The Once Unknowns of My Life (Adolescence)

I will be writing a part 2 to this story, my adult life since graduation. I hope you will read this with an open mind.

Every person in this world has lived with some form of struggle. Even those born into riches have their own struggles though many may not believe so. We struggle for food, money, understanding, even basal love. Many argue that they have it worse or their problems are more important but we all forget that what is a puddle to a Great Dane is a bottomless abyss to an Ant. I have always strived to see the world in that sense, understanding that everyone's needs and struggles though often similar are on completely different levels for each individual. That is why I want to write this now, to explain my own struggles even when they had never been acknowledge for so long. My entire life I was always told to 'shut up' or 'stop complaining' when I tried to talk about the things that bothered me or seemed off. I was told 'well it could always be worse' or 'you have it better than a lot of people' and after so long that broke me. I believed the problems I had were insignificant and that acknowledging them was me being a 'waste of life' as some had called me.

Today I write to tell a story and that story is my life.

To start out as I write this my name is Angel. I have had many nicknames over the years, some friends calling me Dia because it was a name I enjoyed, others knowing me as Angela, my legal name that I have despised my whole life. To truly explain where this all began I go back to my earliest memories. When I was only three years of age and I refused to associate with any children my own age, even my own cousins. I never cared for children my own age for a very long time. I didn't understand them, then again I didn't understand many things back then for a simple reason. That we will get to later on.

I isolated myself quite a bit as a child, preferring to be alone or around animals and if I was forced into a social setting I wanted to stay around the adults. My parents never saw anything strange with that, my father wanted to insist it was because I was just advanced for my age and back then my mother never really seemed to care. Back then I think she held some resentment for me because she had to give up my half-sister and didn't understand where her first daughter's father didn't stick around why my father had. There are many instances in my childhood that I can no longer discern whether they actually happened or if it was my over-active imagination putting the stories or memories in my head. Maybe if I had received the help I needed earlier it would be different.

I never felt like I belonged in my family or even around the kids at school. I was sensitive and never knew why. You see I felt a level of empathy most children never experience until they are in their late teens or even early adulthood. I was also a heavier set girl who didn't like contact. I hated being touched unless it was my father hugging me and even then I was very specific. I couldn't stand light touches, a brush of arm to arm, so I hid in a hoodie from an early age. I was insecure with myself so I wore sweatpants instead of jeans, heck after the first pair of jeans my dad had gotten me for my first day of first grade didn't fit just two weeks later I never wanted to touch jeans again. I constantly sat by myself whether it was in the lunch room or at recess, my nose normally buried in a book or randomly sketching away because I loved to draw.

Despite my empathy though there were so many things I couldn't understand. Why was that girl crying? Why was that boy being so mean to that other child? What was so funny about a joke? I didn't understand, or better said back then I couldn't process any of it properly. You see my emotions that I showed weren't really me. As a little girl I learned something early and it wasn't even intentional. I learned how to MASK emotions. I saw how my family was, how they reacted to different circumstances or stimuli and in my mind I thought 'oh this is how I am supposed to act if this happens'.

I didn't realize what I was doing because my parents never thought anything was wrong with my actions. The only emotion I truly understood on my own was fear, and even that made no sense to me but I felt it whole-heartedly. I had nightmares almost daily, nightmares of abandonment and being hurt but how in the world is a child supposed to process or understand those sorts of things on their own? I was afraid of the world because I didn't know where I fit into it at all, and I felt these fears as early as three years old.

Everything got worse as I got older. I was the quiet seemingly shy girl hiding in my hoodie and keeping my nose buried in the books. I was more friendly with my teachers than any of the other students which of course made me a huge target for bullies, on top of being a bigger girl which gave them plenty of ammo to use against me. I responded more negatively than most with the teasing, screaming bloody murder, running to hide and refusing to come out and even physically lashing out at teachers when they attempted to get me to come inside. I eventually lashed out against fellow students, screeching at the top of my lungs and literally chasing them across the recess yard trying to hit them with my book. When they realized I didn't like being touched the bullying escalated. They would try to poke me in spots my hoodie didn't cover or would mess with my hair which I hated more than anything and it would set me off so badly I broke one boy's nose in the third grade. All that time I never understood why I was the target or why the other kids just laughed at me when I would have an outburst. I didn't understand the early 'cliques' as they formed or why others had friends but I never did. In truth I didn't even want friends back then but part of me felt almost envious because I saw these other children talking to each other and sharing their lives while I was an outcast.

