Accepting Herself

Ru has written Accepting Herself on tumblr

Trigger warning for mentioning of bullying

This is not an inspirational post about how I overcome myself,
this is not an educational post about how to treat us right, or about who are we.

It isjust something that I want to tell you, my simple story. It’s my day, right? But I sincerely hope you can learn something from this (…pehaps.) I do wish you can get a glimpse of me. Thank you.

i.

It was her first day of freshman on her high school.

She had bad experiences before because of her weakness—being bullied mentally and physically, having problem with her teachers, et cetera—so she was scared that she’d ruin everything. The fact that she picked a new environment (to prevent her from facing the same old treatment) didn’t help much. In fact, she had a nervous belly because she didn’t know how to face that new environment.

That girl learned to silence herself. And she survived—in one way or another. She faked stuff—not perfect, but good enough—and she learned to filter her words. She imitated, she acted.

.

ii.

Autistic. She was born this way.                            

It was supposed to be an identity, but everyone hated the identity. So it wasn’t an identity. It was a weakness. It made her quite a piece of art.

How it was her identity that she should be proud of when it made her unable to do anything that anyone can do? Reading emotion, controlling her minds, talking comfortably, expressing her needs?

.

iii.

One of her classmate on her high school was autistic, too. 

All of her classmates mocked him. And because she was supposed to be normal, too, she just went with the flow, not knowing she mocked herself as well.

.

iv.

Some people used to mock her, calling her names, and autistic was one of them.

Autistic wasn’t meant as  “a diagnosis that differentiate her” in a good way. It was “you are not one of our kind so you’re stupid.”  They teased her with that word. It meant to offend her.

It was her mission not to be called autistic. Again.

.

v.

She wasn’t quite well at faking, she finally learned.

She still had problems with her teachers for not being able to express herself more normal.She still had problems in social situation (only nobody really notices what’s quite wrong with her.) But as long as no one truly connects the last dot, she thought she was fine.

.

vi.

She could ber herself only when she was at home. There was her mother, her sister, her father that could understand her. But it wasn’t enough. Well, she also had some friends at school that she believed could accept who she was (but they were gone.) But still, it wasn’t enough.

.

vii.

It took a long time for her to finally understand one fact: she has been running from herself.And that was ridiculous, because she wouldn’t win the fight against her true self.

(And it almost crushed her, to know that she basically loathed herself for so long. She blamed herself for the hate, the loathing.)

But it took another long time to finally learn to accept herself. And she is still learning.

.

viii.

“Hello.”

She greeted that classmate. If there was something she loathed more than the self-loathing, it was the fact she couldn’t comprehend earlier that she hated herself by hating him and it was unfair. Either for her or for him.

He replied back and she smiled with glee. That was nothing, perhaps, but it meant something for her.

It sounded cliche, but it meant she took another step. It meant she was learning to have a peace with herself, and someone accept her.

.