I was eating lunch in the cafeteria, it was 10th grade. My friend was sitting across the table from me but I couldn’t help but look past her and notice all the people around the room listening to their headphones. Questioning my friend wondering if she knew what everyone was listening to, little did I know not only did she know, but she knew they were listening to something relating to me. We’ll get back to this.
There was a guy a grade older than me that I started dating a few weeks prior. We would hang out, I told him some deep secrets of mine, and one day he came over to my house and we were making out in my bedroom when a condom fell out of his pocket. I was mortified. I had no intentions of having sex with him, not any time soon anyway. I was offended that he even brought one thinking it was a possibility. After this incident we stopped hanging out and apparently rejecting him in a sense, pissed him off.
Back to the cafeteria where everyone was listening to something on their headphones simultaneously- after my friend told me it had something to do with me and I should listen for myself, I asked a guy at the next table to let me listen. He hesitated, but gave me his headphones and pointed to a CD case that said “Sherry” as the first song listed. He started the song and it sounded like “Stan” by Eminem. You know, the one where he drives Kim off a cliff at the end. The intro went on, it was Eminem’s song, and then the words started and it was the kid with the condom singing, with 3 of his friends from school taking turns rapping private details about my life that I had shared with him in the few weeks we dated instead of the Eminem lyrics about Stan. I listened to it, and then stormed through the middle of the cafeteria to the guidance counselor’s office.
The guidance counselor ended up getting a smidge of justice for me, the guys weren’t allowed to go on their senior trip; the embarrassment was not comparable though. I started acting out a lot in school, more than I already had, I think subconsciously I wanted to get kicked out to get away from the people who heard the song and the people who wrote it. I was hurt by my friend who knew and didn’t tell me. I felt completely alone in a school full of people. Eventually I did in fact get sent to another school. It was a mixture of things that led to that, but if the incident in the cafeteria never happened, I don’t think things would have gone the way they did afterwards.
I was a depressed teenager. I had the typical “emo” look; dark, dark black eyeliner, red dyed hair, band t-shirts, ripped jeans, and converse sneakers. Literally me in high school. It wasn’t just the look though, I wasn’t “playing a part.” I was clinically depressed. I had been recently diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, actually, at that time. I purposely listened to music that would make me feel worse. I fed my own disease. I self-harmed from a young age, and I smoked and drank starting at 13. I was jumping boyfriend to boyfriend. My life was a hot mess. There were many times my mom would take me to the ER to be evaluated, I think hoping that I’d be admitted for a little while. I never got admitted (until I was 21) because I hadn’t admitted to wanting to commit suicide or harm someone else.
I met a guy at a bonfire when I was 16, he was 23, and he was homeless at the time. The bonfire was under an overpass with a big truck tire with a fire and a lot of cheap beer. I thought he was cute, and I ended up sneaking him into my garage at my mom’s house with a sleeping bag for over a week before she caught him. We started hanging out, I helped him get a license, a car, a job, and a place to live- we were dating at this point for a while, we dated 4 years by the time we broke things off. Looking back, what did a 23 year old want anything to do with a 16 year old for? I got arrested with him. Thankfully I was underage, in that case, and my charges didn’t stick with me past 18. Nothing about that relationship was beneficial to me, now that I can look back on it with a clear head.
My next real relationship was when I was 21 and dated a guy who had only been out of prison for less than a year. I knew it was a red flag, because I remember telling my mom about him and saying, “He has 2 red flags, I’ll tell you one before you meet him and one after you meet him.” I still to this day don’t understand where my logic was with that one, at all, acknowledging red flags should have been enough to not meet him. Well I did, and we lived together for 9 months from there. It was the most abusive relationship I’ve ever been in or known about personally. Physical, mental, sexual, you name it. It was terrible. Don’t ask me why when he got arrested after 9 months I kept visiting him in prison knowing he had 2 and a half years to do. (Yes, he was in prison before we met, and again.) I wasted a long time keeping him going in there, phone calls, letters, visits, someone to look forward to coming home to. I stopped contact though after a year. Those incoming letters to me were not very friendly after that. Eventually they stopped.
The pattern I was developing of guys using me or abusing me was really destroying my self-esteem and self-worth. I gained over 200 pounds after high school. Most of which was after the second relationship I mentioned. If we connect the dots, the guy with the condom in the beginning was presumably hoping for sex that day, which clearly made me feel some type of way, used possibly? Could a bullying incident in high school be the beginning of a lifetime of low self-esteem?
According to the way movies and television put the topic out there, kids that are bullied end up with low self-esteem as they grow up. They typically portray them as awkward or shy. Either that, or a bully themselves. I never put two and two together that I had such low self-esteem when I was allowing myself to live the way I was living. I must not have thought I deserved any better. Sleeping in abandoned buildings when I knew my mom had a bed for me at home, sending money to an inmate in prison, maybe I thought that was the best I could do. I met a guy who I could talk to 24 hours straight and never get bored, we hung out every single day for months, we acted like a couple except we never left his house and no one knew about us. I wanted to be able to tell people and hang out with other people as a couple, but he didn’t. Eventually the relationship fizzled out. I felt very used at that point, too. All of that led me to the next guy who I have been married to for over 10 years now.
We met on a dating website (before apps were cool), and messaged back and forth a few times within the same hour, and he asked if I wanted to just grab dinner. Spontaneously I said sure, and he picked me up. The rest is history. I have never felt as loved as I do by my husband. I can honestly say I never loved or have been loved before him, now that I know what love truly is. I deserve it, and I think that’s why it works. If I didn’t believe I deserved it, we wouldn’t have lasted. I would have found a way to pass up a good guy. How did I come to terms with the fact that I deserve good things and to be treated well? It wasn’t easy. I had to lose a really important friendship in order to grow as an individual, as silly as it sounds. I had to find a job that I loved, and at the time working with autistic adults was my passion and that is what I was doing. I was coaching a soccer team at the time, feeling confident that I was able to be on the field in some capacity again. I put the work in to build myself up after years of being pulled down. You can too. Turn your negatives into positives and grow from there.
My husband and I were sitting outside on our patio talking the other night and somehow the story about everyone listening to their headphones in the cafeteria in high school came up. The empathy in his eyes was so comforting, I’m not sure I have received that level before. He told me I should write a book. I’m not sure there’s enough to write a book, but enough to make a point. Shall we all do some growing?