When fifth grade came about a lot of changes happened in my life. My mother and father had often fought, mainly screaming matches that ended with my father walking away while my mother got angrier and angrier. Back then my mother wasn't in the best place either and didn't have the help she needed. Back then I wasn't sure she wanted the help but I can never be sure. My little cousin on my father's side had drown and my uncle had called to ask my dad to be at the funeral. A little insight, I grew up from the time I was three till I was nine in Michigan, never knowing I was actually born in Florida. I had NEVER met any of my father's family except when I was a baby and I think that was because my mother was afraid I would want to go back to Florida if I had known the truth. In the end that is what happened though, my mother no longer wanted to be with my father and because how 'advanced' I seemed they gave me the choice: stay in Michigan with my mother or go to Florida with my father. I chose my father, we had always been closer and part of me even then knew I needed something different.

The move was hard, the car ride to Florida excruciatingly long for a nine year old that couldn't handle small spaces for extended periods, but we made it. When the start of fifth grade came around I was enrolled in Sanders Elementary School in Land O Lakes, Florida. But nothing changed. I was still the outcast, the center of bullying, the weird girl in her hoodie with her nose buried in a book. Not only that but I was also easily startled by just about anything even when nothing was there. I saw shadows move at the edge of my vision, or believed I saw things that don't even exist. The worst of them was Gremlins, and yes I mean the creepy slimy green creatures that came from the movie Gremlins in the early 90's. That was the first signs of my very first diagnoses: Paranoid Schizophrenia. The doctors were a bit surprised I showed signs so early on but paired with a few other things in my life they also understood why. Fifth grade was a hard year for me as I struggled to understand everything more than I ever had. My mind was trapped in a fantasy world half the time just to be able to get by because reality couldn't be trusted. Years before it had been mentioned that others in my family had suffered from it, a part of me remembered that and I found a way to in a sense combat the delusions that came with it. I purposely focused my worst fear, that fear of Gremlins because I KNEW they weren't real. I knew that if I was seeing one of them then it was the Schizophrenia not reality. I astonished my psychologist with that because how rare it is for a patient with Paranoid Schizophrenia to be able to do ANYTHING to master their illness without medication but my father also refused to medicate me.

Then things looked up about three or four months into the school year. I made my first friend, a girl name Rachelle who was also kind of an outcast in her own way. She didn't have many friends herself and tended to keep to herself but we got along and for the first time I knew someone my own age who I got along with even if I didn't always understand why she acted the way she did. The emotional mask grew more and more back then, and by that point half the time I never knew if I actually felt some way or if I was just reacting to the situation as expected. Around that same time I developed my first crush on a boy who took the time to stop and speak to me when I was crying under the recess shade trees. There was one bully back then named Aaron and I was his favorite target because he actually enjoyed the scenes I caused. He had stolen one of my mechanical pencils and I still don't remember why that upset me so badly. But Jeffery came up to me that day. I had seen him a few times at recess and lunch. We didn't have any classes together but he took the time to stop and tell me not to let them get to me. That people like that don't deserve to see you cry. I didn't understand what he really meant for a long time but the fact he had talked to me at all made me feel better for some reason. Jeffery is now my husband all these years later.

For a short while toward the end of fifth grade I had to go back to Michigan. My father wanted to try and fix things with my mother but I didn't want to go back. But I was a child so I didn't have that much choice in the matter. We went back for three months and that made things even harder, leaving behind the only friend I had made and the boy I was secretly crushing on. In the end it didn't work and we went back to Florida and I moved into Pine View Middle School. At one point I even had the same Algebra teacher my aunt had when she was in middle school there. Sixth grade my outbursts got significantly worse than before, I started to make friends but if I got upset I was start screeching and run after them with my books like I did so long ago. But they still stayed my friends despite my strange behavior and for that I am more grateful than ever. I also had so-called friends, someone I trusted who enjoyed seeing me upset and liked to use me because despite my issues I was kind natured and liked to be helpful to those I had begun to call friends.

