Still..

I was 11 years old when we took a trip to Arizona, we were visiting my aunt and uncle there and they had a few neighbor girls who were relatively thin. I don't ever remember feeling fat before then but someone had made a comment comparing me to the other girls in the area, saying that maybe I should be more active or put on a diet when they thought I was out of earshot. So the next morning I woke up before everyone else in the house did and I walked into the bathroom, the sun was shining through the window and lighting up the nice clean white room. I saw a scale on the floor and decided I was going to weigh myself.

I weighed 115 pounds. Which as a 5'1" 11 year old was a little bit chunky, not technically overweight, just chubby. I knew that other people my age were between 80-90 pounds and I was no longer fitting into the kids clothes that were supposed to be made up to sizes 13/14 yrs old. I remember feeling devastated that I weighed that much and looked at the scale in disbelief.

A few weeks later I went to Sunday school and they were playing this game where one person would sit in a chair and everyone else would lift them up and carry them around the room. I don't remember the purpose of it, but I remember them telling me it was my turn and I politely said no thank you. One of the other classmates said "Thank God! She's too fat, we wouldn't be able to lift her up anyway."

Things like that stick with you. I mostly found myself sitting in corners and not participating because no one wanted to be my partner and I didn't want to force anyone to be unhappy. That year I was also rejected from being in Girl Scouts because I was home schooled, rejected from gymnastics for weighing too much and rejected from ballet for being chunky. I was allowed to be in the back, behind everyone else to cover up the way I looked.

I was told by boys that I would be lucky if anyone ever liked me because I was so ugly.

After that year, I grew 5 inches taller but gained no weight and then my boobs came in as well, so I was now a 5'6" 115lb girl with C cups. Suddenly all the boys were interested. All the boys who made fun of me before, came up to me and were asking me out and I knew it was purely because of the way I looked. I was still quiet and shy and sat in the corner alone because no one wanted to actually be my friend, they just wanted a girlfriend who was skinny.

When I was 13, I went up to 135lbs - oh no the horror. I was faced with cheerleaders in the bathroom picking out every ounce of fat they had, whining and complaining about how fat they were at 120 pounds and how they wished they could just drop 5 or 10 pounds "but at least we are thinner than you."

Every girl had their boyfriend, or their crush, and for whatever reason I had a crush on this one guy. At the time I thought he was cute, he was mostly just funny and his dad was a douchebag - or at least that's the general idea I was given by those who knew him. Boys with daddy issues are my favorite ya know? They treat their mama's well and they always desire that extra attention.

He heard that I liked him and my world flipped upside down. I went from being barely noticed to the most talked about loser there was. I was made fun of, horribly and constantly. I would walk into youth group or Sunday school and notes would be passed about me that would conveniently get back to me about how I was ugly, fat, stupid, lame, etc. People would pretend to be others online and ask me questions then print the conversations and share them and talk about how lame I was.

I was tied up and shoved into a heating closet in the church with another guy who got picked on a lot. We freed ourselves from the ropes and tape but we were locked in the closet and no one could hear us banging on the door. He pulled the classic TV stunt and climbed through a vent into the next room over and opened the door for me to get out.

It got so bad that I wanted to die. I thought in detail about the least painful and fastest way to go. The only reason - the ONLY reason - I didn't kill myself was because I couldn't figure out if I would go to hell for doing so. I searched the Bible for it, high and low and couldn't figure out if I'd go to hell for committing suicide. I got close a few times and ultimately decided not to because I didn't want to spend an eternity in hell on the off chance that it would send me there.

I endured what seemed like an eternity of being picked on. He wanted to make my life miserable and he did. He succeeded. I now hated him and would never like him ever again. Then, The Super Bowl came around, when I was 14. There was this other guy that I liked, named Logan. He told me he liked me, he wrote me songs and poems and one of the girls I thought was my friend asked if she could talk to him online to get to know him better (AIM was all the rage then, you know, so cool to talk online instantly). I said sure, of course, gave her his screen name and she had a long conversation with him.. which she printed out. He told her that I lied about everything, that he never did any of that for me, that he was not into me and that he could never date someone who was as pathetic and ugly as I was. She passed it around youth group that Super Bowl Sunday. She wouldn't let me see what she was passing around but everyone else was reading it and laughing and I finally just grabbed it out of someone's hands and started reading it quickly. I tore it up into as many pieces as I could and threw it in the trash. I remember the guys pointing and laughing and calling me pathetic and I just cracked. I ran out and cried - something I refused to do around anyone ever because it showed weakness.

I couldn't handle being picked on anymore. I told my parents I wasn't going back to that church even though my uncle was the youth pastor there. I had no friends there, everyone hated me, for no reason, other than it started because I liked some idiot of a guy in the youth group who wasn't into me.

My dad decided one day that it would be a good idea for me and this boy to sit down and have a talk. I refused. Multiple times. I locked myself in my room and said I would not talk to him. One day he forced me to go to church, I sat there, was ready to leave and he said "You're talking to him." I said "No, I'm not." he said "Yes you are." and when I didn't listen he picked me up and literally had to drag me into the little office, kicking and screaming like a 3 year old because that is how much I did not want to talk to him.

I sat on one end of the table, he sat at the other, our parents in the middle on either side.

"Cherise, what would you like to say to him?"His mom asked.
"Nothing."
"Cherise, be honest with him, what do you think about him?" she demanded I tell him. I had tears streaming down my face and he sat across the room with his arms folded and glaring at the floor. I looked up at him and he looked me in the eyes and I said;
"I hate you. And I want you to die." and I meant every word of it.
"Good. " He responded.
"No, no that is not good! You should not want someone to hate you that much. What do you have to say for yourself?" his mother yelled at him.
"I'm glad she hates me! It's better than her liking me and telling everyone that she likes me." he responded.
"Trust me (insert name), I hate you. I hate you more than I have ever hated anyone in my entire life. I wish you would burn and die the worst death a person could possibly die because I hate you that much and never want to see your stupid sorry face ever again."
"Cherise! That is uncalled for. You need to apologize." his mother told me.
"No."  I meant every word. To this day, 11 years later, I remember this like it was yesterday. All of the hurtful comments, exactly where I was sitting, exactly what he was wearing, I remember how I was feeling and the fact that he alone started the revolution that made me want to kill myself. He started it all. I had never been so depressed in my life as when I was 14 years old and I would never relive it even if someone paid me 80 billion dollars because they invited a time machine and wanted me to test it. I would not ever relive that. Ever.

There really isnt a day that goes by that I don't think about all of those hateful things that were said to me. As I get older I still hear whispers from girls who think my husband is attractive; "Why is he with her?" they are strangers who mean absolutely nothing, but those words take me back to when I was 11-14 years old and told that I was horrible.

It is a daily struggle for me to find value in myself when my younger years I was told I was not good enough and never would be. I try so hard to accomplish things and always fall just short and I'm sure it has to do just with my own mental process. I don't know how to rewire my own thinking and I look for validation everywhere from everyone because I feel like I just can't do it on my own.

I wish I had the answers, I do. But like the commercials say "It gets better."

My husband loves me, my daughter loves me, I have friends, I have family, I laugh a lot.. but I don't know how to get over the things that affected me the most, which are what I told you about today.

P.S. -  Thought I'd mention that the guy who made my life hell has apologized for it. Legitimately apologized. But, unfortunately apologies don't take away memories.