"Big nose." "Ugly." "Know-It-All." "Annoying." "Weird." "Crazy."

This is a small selection of things I have heard people call me over the years.

The teasing started in middle school. Mostly, it was over my looks; going through puberty was tough for me, and I went from a size 1 to a size 9 in a span of two years. My lower half was quite disproportionate to my upper half (it still is, kind of), and people tended to sing the song "Baby Got Back" as I walked past them in the hallway. I was also teased a lot for my "big nose," and I hated my nose for a really long time because of it (funnily enough, my nose is now my favorite facial feature -- oh, how times have changed). Going through high school, the teasing lessened (it didn't stop, it just eased up a little), and people moved toward giving me "the silent treatment." I caught wind of the fact that people said things behind my back, but mostly they left me to sit alone in silence. I skipped lunch a lot my junior and senior years, and it was because no one really wanted to sit with me, and I hated having to go in there and have everyone stare at me because I sat all by myself at the end of the table, pretending to be absorbed in books and acting like I wasn't bothered at all that no one wanted to be around me.

I was never physically bullied, but that didn't mean I wasn't in pain. I cried nearly every day in middle and high school because I felt completely alone and friendless. I spent years hiding myself, pretending to be something I wasn't, because I didn't think anyone would accept me for who I truly was. I pretended I didn't care what people thought of me, but if that had been true I wouldn't have hidden myself from people. I wouldn't have skipped lunch all the time because no one wanted to sit with me and it made me feel bad. I wouldn't have cried every day. Most of all, if I hadn't have cared, I wouldn't have believed a single word of what they said to me. I wouldn't have believed that there is something "wrong" with me, that I am "not normal," or that I "needed to just die."

The bullies in my life have never truly left me. I still feel like I am constantly annoying people, and I tend to avoid people by making excuses to be alone. I still feel friendless, and keep myself distanced from people because I don't want to become close to them only to discover they were never my friend in the first place. I mistrust people because that's what I learned to do at the age of 11 the first time someone I thought was my friend said something incredibly cruel to me. I still sit alone at lunch. I don't want to go out with people because I "know" there are people they would rather be with and that they are "just pretending to be nice." I still think that every time someone critiques my work or tells me I am doing something wrong, they are judging and critiquing me as a person and that they, too, think there is something wrong with me.

I know this is unfair; not everyone I run across thinks I am weird or crazy or ugly or annoying or whatever, and people probably do want to be friends with me. The thing is, though, this is a hard thing to believe because, for so many years, these thoughts were ingrained in my head by people who truly didn't care about me, who wanted me to believe that other people didn't really care about me. I know that, in reality, no one is actually talking about me and how weird I am when I walk past them. But it still feels that way, because, no matter how hard I have tried to let go of all of the bad things people said to me throughout school, some of their words have just stuck with me, like gum on the bottom of a desk.

I am still learning to let go of the negative things people say to me. I am still learning to open myself up to other people. I am still learning to be 100% myself. I am still learning to accept that, though not everyone likes me, there are people out there that do like me and that do want to be friends with me.

It just takes a little time.