I never admitted my crush on Jeffery to her, but whenever I mentioned I had interest in trying to find a boyfriend because I was curious what that would be like she would go after the guys she knew I was interested in before I could work up the courage or find the words to ask them. I learned too late how horrible a person she really was when she tried to frame me for stealing from her mother's purse and her family tried to get me sent to juvie over it. Luckily in the end they realized she had stolen the $400 and not me. I was still the shy girl back then, still hiding in my hoodie but I had started wearing jeans instead of sweat pants. I had two fights in middle school, and in both cases I never started it but I did finish it. Even more interesting I was in sixth grade during both fights and the corporal of my school was actually proud of me after both because I stood up to two separate eighth grade bullies who had harassed many more than me. The first incident I broke the boy's jaw after he'd tried slamming my head into the bike racks holding me by the hair for telling him to 'bite me' after he told me I couldn't sitting at the bike area without a bike. The second one's nose I broke because she tore the sleeve of my favorite hoodie as I was trying to put it back on after gym class. It didn't help she was screaming 'hey everyone look! For once fatty isn't in her nasty a** hoodie!'

Middle School felt like a blur especially now that I had friends but more so my next diagnosis came. Two of them to be exact: clinical depression and rapid cycle bipolar. My father REFUSED to acknowledge the depression and refused to seek any help for it. As for my rapid cycle bipolar he couldn't push that under the table because he was medicated for the same thing, but rather than seeking help he taught me the 'anger management' skills he had to learn when he had gone through court ordered anger management when he nearly killed my aunt's boyfriend because my dad had thought the man was pulling a gun on him. It helped in its own way but it wasn't what I truly needed back then.

High School was when everything changed. Land O Lakes High School was where I went, some of my friends going to Sunlake High School instead due to school boundaries. But one friend mattered more than any in my life. Jeffery, my elementary school crush who had always been this lanky short boy suddenly sprouted up. He was taller than me come ninth grade and that very first day of school he wanted to mess with our friends by startling them with hugs just to see their reaction. He snuck up on me and hugged me from behind and that embrace changed much of my life both in that moment and the future to come. I will admit I developed a bit of an obsession with him, something he knows to this day but still he loves me. I remember a few months passed, we had one or two classes together and lunch time as well and we sat together talking a lot or playing cards like Speed or B.S. with our other friends. October 10th of freshmen year I sat with him and I remember it clear as day. I asked him what in my mind was just a hypothetical question. I asked him if I were to ask him out what might he say. He had looked thoughtful a moment before smiling and just saying he'd probably say yes. A few days later that so-called friend I mentioned from middle school shouted across the lunch table at Jeff telling him to just ask me out already. I remember my shock when he turned to me and just asked 'do you want to tell them or should I?' and I was so confused. I asked him what he meant and when he said the fact we had been dating for the past three days I was lost. I never realized that in asking something that was hypothetical to me that his response was that he actually wanted to be with me. From there things went very slow for a while. As strange as it sounds I remember so much of it. It took three months before we ever held hands, four months till we had our first awkward kiss, but after that we were inseparable and it annoyed a few of our friends because we couldn't keep off each other.

