I think I might just avoid chapter 1. But a while ago I began writing down things that have made me unhappy in my life, this is the second things I wrote, and I wrote for a very long time....Â
 The not-so-Catholic boy in a very Catholic school
 Both of my parents attended the local catholic school, named Holy Trinity School, and as such sent me there.
 My first day was not what youâd call average, with my mother reminding me constantly that I was a constant mess of tears at the idea of having to be separated from my mother, and also on my first day, threatening to call the Police on my kindergarten teacher, Mrs Leach. When I went to school, there were some familiar faces from my days at pre-school, and there were others that were not so familiar. As a child at this age, I canât recall much, only that I was oblivious to my surroundings, and that if I could still be this way, I would give a lot to do so. I do often wish to go back to a time in my life where I didnât have to perceive situations, and feel anxious about a person wanting to be in my presence. I do miss that simplicity in life, and I miss that simplicity in thought that goes with being that young.
 As we grew older at school, we evolved in who we were, and thatâs when things, for me, became more intense. People learned how to be horrible, people learned to be hateful, but above all of this, I think we learned what girls were.
I look back at my time being a somewhat different boy at a school that ran a platform of being archaic in their thinking, and I donât look back at it with much fondness. I only remember what was negative. I find it hard to recall positive experiences, or even recall a friend that I had there which I could say was a quality one, and one that I could say that I still have to this day. While some of us never really have friends that last forever from school, some of us do. Perhaps I am the earlier.
 It all started when I was about 9 years old. I didnât seem to show much of an interest in girls as early as the other boys in my class did. I donât understand why we were trying to impress girls at the age of 9. The whole concept just seems so ridiculous, and I look back at this and I still think it was so incredibly ridiculous, and I am now 25.
I so desperately just wanted to be like them. To just have one of those âgirlfriendsâ that they had, or as they put it âgoing out withâ one of the girls in my grade, just so that I could play into the ridiculous stereotypes that were happening in my school class at a young age. Furthermore to this, by the age of 10, I distinctly remember Valentines day gifts being exchanged between boys and girls in the class. I didnât understand this concept, and I thought that this was something that people a lot older than us did. Nevertheless, despite identifying that this was an activity that was out of our age range, I still wanted to be a part of it.
 The years dragged on, and so did this activity. The teachers at our school caught on to this activity going on, and as a result of this we were hauled in the classrooms together and told to âstop this match making business, youâre 12 years oldâ and that was that. However, it still continued, much to my own chagrin. In fact, I do recall a number of times that we emerged from the classroom and some people thought the concerns of the teachers were communicating to us were some kind of joke to them. Although I knew what their concerns were, I had to pretend that it was some kind of joke to me at the risk of being ostracised even more severely than I already was being.
 From the age of about 10 onwards, I had one bully, I wonât name him, because I donât want to bring any more attention to the life he is currently leading, which, according to the urban legend that is being gathered by my ever-resourceful mother, is a lot gambling addiction, unattractive women, bad haircuts and children that werenât planned. Call me bitter, but if you go through what I have been through, youâre allowed to have a brief moment here and there to say something a touch hateful about those who have made your life a misery. This probably does fly in the face of what modern psychology would probably tell you to think, however, a nice curse word every now and then never goes astray.
 It was from around this age, for a reason that I canât actually conclude, it started, and then it never seemed to end. It just seemed to continue. I would like to make the point abundantly clear that I have never been physically bullied. However, those scars do heal. When you are emotionally bullied, and being made to feel like exactly who you are is not good enough as a person is perhaps just as painful, and just as distressing.
 It began as just, being sworn at by the said bully and a follower that he had acquired through the obvious sphere of influence that was becoming apparent. I was mocked for my bookish nature, how much I enjoyed reading, how much I enjoyed academic pursuits, how much I enjoyed what was in the paper rather than how well they went on the footy field, how I was not like them. I knew early on that I was not one of them. I had no interest in cricket in the summer, and I had no interest in the football in the winter, so as a sportsperson, I was hardly provided with the opportunity to find my niche, being in a country town, the choice was limited.
 Then, as we grew older, it began to get a little more real. We went into the big, bad realm that was high school, and all of a sudden, pride was on the line, hormones got involved, and we became men. Women were competition. Women were sport. Women were something where your reputation was fought and lost. Who was able to âget withâ the âhotâ girls at school had the credit on the street. I just didnât buy into the culture. I didnât understand why this was such a big deal. I thought that you would stake your claim to this kind of credit in other pursuits, more meaningful pursuits. Pursuits that the world actually thought were worthy of making a contribution to the world. But no, in that time, and in that universe of my life, this was what the deal was. And this was what I had to deal with.
