Fighting Through my 8th Grade Year

In 8th grade, I was a quiet kid. Always trying to sit in the back and hide from being called on, and whenever the teacher called on her, her face would get cherry red, and the other kids would sit there and roll their eyes or laugh at me and point it out. I wanted to be popular and fit in. I was very insecure and would wear sweatpants or sweatshirts and I wasn't even a big kid! It was the words that people would call me and I would let it all get to my head.  Then when I would wear leggings or jeans with a semi-nice shirt and those were considered my “good” days. 

I would date boys so they would tell me I'm beautiful because I didn't feel it. I was that kid that would always feel alone when I had so many kids around me, nobody smiled at me in the halls, and if they did it was because they just heard something awful about me that wasn't even true.

My parents are divorced, I never really got to understand it until I got up to 8th grade and started blaming it on myself. It was hard going back and forth every other week (which we still do) with all that going on. My parents were going through a hard time with money and on top of that, I had a person in my life going through drug addiction and ripping everyone off. 

I tried telling my mom something was wrong, she ended up not believe me until she saw it with her own eyes. She was always working nights and cleaning or sleeping during the day and during the night, that's when he left the house and came back different. All the bullying, the rumors, drama going around about me, losing a few of my closest friends, being the middle person of my mother and father, made the thought of losing someone close to me a lot worse. 

It took a while but the drama and rumors slipped into my father's ears and unsteadily through his mouth, he began to have trust issues with me. This is where I began to put walls up between me and my family. I never talked to anyone at home, I didn't even feel safe at home for the majority of the time especially at my mom's. 

Throughout the good, the bad, and the ugly, I listened to music... I tried multiple different genres. The song that I found that really stuck out to me was “Fight Song by Rachel Platten”. I thought that song was the coolest song, and when I saw the video for the first time I was wowed by it. For every album I listened to I tried to relate it to my life. “Fight Song’s” words helped me through the most difficult time in my life.

“Take back my life song, Prove I'm alright song”

Through my year of sadness and hurt the only friends that were really there for me and were willing to put their foot out and speak up were my closest friends Jonah and Summer. I told them everything I needed to, wanted to and didn't want to. They always knew when I was down and helped me get back up. Even on my worse days they always seemed to crack a smile out of me somehow. I was always trying to prove to someone that I was still me and still trying to be happy. I didn't want to be upset anymore. I didn't want to make my friends leave because they didn't want to deal with it anymore, that was the last thing I needed.

“Losing friends and I'm chasing sleep, Everybody's worried about me”

As I started off my story I lost a couple of friends due to all the drama and the rumors, the whole thing made me distraught. I never went to sleep at a reasonable time due to all of the overthinking and anxiety. My friends were always worried because they saw behind closed doors when no one else did. They always were waiting for me with open arms and a shoulder to cry on. 

I didn't think anyone else could relate to me and what I was going through. 

“Starting right now I'll be strong And I don't really care if nobody else believes, 'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me” 

My friends were always telling me to be strong. I couldn't see the strength in me but my friends did so I told myself every day to be strong. It was hard and that's that part where I saw a lot of fight still left in me. Because if I could still even crack a smile near my father or my family, in general, I saw that as strong. 

In the end, when I got up to high school the bullying was no longer, and my relationship with family is getting better, people decided to grow up! I have seen a lot of changes in myself. I'm still trying to find out who I am, like everyone else, and care a little less about what everyone else thinks, sometimes i catch myself caring. I'm learning along the way. Just like everyone else, everyone is fighting to get somewhere better. My family member is a year and a half clean and fought his way through it and is still fighting to keep that addiction away.  I still see times where my dad struggles to trust me which is very annoying because he always scares all of my friends away but everyone has battles and I guess that's where I still have to fight. “Fight Song” is the song that had a really good impact on my life and kept me fighting.