We were together a year, but in that whole year Jeff barely told me anything about his home life other than he lived with his grandparents. He didn't want to burden me with the thoughts that bothered him and because of that there came a day where he avoided me entirely until there was no way to. The end of that day I think I felt my very first honest emotion that wasn't from my mask. He tried to let me down easy, he didn't want to hurt me at all but when I asked him if he was okay he told me 'I just needed to be alone'. When I told him I understood and kissed him he seemed so sad when he hugged me and he kissed my forehead and told me 'I don't mean just for today Ange'. My dad was running late picking me up that day and for thirty minutes I sat in front of the school, Jeff's words running through my head on repeat like somehow they had been recorded and nothing could drown them out. My dad finally got there to pick me up and he was complaining about the van having broken down and some guy having cut him off. I just remember staring out the window silently until I heard my dad ask if I was even listening. I don't know what it was in his tone that made me snap but with a cold calmness I looked at my dad for the first time since he'd picked me up and told him that I didn't f***ing care. When he started to snap at me all I said was that I thought I just got dumped and he immediately went silent. That day he did everything he could to try and cheer me up but all I heard were those words from my first love playing in my head. That night I remember the nightmare I had, the boy I loved holding my hand before letting go and myself dropping into an endless abyss. That nightmare haunted me for months, and it was never his fault, it wasn't even my fault because I never realized what had caused that fear in me so early. The fear of abandonment and not knowing where I fit in the world. I thought after all these years maybe it was gone but it came back like a screaming banshee in my mind and it wouldn't stop.

We are going to call the so-called friend from middle school K. for short. This was when she came into the picture in a way that made me feel hatred for the first time ever. The day Jeff left me I saw her and she knew only one thing could have upset me as bad I was and not even a week later she was trying to get with Jeffery. He turned her away then but she was persistent and eventually he said yes and dated her. She purposely would make sure she would meet up with him in areas I would see them, would purposely steal kisses any time she saw me looking their way and would pull him away whenever we would start talking again. She wanted to see me hurt and I knew it. I finally realized that was what she lived for was hurting people she had gotten to trust her and for the first time I wished ill on another person and I began to understand what people meant when they said they HATED something because I hated her. Sixteen years of my life and I had never known or understood hatred but suddenly it was there, this black pit in my stomach that grew larger every time I saw her. They didn't last long, Jeff knew what she was doing, he finally saw it and he ended it quickly but we didn't get back together for a while still even though we acted heavily like a couple still outside the hand holding or kissing.

I dated a few others during that time, I became obviously assertive and made the first move because people rarely knew how to approach me because how different I seemed. Never did any of those relationships last long. Even for a while I dated someone older than me while dating boys closer to my age at the same time because I connected emotionally with the older boy and didn't want him to get in trouble because of our age difference. Then the chance came, I found out Jeff still loved me and all I wanted was to be with him again. I didn't want anyone else. I broke everything off with anyone else I may have been with and immediately I was by Jeff's side again.

Senior year came and he made the choice he wanted to leave Florida, he wanted to go to Texas where my now mother-in-law and her husband at the time lived. It was a fight with my father but I went with him to finish out high school and to be with the only person I had ever truly been in love with, and before anyone judges let me explain. You can love many people, even all at once. It is very possible once you know the feeling of love in any form but to be truly IN LOVE with someone is completely different. I have had many people in my life I have loved but in my life I have only had two people I have been truly IN LOVE with. My ex's I am still friends with actually understand that and don't hold it against me because they know I loved them and even now still care deeply for them but they knew Jeff was the one I was in love with all that time. Before we ever moved he proposed to me, and I knew then he was the only person I could spend my life with like that.

We went all the way to Texas and graduation came. He was smart but lazy and didn't end up going to school for senior year because he didn't have the credits so he made another choice. To go to a place called Job Corp. to get his diploma and learn a trade. Everything was amazing for me at that time, I felt like I had started to find a grip on reality finally. I was truly happy, but Jeff knew with him going to Job Corp. where I would only see him around holidays that there was a good chance I would hold myself back from my own life. He lied to me and told me he didn't want to be with me anymore, tried to hurt me so I might have a chance of moving past it better because he knew me better than anyone else in my life ever had but I couldn't let go. The day I left and went back to Florida was when the real trouble of my life began, and when the one diagnoses that explained everything of my actions as a child came into light. ASD Level 1 or Autism Spectrum Disorder. ASD Level 1 has a few different names many people have heard, they call us 'high functioning' and it used to be called Aspergers Syndrome. Some people try to say it isn't real Autism when you call it that though but it still is. But this goes more into my adult life now and this was for my adolescence. Time to end it for now until the next time.