giving up caring what others thought

when i was younger i used to care about what others thought all the time. and now i don't. and i'm so much happier.

may be triggering

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"You're fat"
"You have bushy eyebrows"
"you're a loner".
"you're never going to have a boyfriend"
"you're such a gay faggot"
"just kill yourself"

i used to hear this kind of stuff everyday. I used to go to school, listen to the abuse, soak in it. i let the words fill me up. i would then go home, stuff myself full of food to try and numb the pain.

then came the tears. i would cry and cry and cry, bawl my eyes out, constantly checking the clock on the oven. as soon as it reached 17:00 pm i would stop, midway through a burst of tears. breathe in and out. run upstairs and sort myself out, so that when my mum and my brothers walked in the door i would seem fine.

then after, when everyone was asleep, i would take my anger and sadness out on my body. i would sob under the covers, wishing i was prettier and fitter and nicer and cooler and just better. i destroyed all the mirrors in my room and burnt all of my photos.

and this happened to me everyday for 2 years.

until one day, after my arm was raw and bleeding, and my eyes were red and my face was wet with tears, i had an epiphany. why did i care what other people said to me?

and i thought about it. why did i? these people meant nothing to me. I didn't value their opinions. I didn't like any of them, and i never would. so why was i beating myself up over little things they said to me?

i thought about that for over an hour. i sat there, perfectly still, lost in thought. and i couldn't come up with a single reason as to why i cared about their opinions of me.

so the next day, i just ignored what they said. i fought back my tears, fought back the urge to run into the bathroom and rip my hair out. i simply ignored them. i envisioned myself covered in rubber, their insults bouncing off me.

it wasn't easy. i still went home and cried that night. but i didn't slice my arm until it bled either. small steps

everyday i ignored them. told myself that they were just sad people, trying to take out their own problems. because they were. my suffering was a way of them distracting themselves from their own problems. i realise this now. bullies are just taking their anger and pain out on others. for them, making other people cry is a coping mechanism to help them deal with their own shitty lives and problems.

slowly i built up my resistance. until eventually their insults had no power over me. words only have power if you give them that power. and i didn't give those horrible words anything.

eventually they started leaving me alone. bullies want a response. so if you don't give them one, they'll stop looking for one.

i'm not going to lie, it was difficult ignoring what they said. all of their insults still haunt me. i can remember every single time one of them said something nasty to me. i sometimes still hear their voices when i look in the mirror.

but because i took a stand, and refused to accept it, i made my life better. i made myself stronger. taking the step to ignore them wasn't easy. but it was so worth it.

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