The Aftermath

 

To my shocking surprise, I discovered that college in a small city three hours away from Strathmore didn't become the prized diamond in the rough that I was looking for. I was still realing from the depression that I was stuck in. I also had developed a strong fear of people, as I felt everyone who met me must "think I'm ugly." A lot of my first year projects in college were, in fact, based on self-portraits. I always found those to be very difficult to accomplish, simply because I thought art was an object of beauty, and I felt that I was not. I was very silent, very reserved, and really depressed. I never felt like I fit in at all.

 

In my second year of college, I decided to shorten my years of attending school and went for the Visual Communications Diploma program instead, as I felt it was comparable, and I had become somewhat lazy by this phase in my life. I continued to struggle with my course load, and my personal life was still stuck in neutral. By the third year, I had finally found a friend that I considered to be close. However, I was still very reserved and still was holding her at a distance from who I really was deep down. We eventually became roommates in this third year of college.

 

Through her, I was starting to get myself out at least a little bit. She introduced me to a tarot card deck called Osho Zen Tarot, and I found the interpretations to be very positive and inspiring. I still use that deck to this day. I began to make my own decisions about what I wanted to do. I realized that the only person who was holding me back was me. Everything in my life was a choice. I had to choose to live it openly, instead of live behind closed doors. I began to follow the advice this deck and she would pass on to me, and started finally to burst out of my isolation.

 

However, my parents didn't like the change in attitude that I was displaying and continued to try to tell me what I should do instead. I found their advice to be very negative and felt I needed some more positivity instead. This created quite a lot of friction between me and my parents, as they felt it was my roommate who was influencing me to do all these things. Any time they would accuse me of that, I got very angry. It made me feel like they had absolutely no faith in me to make up my own mind; or that I was so weak that I could be influenced by someone quite easily.

 

One day, during I think a Spring break, as I was home in our apartment and my roommate was off to Utah to hang out with some friends of hers. I was alone for the first time in a long time. I was at the time fighting with my parents and didn't want to go home, but found it quite uncomfortable to be alone. All the times I took the verbal abuse without fighting back, it wound up creating a tape-recorder that continuously played over and over again in my mind. On this day, the tape-recorder was really playing loudly in my ear, to the point that I found myself staring at myself in the mirror in the bathroom. "God, Mellissa!" I said to myself out loud. "You're ugly!"

 

I paused for a second, and remembering some advice from the tarot card deck, I decided to challenge that comment. "Okay, Mellissa, what about you is ugly?" I said to myself.

 

"Well, I have acne issues... but really... I've tried everything to try to get rid of them and they aren't leaving any time soon."

 

"Okay, Mellissa, what else besides the acne makes you ugly?"

 

I scanned my face up and down, left to right, trying to figure out what it was that people thought was ugly. After about an hour or so of really looking at myself in the mirror, I couldn't find a single thing about me that was ugly. I even found myself saying, "They were wrong! I'm not ugly at all. I'm actually kind of pretty..." It was quite the eye-opening experience for me.

 

After college, I was forced back to Strathmore, as I had no job and no money. I found a job quite quickly in Calgary, and started my working life. I was still very reserved, and found it uncomfortable to be working there as well. I didn't really fit in in Alberta, to be honest with you. I was a Star Trek/comic book geek, I was a vegetarian, and I began to turn towards a more environmental and liberal view, which made me stick out like a sore thumb. I had personality disputes with my boss, as he had a home-based slaughtering business, and made me feel like I was a bad person because I was a vegetarian. I wasn't a dick about it; in fact, I remember I was very polite about turning it down. I also wasn't the only one there who was, but he didn't pester them because they were guys.

 

After feeling like I was the bottom of a taxi-cab by working there, I began looking elsewhere to find some job that I just loved to work at. I really should have listened to the college teachers, as they were all advising the students to leave Alberta if they wanted a good career in design. It took me several years of changing jobs before I realized that as well.

 

The impact all of that verbal bullying I had happen to me as a child had in fact impacted my adulthood as well. I realized my depression and tried to take several anti-depressants in order to try to alleviate the problem. They never really worked. I also wound up moving up north from Calgary, and eventually encouraged my brother to come and live with me, as I wanted to encourage him to leave the house. I was also very lonely, which is something I never really told him. I still had no friends, except for the one in college, who stayed in touch with me via the internet, and we still keep in touch to this day.

