A Kiss Is Worth a Thousand Words

I don’t know how I got here, I thought. I thought I’d be happy after. Instead I was trembling with questions. On a hot summer night is when I met my first boyfriend. I wanted to break free from my fears. So, I joined a theater club at my school. We went on field trips to many theaters, one in particular I remember was the Chinese theater in Los Angeles. I didn’t know anyone. I had moved away from all of my friends that I had the courage to get to know. It was mid-July and I was horrible at making new friends. I was horrible at talking. I grew up a very quiet kid, living in my head rent free. I was made fun of a lot. I didn’t take bullying well. I wouldn’t cry but I would get very angry. I would say I developed a passive aggressive anger toward anyone who called me a name. Which was why I had little to no friends. I developed a social anxiety when I got older. However, boys seemed to like me for how cute I was.

In particular, one boy approached me at the theater and asked me why I was so quiet. He was a talkative boy and had a lot of friends. I simply didn’t want to explain and I didn’t even know how to. So, I said I just am. He smiled with a quirky smile. I immediately liked him. He said I could sit with him. He brought out his games and talked a lot about fighting games. He wanted to be a fighter he said. At one point when I was smiling at him listening which was what I was good at. He kissed me. I was shocked. I didn’t understand why he did. I didn’t even ask. But it felt like he liked me and for once I felt good about who I was. He would at times leave me alone to go off with his friends and my loneliness would kick in.

My anger started to get the best of me. When he would come see me again I would feel a since of happiness but then I felt like he was hiding me from his friends. I never got to meet them. So, when he kissed me again. I pushed him away.

He didn’t understand me. He asked why and I simply said I don’t like you. As I walked away tears fell down my face. For once I felt sadness rather then anger. My emotion we’re all over the place and I didn’t know how to handle them. So, I picked a fight with a girl. As I was walking by, she was bullying another girl who was scared in the corner. I walked over and pushed the bully. The bully got up and next thing I knew we were both on the ground fighting. The proctor came over and stopped the fight sending us both to the principals office. I remember thinking why am I here. I knew I wasn’t trying to be a bad person. I never wanted to be. I always wanted to be the good one.

The principal questioned us separately. He asked me why I started a fight. I didn’t feel that it was his business. So, I said because she was mean girl. He said that I was to be suspended for a week. The anger filled up inside and I immediately got up and pushed the chair on the floor. He called in the proctor. I had to sit with my anger, while he called my parents to pick me up.

A week went by, I was to see the counselor until they understood my anger. I didn’t feel like anything was wrong with me. However the counselor made me question my sanity with all her questions.

She would ask me how I felt and I couldn’t really say. I would just say one word and she would make me feel bad for giving her one word answers. Expressing my feelings wasn’t what I was good at. At that age, I didn’t know how to turn my imagination into words. The more she questioned me the crazier I felt. The crazier in my mind I became.

I graduated high school, and the boy never talked to me again. He told his friends of me once I found out from a girl who had became my friend after I met her in group therapy. We both had anger issues. She said she heard him say that you were obsessed with him and was psycho. Wouldnt leave him alone. I cried that night when I got home.

As I got older, the scarier my mind became. Instead of images popping in my head I started to hear voices. Next thing I knew I was in a psych ward. After I was diagnosed with schizophrenic, I was scared of myself. I didn’t think anyone would ever like me again. Nor did I ever feel they ever did. They put me on medication. I became isolated and I would have major nightmares. I would see a shrink this time she listened to me on what was going on in my head. I felt I had to at least tell someone. She didn’t judge. I told her about the boy who said he liked me with a kiss. She said that I had to change my thoughts as they are becoming more and more negative toward yourself.

I began a journey of self discovery after I had been put on medications to quiet my mind. The want to be accepted for who I was and become someone was what has motivated me into the person I’ve become. I’d like to thank that boy for trying to like me he sent me into a spiral of crazy. But he also sent me on a journey of self love.