How I Started to Heal (Freshman - Sophomore)

I was incredibly excited to enter high school. All my life I heard that everything changes once you reach high school. Soon I'd be driving and might actually be allowed to date as my parents set a restriction of 16 years on me. I don't think that anything really changed. I had the same curfew and the same people in my classes. My social circle had completely changed, though. After losing all of my friends in the Momento scandal, I had to find new people to spend my time with.

I was still with Momento at this point, but then I met my second, and very short lived, evil ex: ADD. Long story short, we lasted about two months and decided to be friends afterward, but what's important was that he introduced me to my new group of friends. I was the youngest person in the group, but with my mental age being higher than my actual age, no one ever realized I was actually a freshman. From the moment I stepped into the school, I was assumed to be a junior, which is how I also managed to get a junior on the football team interested in going to homecoming with me.

There I am in all my freshman glory, braces and all. How did they not realize I was a freshman???

I made it onto the majorette line this year. All those years of dealing with bitchy girls and stupid competitions had finally come to fruition! I was now on a line full of bitchy girls and competing in more stupid competitions. Oh, wait... Yeah, that wasn't very good for my self-image, either. Majorettes are a lot like you would expect cheerleaders to be. They've vain, petty, and always have something malicious to say about your outfit. And, because the outfits you wear are pretty revealing, it's easy for them to critique EVERYTHING about you. For this reason, I began to develop an eating disorder toward the end of my sophomore year. I starved myself to the point where I would feel dizzy for no reason. I was 5'2" and weighed 115 pounds. Any picture I put up of myself had to be completely photoshopped and only showed my face. It took me until my junior year to realize how silly I was being and most of the photoshopped photos were deleted from the internet and my computer forever. The one below is the only survivor - a picture I created to signal the end of my photoshopping days.

This can also be considered the point in my life where I lost God. Up to this point I was a very religious person. I wanted to crusade across the nation and convert every last person to my own faith, which was Roman Catholicism. I had struggled with my faith ever since meeting Momento, but I really took a hit when I was sent to religious education classes religious re-education camp this year. I had the two worst teachers that year. They were very bitter old women preaching messages of hate. I was informed that all of my friends who weren't Roman Catholic would burn in hell. When I had to attend my Great Aunt's funeral rather than my religious re-education camp, I was told I would burn in hell for such a sin. I also began to question a lot of the church's teachings and past actions. Why couldn't priests marry if they wanted to? Why is murder unacceptable but a crusade alright? When we asked questions, we were scolded rather than receiving explanations. It was at this point I really questioned my faith and started to back out, but my mother wouldn't listen to my reasoning and forced me to continue to attend.

But then my sophomore year rolled around and things seemed to be getting better. After high school, I'm not sure what changed, but I wasn't invisible to guys anymore. I had several people interested in dating me and none of them seemed completely psychotic, specifically exes 5 and 6: Saint Patrick and The Rock. I was going out on dates every weekend and having the time of my life. Mind you, I dated Momento throughout all these. The highlight of the year had to be my homecoming dance, where I looked and felt sexy for the first time in my life. I went stag and ended up leaving with one of my friend's blind dates.

The night was amazing. The guy, who I'll call King, was the center of the entire floor's attention. He performed the entire Thriller dance from memory or he made it up on the spot and when he wasn't busy being an amazing dancer, he was performing magic tricks. And, for once, I wasn't below his radar. I was the only girl in the room he cared about. Naturally, I had no reservations about going back to my friend's house for the after-party and making out with him. It's a real shame that I had to find out the next day that he had a girlfriend. Man, I sure know how to pick 'em.

That's him behind me in the Anna sandwich, and Athens with the mohawk. I never would have done this my freshman year. Times were really changing for me.

The year was going pretty ordinarily after that. That is, until the fourth evil ex, who isn't technically an ex. See the post on Pyro to fully understand what I'm talking about here. Anyway, after a few months of extreme creepiness on Pyro's part, I nearly had a restraining order and ended up having my locker moved to the senior hallway, just five away from my seventh evil ex: Tyler Durden, a story with another separate post.

I ended my sophomore year on a very happy note. I had dumped Momento, I was dating an real life boy, and I was starting to love myself again. Unfortunately, that happiness didn't last long.