 I donât think that I was outwardly desperate in my pursuit of this perceived measure of self worth. Inside, I desperately just wanted to be like them. But really, from the knocks that I had taken, this had become unattainable. From being told that I was basically a worthless person because I was not like them, I now lacked the tools that I need to approach these women and have those meaningful conversations. If I was being rejected for who I was by people who should have been my peers, then members of the opposite were almost certainly going to reject me. This scar is still fresh today. I am a 25-year-old male and I have never had a proper girlfriend. Friends with benefits was as far as I have ever gotten, and I freaked out about it with thoughts of rejection and came up with the most pathetic excuse to end the arrangement. Because I perhaps didnât want her to know about my previous experiences, perhaps I didnât want her to know about what I have been through previously, perhaps I didnât want her to know anything, and I wanted to cut the chance off so that I wouldnât have to reveal the truth.
 There are a few particular moments that I remember so clearly, and I feel like my bully was so deliberate in his actions, but not so much as to make it look as if he was actively engaging in this kind of bullying.
 I recall once, I was about 14, and the school was having a âPupil Free Dayâ and that meant other people would taking the prime chance to make the most of the day off school. I didnât know of anything going on, and as per usual, I was just resigning myself to a good, solid sleep in at home and a lazy day recharging my batteries with some movies around the house. However, all throughout the week, I heard conversations taking place, ones that I knew I should not have known about, but were within my earshot. 75% of the boys in my high school class were âplanning a day down townâ and of course, I was not invited. I heard conversations almost daily about this day, and how âpumpedâ they all were for this day to take place. I look back on this day, and as I recall the details of it, the feelings of bitterness and resentment begin to come back to me. I remember telling my parents about being excluded from this. They replied with telling me that it was a ânon-eventâ and âyouâd probably have a bad time anyway, so donât worry about itâ. In hindsight, my parents were probably right. However, that still didnât fix the scar of not being asked to go in the first place.
 Another particular experience, I was around 15, and another event was in the works on a Friday night, and it seemed like everyone was invited. Again, the conversations were taking place within earshot of me; however, the invite did not roll in. This particular event is even harder for me to comprehend, because, I was sitting with a group of people, engaging in conversation, and actually thought that in moment, I was doing alright. I was getting somewhere. However, then it came. I was asked to leave the group I was sitting with, because they âdonât want you to know thisâ. I complied with their request, what was I to do? I didnât enjoy this. The off-handed remark from the girl who said that to me runs a deep scar within me, and it is moment that plays over in my head constantly. I feel like entire self worth was lost in that small moment.
 I now, still to this day, struggle with the idea of being wanted to attend something for someone. I struggle with the idea that someone might actually want to spend some time with me in a friend capacity because of this swift moment of rejection. I grew up, I went my own way, and still, I struggle with this idea that I was able to make and maintain friends in my own life. To have someone says a simple âlets hang outâ still strikes me as foreign at times. No amount of being told that it doesnât matter anymore, does not make it any better. As a victim of this kind of behaviour, you still go through your life wanting to just be asked to go to something with any of these people is all that you pine for. Just to feel like you belonged to some sort of structure for even a brief moment in your formative years is something that you long for, and that you desire so much. But that feeling of being lost never leaves you, and you live your life in a constant anxiety that no matter where you go, you donât belong, and that nobody wants you around is something that haunts you like a poltergeist. The voice that is inside your head that is constantly making you unsure of yourself. The voice that provides you with an enduring doubt throughout your life
 I told my parents about these kinds of behaviours that were going on, and on, and on. I told them about this. I cried, at length for night after night about how I didnât even think that I had a place in the world because of the way that these people made me feel. I wanted them to so desperately to do something about it. I wanted to know that something was being done. I felt so powerless in this situation, and as far as I knew, my parents were doing nothing. They gave me great reminders such as âthis will mean nothing in the futureâ and âits going to get better for you, just trust usâ.
 While all of these things came true over time, that mattered little to the guy who just wanted to be wanted somewhere. In hindsight, I think I must have been a bad child because my parents always wanted me to be around, and would have done a lot to ensure that I was alright, and perhaps I just took their love for granted and didnât realise that them providing me with everything that I needed what more than enough. I guess that maybe, I was just a product of my surroundings.
 The years went on, and the struggle seemed to be never ending. People came and went, but the story remained the same for many of the years. Never invited to anything, never feeling like I belonged to any part of the world. The feeling of rejection began to turn into anger towards basically everybody that I was going to school with. I trusted no one. I believed nothing. I took everything that was ever said to me with a grain of salt.
