From the moment you could talk, you were praised, cherished, and congratulated. It made you feel special and good enough. Then it was when you could walk. Again, you were commended. Next was the time you learn to sing the alphabet, do your math, read a book, do an experiment, write your story. They all tell you that you would grow up smart; tell you they see the potential in you. You are told that you seem better than any other kid they have talked to. These repetitive blandishments put the idea in your mind that you are already too good. It gives you the vision that you cannot fail. Your whole life, you are told that you are already the best you can be. You are deprived of what the real world was like. It leaves you lingering in a hyper reality where you believe mistakes cannot be made, failure is a punishment, and that everything you do will always be right.

Growing up with these notions, you take the easy way through life. You do everything that you know you could not possibly fail in. You refuse to challenge yourself because you are terrified of failure. You fear judgment. You are afraid of disappointing the people. The obligatory feeling to be the best at everything is overwhelming. Every day you come home with the feeling of gratification because you made an A+ on your assignments. You assure yourself that you deserve the grade as everyone else has always told you. You convince yourself that others wouldn't have been able to do as good as you did. You always came out top rank. Top Five. All A's. Known as the smart kid. All these things just pushed you further into the hyper-reality that you were already burrowed in. It's not until you make one bad grade, one mistake, and dropped to the bottom of the class that you are thrown into reality. You were never as good as you presumed. You are not as smart as everyone thought you were. Now your self -esteem is lowered. The fear of not being good enough is overpowering--Atelophobia. You are thrown into a state of despondency because you grew up with the core belief that you would succeed at everything. Life seems unfair now as you watch the people around you do so much better as you try to catch up. You are now someone you never thought you could be. Someone that is left behind, striving to follow in the footsteps of those above them.

As a child, insecurity was never something you felt. Walking beyond the fences of your house with messy hair, pajamas on, and wrong-colored socks didn’t bother you in the least bit. Angel. Adorable. Cute.  No matter how you looked, you were called those things as a kid. No adult dared to ruin the spirits of little children. You were loud, obnoxious, weird, but still unafraid of being judged. You didn't have a care in the world because you were never around people who told you otherwise.  Every insult you received, you took as a joke. You rarely got wounded by rude remarks. Maybe life thought you were being treated too well. By the age of ten, your fairytale ended.

"You're too loud." You began to silence yourself.

"You're so annoying." You began to distance yourself.

"Stop being so weird." You stopped being yourself.

"Why are you dressed like that?" You changed the way you dressed to be accepted.

"You look ugly like that." Insecurity made its way into your system. That was just the beginning.

When you got older, the world around you changed.

"What's on the inside is always better than what's on the outside," was just a saying being thrown around.

People noticed you for the way you looked. You dressed as everyone else did so that you could fit in. You regarded the girls around you and brought yourself down. You desired to look one-tenth as beautiful as them. You hungered to look as perfect.

"Skinny is beautiful." You starved yourself.

"Thigh gaps look nice." You pushed yourself to the core.

"You're too fat." You were over-obsessed with your weight.

"You sound weird when you talk," You spoke less.

You took all those disparagements to heart. The girls around you flaunted their hair, they wore short skirts, had long legs, perfect skin tone, got all the guys. You tried to be like them even though you were nothing like that. From the time you turned 12, you hated dresses, despised high heels, loathe perfectly combed hair, detested make up, abhorred tight clothing, and disfavored jewelry. You hated all the things a girl should have liked, but you dressed that way to be accepted.

"S***." You were judged even when you barely dressed half as revealing as the rest of them.

"Attention-w****." You covered up, dressed the way you wanted to dress, hoping they would all go away.

"Emo.  She wants us to notice her." You hid behind a shroud of clothing, wanting to be invisible.

They laughed at you, made fun of you, pushed you to the brink. You now had the fear of being seen--Ophthalmophobia.

Firstborn. First child. First place. First pick. Remember when you were the first everything? Your parents loved you first. They spoiled you first. Your friends chose to come to you first. They came to you first when they wanted to talk to someone. The teachers appointed you as first place. They wanted you to be the leader of the class. You use to be the popular kid that everyone followed. You use to be the child that your parents put first. You were the person that the teachers nominated first as the best student. You were simply the first for many things. Second choice? Never. You were noteworthy. Life put you above things. It was nice to feel so preeminent. Just for the time being, the feeling was incredible, knowing that you would always be chosen no matter what the circumstance.

Insecurity played such a massive role in your position, though. After becoming so withdrawn, your life was altered. Although being unnoticed came with its benefits, it wasn't always the best feeling. It came with the constant reminder that you were no longer good enough to be chosen first. No one gave you a second thought. No one wanted to spend their time with the girl who could barely talk. People turned their heads the other way as you came around. You were nothing. You had people whom you considered friends, but the question was: What did they consider you? An acquaintance, someone they could use, someone they turned to when there was no one else, the back-up person, the second choice..sometimes not even a choice. They came to you, but they were just looking for your best friend. They came to you, but they were only seeking for help. They came to you with the intent of just using you. What were you now? No longer a first choice. The feeling of unworthiness devoured you. That's all you saw yourself as now. A despicable, ignominious, useless person that would be neglected as soon as they were no longer essential. You were just a second choice or nothing at all. That is what you learned to be accustomed to.

You're lost now. There's no way out. You feel relegated. You feel inconsequential. You feel demoralized. It's scary, knowing that you're going to disappoint and let someone down. So you don't do anything about it. You don't do anything except smile while lying and pretending that you are the still the same girl that they have known their entire lives. Deep down you've given up. It all feels like a trap.  You're already six feet under. Burrowed under layers of lies that have mounted up over the years. A heavy feeling weighs down on your heart. Sort of like the feeling of entrenched guilt. It’s like you went and soaked your heart in a bunch of cement. Your conscience tells you that everything you are doing is wrong. You know, within yourself, that karma is going to get you eventually. Everything in you urges you to do the right thing now before you go any deeper, and it becomes impossible to find your way out. But..you don't listen. You chose to do this to yourself. You chose to live with the agonizingly slow, torturous culpability. There was no one else who could fix that except you, but you're too blinded by the negativity to think that there's a chance to make things right. To you, there was no hope. All you want to know now is, why did this all start?