I had tried for many years to write a journal. It was something I tried to do from a very young age and for a little while, I did it well. I would write about seeing my friends in the holidays, boys that I may of fancied at the time, the things my mum and I used to do, maybe even sometimes about what I had done at school that day. Then it seems, quite suddenly, the things I would write were no longer about me playing with my friends, boys, my mum or school, suddenly as if a switch had gone off in my brain I started to write obscene thoughts, obscene things, I would scare myself sometimes, I couldn’t believe at an age so young that I would write things such as, “I hate myself” or “I don’t feel normal” or “I want to die”. I wouldn’t just write on paper anymore, no…paper didn’t do the job anymore, instead I would write all over my bedroom walls & my door, still to this day you can read some of the script on the back of the door in my childhood room, (sorry mum, it had to permanent marker didn't it?) I didn’t realize then but this would be the very slow start of what I would later know to be my demons; depression & anxiety (little did I know it was actually so much more than this).
I remember the first time I “owned” feeling different and showed it to the world, using makeup I painted my eyes with purple eyeshadow all the way up to my un-plucked original eyebrows, black eyeliner all around my upper and lower lid and I made sure not to forget the icing on the cake, my black lipstick. I remember seeing myself in this moment and feeling “I BELONG” this slight change in appearance made me feel like I was “normal” for the first time. In excitement I grabbed my bike (a small bmx at the time) and rode around my neighborhood block hoping I would bump into one of my friends to show them the REAL me, after about 10 minutes of searching around I bumped into a friend of mine, a boy I had grown up with on the street all my life, he took one look at me and said “what the hell have you done?” the cheshire cat grin I once had on my face now dropped, not quickly but slowly as I could feel all of the disappointment and sadness overcome me. I couldn’t believe it, I thought my friends would be happy that I had found myself, I thought they would like me for who I truly was but no, no, no this was the first time I experienced what it was like to feel like an outsider amongst what I thought was my pack. I knew from that moment on that my life wasn’t going to be the standard I had seen before. I knew in that moment if I didn’t fight for my truth, then I would never feel this happy again.
I was 9 years old.