The Origin of Misery

I was just a boy, I was still a boy. This was long before I realized I was trans. It was not my first trauma, but it was the one with the most impact. Which is funny considering how small it truly was. A simple word, not even a phrase, that controls my life and my thoughts. I don't have good thoughts, just a jumble of the same negative ones over and over. A part of me wishes I was dead, but that's me getting ahead of myself.

It happened in third grade, a young age to begin hating yourself I know, but C'est la vie as they say. He was a dick, no real way to start this than that, he was a dick, and I thought we were friends. I was wrong of course, but who's smart at eight? I was so consumed by the idea of friendship I didn't care how he acted.

I should probably explain my relationship with relationships, it's... complicated. I have this need for social interaction, moreso than most, I'll explain why later but for now just know that I cannot be alone for more than a few hours at a time. And if I am, my depression will find me. Now back to the story.

It happened suddenly, one day we were hanging out, and the next he said he didn't like me and that we shouldn't hang out, then he said the word, the worst word, but we'll get back to that later. I didn't know what to do, I always had an easy time making friends, so to have someone tell me that they didn't like me, someone who was fine with me the day before, it broke me.

So what did I do you ask? Well, I did what anyone with no shame and a need for friends would do, I challenged him. To a best of three contest, three different events to decide our fate. I don't remember the first two events, but I won one and he won the other, the final was a race. Now I knew I had this in the bag, I was the fastest kid in my previous elementary school, so he had no choice but to be my friend. Of course, the sadness inherent in having to challenge someone to be your friend is not lost on me now, but who was wise at eight?

So there we were, waiting for his friend to start the race, I could feel the confidence surge through me, I couldn't lose a friend, I never had before. Then the race started, I bolted forward, wind blowing through my hair, or it would've been had I something other than a fade, the grass under my shoes pushed down by my weight. It was soon after we started that I realized my downfall, in between second and third grade I had gotten fat. So fat I was no longer able to run for as long as I used to, I was doomed. Now I was not one to give up at the time, so I pushed myself, ran faster than I had ever run before, and I tripped, I always do.

And that was it, the end of a very short-lived friendship, a shitty one at that. But that's not the point of this story, let's get to the word. The one that ruined my life. Clingy, the word was clingy. Anticlimactic I know, but it's the truth, a painful regretful one. But I should explain further, I have two personality disorders, actually, I have more than that but two that are important. Dependent Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. I'm not gonna explain the ins and outs of those, but I will say this, they make me clingy, extremely clingy. So clingy I've lost many friends for the same reason, I do too much, I have since the third grade.

But that's still not the point, the point is me. All the things I've done and said to people that made me clingy, the people I've hurt, the people I let hurt me. I can't take any of it back, but I can take it forward, learn from my mistakes, and not hurt or be hurt anymore. And maybe that's a pipe dream, but it's my pipe dream, and I'm gonna follow it.