The search for acceptance is never an easy one. Often we end up either sacrificing a part of ourselves in order to fit in… or we end living a duplicitous lifestyle that catches up with you in the long run. Sadly I did both…
“Can’t sit here…seat’s taken” Many of us will remember this line uttered again and again whilst Forest Gump searches for a seat on the bus; many of us also know what it’s like to search for our own niche, our own “seat”, and be told time and time again that “this seat’s taken”. I remember this search (all too well), being a kid that went to five different schools during his childhood.
I was (and still am, lol) quite different from most people around me. I could never really put my finger on it, but I just knew I was different. I never really fit in any groups or cliques as myself.
So, I swiftly learned the art of acting (and later compartmentalizing) in order to get what I so desperately thought I needed…acceptance and attention.
At no time was this more evident than during my middle school years. I had just moved in with Dad and began attending a new school and a new church.
Our family began searching for churches until we eventually found one we liked. I wasn’t a Christian at the time, but I had been raised in the church so I knew all the lingo.
When we began attending this church the youth program was only about 5-10 kids, and when I finally departed (over 2 years later) it had grown to roughly 70-80 youth.
As long as I kept up the right persona, these church kids accepted me; I even started “going out with” (whatever that means) one of the nicer looking girls from the church (who by the way just recently had her first child) and was voted one of the top leaders of the youth group.
Meanwhile, I had begun to use smokeless tobacco as well as cigarettes whenever I could; I also had been introduced to pornography and began watching or looking at as much of it as I could. (these were the days before I had the internet)
So one could say I began my three addictions in middle school: Pretending, Pornography and Pall Mall’s. I still struggle, to this day, with first two; the third I was thankfully able to give up soon after I got out of the military.
Of course, this duplicitous, wandering lifestyle soon caught up with me though. My relationship with my lovely girlfriend went sour, my grades were D’s and F’s and I was forced to leave my position of leadership in the youth.
Finally, I had to leave my Dad’s and go back to living with my mom because no one knew what was wrong with me and why I was so depressed.
Part 2 of this series will cover my high school years and the start of my military career…
