I always knew I was different. Always. I was obsessed with death, gore, and sex for as long as I can remember. I was sexually abused from age 3-7, heard a lot of gory stories about murder and rape from one of my parents, heard about my mother's abortion when I was 11, witnessed a lot of animal surgeries and large animal births as a young child (5 or 6). Also, I come from a long line of bi-polar, major depressive, socially anxious, ADHD, dyslexic, alcoholic, and narcissistic people (lots of different combinations, none of them have all of these ailments). My grandmother was the mental health equivalent of a nuclear bomb and you can see how much contact each of her children had by how poorly they function. They are all on anti-depressants, anxiety medications, in therapy, have low self-esteem, body dysmorfia, and binge eating disorders. I have an aunt who included her recent electro shock therapy treatments in her Christmas letter. My grandmother was committed to the same psychiatric center that they wrote about in Splendor in the Grass. She too had EST, but in the 1950s. She told me about it when I was 9 and asked her why her hair was so soft and fine. Don't get me wrong. My family is filled with interesting people who tell amazing stories and make everyone feel amazing, when they are up. The rest of the time, it's a spiraling nightmare. I always knew I was different. We were different. When I went to friend's houses and their mom's let them sleep in instead of getting them up at dawn to do chores and then get upset by something that doesn't go the way they had hoped, scream and yell in a manic tyraid, and then cry themselves to sleep in their room all before dark. I still hate house and yard work. The yelling over socks in the living room. I guess what really drove home the message that "You are not different. You are wrong." was said loud and clear when I was in 4th grade. My class hated me. I was the weird girl who was obsessed with death and science. I had a huge vocabulary and got along best with teachers. My family wasn't Baptist, we were Methodist, and we lived in the South. So they called me a witch and said I worshipped the devil and that they were glad I would burn in hell. It was frightening because they would chant it to me at recess and the teachers let them too. I still think it's because they agreed with the screaming little hate-mongers. Anyhow, that's minor stuff and just context information. My 4th grade teacher, a very devote woman of Christ, decided that my strangeness wouldn't be tolerated. That it was in my best interest to have the class go around and let me know what exactly was wrong with me. Everyone got multiple turns and they were encouraged to discuss why it was gross that I liked surgery or thought that the way veins worked was cool. They made sure to tell me it scared them that my family didn't go to church. They didn't like that I used words they didn't understand. They thought the stories I made up about the people burried in the cemetary across from our playground were too scary. THey didn't like the way I dressed or spoke or walked or read. That was the first time I disassociated from my body on purpose. Before it was because of the sexual abuse and I didn't really chose to do it. This time I willed my mind to leave my body. I wasn't there in that desk, surrounded by the hateful, pampas, 10 year olds in that southern town, in that horrible red state where the people were poor and filled with hate for anything or anyone they didn't understand. I was somewhere where I couldn't hear anyone laughing and joking about how much they hated me and I couldn't feel the tears running down my face any longer or see the smug look of self-congratulating satisfaction on my cruel teacher's face. Eventually she had them say what they did like about me and I slowly came back to my body as their tones of voice changed and a few people sounded remorseful. They liked my hair and my glasses. They thought the drawings I did of non bloody things were really good. I hated them. I took their advice and learned to hide my differentness or at least present it in a package that they could tolerate. I became popular by 8th grade, but I still hated them. I was so emotional. So out of control sometimes. I started cutting by 12 (this is in the early 90s too, before it was really well known). I didn't even know what it was. I just knew that I had too many feelings to keep within my body and needed a physical way to express them. SO, I started to rub a thumbtack back and forth across my skin until it bled. Then I'd find a new spot and make a deep cut slowly with the thumbtack so I could feel the skin shred. My mom found out. Took me to some male christian psychiatrists who put me on old school drugs they used to give unhappy housewives in the 1950s. I don't remember the rest of 8th grade. I switched school in 9th grade and things were better. It was a bigger school. There were a lot more poeple in general (five times as many), so I was able to make friends...weird them out or piss them off and then fall into a new friend group. I survived. Through a lot of years of therapy, medication, the support of my husband, and taking a few years of distance from my family, I've learned healthy ways to express my feelings and I haven't cut in over 15 years. But yeah. I was always different. I always felt different. They just made sure I knew that they knew too.