 However, on greater examination, I realised that I was perhaps not alone in the struggle that I was going through. Turns out that other people in my class were going through the same things, some even at the hands my own bully, and in more overt and direct ways. I had sit and watch on and witness some of the horrific things that other members of my school class had to endure, because I was just so scared of what I was witnessing, not daring to break the mould of what was in essence, your typical alpha-male wielding an unyielding influence on those around him. Unrelenting, even when the cracks in his influence began to emerge, especially to the teaching staff of the school that I was attending, who, up until the end of my attendance at this Catholic school, may have gotten away with a lot more than many would have realised. It always burned me up inside knowing that while I could only report so much to my parents and the teaching staff of my school, I always knew that they were not understanding the full picture of what was happening to me, and the student body at large as a result of this single perpetrators behaviour.
 Upon personal reflection in the times that followed these moments, I have to wonder about who knew what was going on, its extent and how much it hurt not only myself and others. In some ways, I blame the basis on which my first school was founded on, and that was Catholicism. From the moment we started attending school there, we were taught about an almighty and powerful âGodâ and person named Jesus who was created in his image, and was put on this earth to preach his message. As a result of this, we were taught, and subsequently expected to be people in his image. If I could count the number of times we were told to âbe kind to one anotherâ I would lose count rather quickly. I could definitely lose count even faster on how many times this did not translate into actions of those around me. Church service after church service, reconciliation service after reconciliation service we didnât become better people. In fact, it felt like we were becoming worse people, myself included. I didnât feel myself wanting to be better person because those around me were dragging me through their own personal muckbucket.
 However, the naivety continued, with the teachers of the school persisting with the idea that if they told us to be good people, that we would simply behave in such a manner. So much to the point that each year that we were in the high school section of where I attended, each year we had a âChristian Living Dayâ where for the privilege of a hot lunch, we would get together and say nice things to each other, and that would make everything better. While we played happy families for that one day of the year, the following day, everything returned to exactly the way that it was. I had no faith in the faith. I also suspected that perhaps the emergence of the internet age may have had something to do with the message not sinking in. Either way, this was when I made the personal choice to abandon the faith that I was raised and educated in. I didnât tell my parents about this at first, particularly my mother, because of how they would react to the idea that I donât have any belief system. But I had come to the conclusion that having a faith was now an out-dated concept, and that society had now come to know so much about the world around them and why it existed, we didnât need something to explain the unexplained. Science found me and I found sound, in a sense.
 The horrible things that continued towards myself, and possibly in even worse forms to others also continued to persist throughout our time at high school. We even had these ridiculous âinterventionâ sessions with the teachers almost at the point of begging us to âcome togetherâ as a grade, with some kind of skewed perception that were all so alike that we all could just get along, as if we donât all have separate beliefs, and just different things that we look for in those that we surround ourselves with. I didnât see much in the people that surrounded me, which I wanted to maintain something with on the days that would have followed the conclusion of my catholic education. I certainly wished, and I still wish that I could have forgotten about what I, and furthermore, we, as a group went through during the final days of our Catholic education. I think we were being taught something terrible by the forced interactions that we had to have. There is absolutely nothing to gain, both personally, and as a single entity, by being forced to be nice to each other and interact in a way that is not honest and open, with true feelings. Instead, we were taught that we should all just âget alongâ
 Upon reflection, I do find what we were basically forced into doing as being rather ignorant. I still think that what I forced into doing with my âpeersâ has affected my ability to be honest with other people. I struggle these days to put feelings forward in honest conversations. I know how I should behave in those situations, however I end up going back into learned and forced behaviours. I donât know if I will ever be able to break this cycle. It has become so second-nature for me, I have to dedicate a lot of thought and psychological power to try and not engage in those behaviours. I feel change has come upon me, but I feel like this change has only been recent.
 As an individual, I feel like I am permanently scarred as result of what happened to me when I went to the local Catholic school. I canât be in social situations without getting anxious. I canât be in social situations where I constantly doubt the fact that I am wanted. A person asking me to do things with them is something that I canât deal with. I have tried to seek help about my social anxieties. I have never asked a girl out. At this point in time, I donât think that I even will ever get to that point. I think that I would rather be alone from the rest of my life than have to be placed into a situation that would make me feel rejected, even if I didnât know the outcome. Thatâs how this makes me feel. I feel like I wonât ever recover from this. If I ever did manage to reach the point of where I can get into a social situation and pull it off, it would probably be a one time only offer.
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