sat alone in the classroom, walked alone in the hallway, ate alone in the Cafeteria, and played alone in recess and I got used to it, by the time I was in middle school and I hit puberty I started to suffer from acne and I did have a small circle of friends but I was still alone for the most part. At this point, I didn’t care about being alone but I did start to attract a lot of attention… negative of course. I would take the home bus from school and as I walked in people would yell, “You should wash your face,” or “Try proactive” and it would hurt me so deeply because I started to see myself the way the world saw me. Ugly. I am proud to say that I have overcome my insecurities and I have worked on my mental and physical health. I no longer suffer from acne and it was something that scarred me and left me a painful experience but I am grateful to be here today. I have learned not to judge anybody by their appearance or even by the way they behave in a different situation, we all have burdens that we carry and at the end of the day we all end up six feet under. My advice to anyone who feels like an outcast to the point where their mental health is at risk please take a second to look around you and understand that you belong here is important and you matter. I have struggled with mental health for a long time, I have lost friends because of their mental health and I miss them every day and it hurts to think I could’ve done more. If you are currently struggling please reach out to someone because even if you think nobody cares or feels like you are not important, believe me when I say someone will miss you and someone loves you. You matter!