Perhaps the most difficult thing I’ve had to fight off in recent years have been the lies burdening me since childhood. Whether names inflicted by former classmates, online trolls — or even Satan himself — these terms have been haunting me all my life: retarded, fat, ugly, weird, crazy, loser, klutz, talentless, purposeless, pointless and so on.
I knew I wasn’t the names these bullies called me. But those words clung to me like leeches to my skin.
That’s exactly what happened to me for a long time. Kids laughed at me, called me names and chased me all over the schoolyard. They tried to provoke me to tears or rage, laughing the whole time.