 

One year, I was really into watching Dr. Phil's Weight Loss Challenge that he had on TV, I want to say in the early 2000s. One of the contestants on the show decided to change his name to his middle name because he felt he had a negative attachment to his name. That struck a chord with me, because I realized that I, too, had a negative attachment to my name. All those years of being insulted and tormented, with those insults ringing in my ears and playing over and over again had made me dislike my name. Every time I heard someone say "Mellissa", the sentence would complete in my mind with "you're ugly!" Realizing this, I decided to change my name slightly by giving myself a new nickname: Mell.

 

My whole life I had to tell people that my name was spelled with two l's and two s's, so when the nickname happened, I just had to keep the double l. It was part of my identity, plus I thought it made me feel more femanine in a way.

 

The simple change of giving myself that nickname did actually help break me out of that horrible loop. My family still refers to me as Mellissa, which I don't know if it will actually change ever. Since moving here to BC, everyone knows me as Mell here. It is actually very helpful and I have seen quite a lot of improvement in my view of myself since.

 

As I was turning 30, I began to get scared. I had gone this whole time without having a single date in my life. I was asbolutely terrified that I would die alone, so I joined a free online dating service and took the first person that showed any kind of interest. I moved in with him rather quickly, and was ready to walk down the aisle. (See Mell's Spell for more on that subject.)

 

During this time, I was living in Edmonton, Alberta. I had an experience at a Burger King of all places. My brother was visiting me and decided to get something to eat before we went home. In this place was a loud-mouthed asshole with two girls, just hurling insults at the people working there, about the food, among other things. It was quite uncomfortable. When my brother was ordering his food, the moron actually said to the girls that "that person over there [he pointed at me] is the ugliest woman I've ever seen!"

 

I felt the familiar sting of the sword that I've felt many times previously, and indeed was tempted to bite my tongue and do nothing about it. Then I thought to myself, "Mell, you regret not saying anything to the dumbasses who insulted you in Strathmore. You don't have to take this shit anymore. Stand up for yourself!"

 

So I did. I insulted him right back. Every time he said something, I countered by insulting his intelligence and insisting that civilized people don't do this to others. In other words, grow up, asshole!

 

For awhile I was feeling really good about myself. Eventually, he grew tired of this, and actually tried to say, "Man, why don't you shut up?"

 

I responded, "I'll shut up when you shut up first, asshole! If you can't stand the heat, don't start the fire!"

 

I felt really good about standing up to myself and have realized that I will no longer tolerate any kind of verbal attack on me anymore. I will fight back.

 

I have also realized over the years that I have problems relating to people, and definitely have problems trusting people as well. My marriage didn't make it past the third year. During the last year we were together, we moved to Burnaby, BC. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I finally feel like I fit in here. I joined the Star Trek Vancouver Meet-up group. I've made some good friends, and am striving to be more and more open every time I meet up with them. It is a struggle, because I still have these weird feelings that they all think I'm ugly. I find it difficult to stop the tape in my mind.

 

The abuse I sustained over my teenage years had a huge impact on me. I found it difficult to be patient with my career or my life and would take huge sudden risks because I felt stiffled. I also gained weight over the years, as a way to rebel against the jerks who insulted me; sort of like I was saying, "if you thought I was ugly back then, wait until you see me now!" I found comfort in cheese-smothered pasta, and have a huge sweet tooth. I continued to get haunted by memories of my past, that I wish I could get rid of. Sometimes I still have those memories come to me, and my wish that I had fought them back overwhelms me.

 

I found it increasingly difficult to make friends, and still find it hard to fully trust people. I don't have a love life at all, but now I find that I'm perfectly happy living by myself, with my cat. I would love to have a healthy relationship with someone some day, but I don't see it happening any time soon. I am getting happier with who I am for the first time in my life. I'm getting out there and meeting people, making friends, and enjoying my life. It has taken me quite a long time to get here, but I think I'm ready to put this past behind me. I am also giving it my all to lose the weight I gained over the years, in an attempt to like how I look. The weight has made me feel like I'm ugly again, and continues to do so. Also, there are family medical history reasons why I need to take better care of myself.

 

I'm not sure what my life will hold for me, as no one really does. I have to take everything one day at a time in order to get past everything. I'm sure I will continue to have bad days, where it's difficult to get motivated to do much, if anything at all. However, I am finding myself with increased optimism like I haven't had in a long time.