Everyone has that friend. The one you who walks into your house without knocking or calling first. The one who invites herself over for dinner. The one who answers every text within seconds because she understands your anxiety. The one who sends you birthday cards in the mail even though they see you every day in person but they know it will be more special that way. I remember the last time I saw you. I remember driving in your car and stopping at the store, I remember you sneaking me a cigarette even though I wasn’t supposed to be smoking. I remember sitting outside your apartment laughing and planning what to do to celebrate both of our birthdays because they fell so close together. I remember your birthday. You should be 36 now. Instead you’re forever 33. No one ever tells you that losing a friend forever is one of the hardest things you’ll have to go through in life. Losing the person you tell every detail about your day to is like losing your dominant hand. it’s kind of hard to do everything without it. It’s kind of hard to do everything we used to do now, without you. No one ever tells you how hard it is to lose that friend because no one is supposed to lose that friend.

Dear Unsealers,

I am a 36 year old woman and wife to my 39 year old husband. My husband was diagnosed with primary progressive MS in 2013 the year we met and also got married (when you know you know!) At first the only visible sign from the outside looking at him was his gait and poor balance, he always appeared to be drunk when you watched him walk. From his perspective, he could no longer see out of his right eye, which became permanent, he was retaining urine which was not safe, he was having a hard time doing his job which involved using his hands and fine tools due to neuropathy like symptoms. Now he uses a cane and a walker and takes medication for spasms in his legs. Now he has also bein diagnosed with major neurocognitive disorder which is a basic open term for dementia. I am his caregiver with the help of a home health aid 12 hours a week. Neither of us expected to be in this position when we met in January of 2013 and married that September. It progressed rather fast and more than likely won’t stop. My husband has a great attitude though which is amazing for him, and so hard for me sometimes, I’ll admit. Sometimes I want to talk about everything and cry, but he already pushed it out and doesn’t think about it like I do somehow. He’s teaching me in his own way how to be more optimistic and less stressed over things you can’t control. I have my own illnesses, mental illnesses, that flare so to speak when I am stressed and it’s helpful to be with such a strong person. Sometimes I don’t know if I have it in me to be a wife and a caregiver to the same person at such a young age; then I think about how we’re helping each other out in different ways I just forget to see it that way, the way it is.

When asked my biggest fear, I close my eyes and imagine what my life would be like without you, and that moment alone is terrifying enough that I already have my answer without having to blink again. My biggest fear is having a great day, or a horrible day, and not being able to call you anymore to tell you about it. My biggest fear is needing an old favorite recipe and knowing you’re the only one who has it and now I’ve got no one to ask anymore. When the holidays come along and I don’t want any gifts but you always asked for a wish list, I’m scared I’m going to wish you were here and be sorely disappointed when you don’t come through like you always have before. Part of my job as a daughter is to open my heart up as wide as it goes and take in all the advice, stories, wisdom, and love while I can so if you leave before I do I’ll have enough to keep me going. I just don’t know if or when that day ever comes if I will know what to do, who to call, when to cry, where to fall. You have always been my roller coaster sidekick and I don’t know if I trust this ride without you. If you ask me what my biggest fear is in life, it’s having a life without you in it, mom.