I am in my mid twenties. A grown man, and I still struggle with the person in the mirror staring back at me.
I thought that I was over it, that it was left behind in the memory box of my thirteen birthday, along with my dairies and photographs that speak volumes about who I really am: not the asshole I pretend to be, but the scared little boy seeking for understanding. I guess some of us take a little longer to grow out of the box that others put us into because we allowed them to begin with.
As a child I was expected to be nothing but perfection, or it felt like it anyway. My grandmother raised me which isn't out of the ordinary, growing up in a small town in Mexico is typical for this to happen; parents leave their children to seek better jobs in the USA. I come from a big family that went through a lot of hardship after Grandpa died; they pretty much had to raise one another while working to put food on the table. My generation didn't have to work in the fields like our parents did, we are the lucky ones. Especially myself, the orphan that Grandma took in. How I ended up under Grandma's care is a whole different, and irrelevant to this, story. Point being, I was the one enjoying the good life and I better take advantage of it, I was suggested by some family members.
At nine years old, I didn't know what had happened in the past that put a scarlet letter on my back, but I was constantly reminded that I was the spoiled brat. Such memories have no longer effect on me as I am an adult, and I honestly don't give a damn. However, at that impressionable age, I did take it to heart. It hurt. It scarred me for the following ten years.
Not only was I trying to understand my upbringing, but at the same time, I started to notice that I didn't look at girls the way other boys did; it was very confusing and I had no one to go to. People whispering in my ear the reasons why I was left with Grandma, people calling me names because I had more female friends, people telling me how smart I was and that I had to keep up the good work, people physically attacking me and harassing me for some odd reason I couldn't see myself. "Keep it cool," I told myself, "You have to stick it out a little bit longer; you have no choice."
And I did it. I stopped eating in order to keep control over my life; how could I deserve a meal when I didn't achieve more than I could have? I didn't say a word about the feelings I developed for a boy at age eleven, even though I wanted to scream that I liked him just the way my classmates began to like the opposite sex. I got tired to be pushed around too many times, and I pushed back, and I became the bully. I kept the good grades that I was expected to get. And I overlooked my past which I keep doing to the present day.
I did what I thought everyone wanted me to do, and I was hoping to be happy, but it never happened. Instead, I hated myself more than anyone ever did. So, influenced by the media and convinced that I deserved the punishment, I started purging in my twelve birthday.