Scarred

I have mentioned before that people treat me like a child. It is probably the worst thing that I hate about myself that I cannot change.

The main reason for this is due to my physical stature. I was born three months premature, meaning that I was not fully developed when I was taken out of the womb. My mother developed toximia while pregnant, and my existence was considered hazardous to both of us. I was given a 5% chance of survival. To this day I wonder whether it would have been better to die. I spent many months in hospital constantly in an incubator. There are still marks on my arms and legs where tubes were fed into me, a constant reminder that for my first six months at least, my life was sustained by a machine. Perhaps that is why I feel an affinity with machinery and technology.

Premature babies are fairly easy to spot. We are horrendously small and under-developed. Many cite my age as 14 (or below) when they look at me, and others have assumed I was lying when I said I was 18. This hurts me on a level you probably won't understand.

I have lived a life being harrassed by others for my size. Even as recently as a few months ago, I was verbally tormented by teenagers on the bus who thought I was a young child alone and thus prime pickings. One asked if he could steal my phone, pestered me while I was trying to play Chrono Trigger, dropped a full barbeque chicken on the seat next to me and the entire group was generally being noisy and annoying.
My calls for reason have been ignored by other teenagers who insist on blaring their shitty music and generally being condescending and inconsiderate. It doesn't help that everyone else on buses seems so withdrawn unless you know each other. I don't mind taking them, but sometimes the atmosphere plus my condition makes me so depressed, retreating into my mind and listening to, say, Die Wacht am Rhein is only a small comfort. (don't ask...for a while it made me happy whenever I listened to it)

My voice, too, is underdeveloped. Not two months ago I was verbally abused by men while on voice chat in Modern Warfare 2. They thought I was a little boy and teased me for playing an adult game. (I complained to a friend of the one who was abusing me, but he replied 'It's the internet, get over it'. It doesn't mean it didn't hurt.) There is a voice distortion option on PS3, but it's artificial and I wouldn't feel right.

In school I was mostly alone. My first school years were spent in a fancy private girls' school, where I was too bright for children my age, more interested in dinosaurs and reading encyclopediae than dolls. I tried to hang out with the seniors, but they only kept me around because they thought I was cute. I became withdrawn and sat in silence.
I was well-known in late primary school for spending lunchtime continuously walking circles around a certain tree. Only once was I approached by a teacher asking what was up. I found it better to think up stories in my head, and the walking around stimulated my brain better.
I eventually found 'friends' my age, but they were stereotypical girly-girls, and my one true friend then was ostracised by them for reasons I'll never know.

I made friends with boys easily, although I seemed to relate most with those who originally bullied me. All of these eventually moved schools.
In high and senior school I was frequently depressed and broke down randomly. I often visited sickbay to have a lie down, but this didn't always help. I don't know whether they knew about my history and emotional disorder (I was born with hereditary clinical depression) but they were always nice to me, although I never said out loud that I was depressed and had been crying.

I've had suicidal thoughts as early as grade 7 (12 years old) and ever since then I become incredibly worked up when there's something important I haven't done. For the last three years at least I have had suicidal thoughts frequently and usually for incredibly minor reasons. I have planned for suicide but have never attempted it or self-harmed.


I thought people might want to know my story. You can bitch and moan all you like about how I'm always so depressed, but in my case I can't imagine how things could ever have been different. Even these days there is prejudice against me. I know it will continue for many years to come.