#palringo

This school was hard core Christian. It was run out of a church, small town based, very much so had that bible thumping redneck agenda going on. Most of the kids going to this school also went to church there and their parents worked for the school, church, or both, and EVERYONE knew each other and who they were and where they stood on the totem pole. If your parents worked for the school or church and you went to church there, you were automatically higher on the pole, and sad for me, being an outsider, parents didn’t work for the school or go to church there, I was smack bottom. Between the totem pole and the typical private school cliques, it was social hell for poor me. I was a California avocado swimming in a pool of southern sweet tea sat atop a mountain of bibles, with no end in sight.

 So as a 10 year old 4th grader, moving from a Californian private school that was relatively laid back to a southern private school with strict uniforms and even taught Latin, it was a huge culture shock. At this same time I was also beginning puberty, and that’s about the time you start discovering which gender you prefer, if any at all and let me tell you that first year of being questioned which boy I liked when I really was starting to take a liking to the girls, was weird. I felt ashamed of it, but at the same time not. The stuff I was taught growing up that I should get married to a man and give him kids and be a home maker was telling me it was wrong, but something deep inside was telling me no, this is right, you don’t need to marry a man, you don’t like men (to be found out later I’m actually a bit more flexible lol), and it was deeply confusing. I saw my fellow classmates and saw them all expressing interest in the opposite sex, and I really was just hiding the fact that I took a preference to the girls by saying I really didn’t care. To be noted, though, I had been struggling with my gender identity since I was very young, before I even started kindergarten, so whether at the time I was straight or gay, it was changing most definitely.

 Around this same year, 4th grade, I was introduced to an instant messaging app called Palringo after I got an iPod touch for Christmas. A quick overview of this app, at the time I got in to it, all you needed was an email, and you could have an account, and you could join whatever group you wanted. The age restrictions at the time were technically 13+, but hey look at me, rebellious 10 year old. I ended up joining a group for teens and lied, saying I was 16, using a fake picture and everything. I posed as this very girly girl in my online persona, I was somewhat flirtatious, “dated” a mod from the group  (dating being we had each others usernames in our profiles with hearts) and learned way too much, way too soon. I was 10 years old and the people in this group thought I was 16 because I lied and were telling me about sex, anatomy of both sexes, and teaching me slang and phrases one would find in urban dictionary.

I became obsessed with this app. It took over my life. I didn’t really talk to people at school anymore, I didn’t talk to my one friend on my block, and basically my last couple years of elementary school disappeared on this app where I learned about sex, sexuality, gender, and drama. By the time I was 11, I had become pretty solid in the fact that I didn’t like boys, but pretended I did at school. Instead I was open about liking girls on Palringo, since people didn’t judge me there. I eventually found a group of people who I consider to be my high school friends. When I met them, I came clean about my lie with another lie, just not as far fetched. I told them I was 13 instead of 16, yet in reality I was still just 11 or 12. And I got along well with these people. I even met my current girlfriend during this time in these groups. But my real life in person social life was dead. I connected with no one, I became severely depressed, and by the time I was 13 or 14, I was self harming.

 My depression came on about the time I was 12 or 13. I was t this Christian school that I didn’t belong in, I couldn’t be myself there, and my social life was dead between that and palringo taking over my life. I was also dealing with gender identity issues and being scared to talk about it with anyone. I certainly couldn’t talk to my parents about it, I had attempted to tell them about liking girls and being gay and they told me I was going to hell and took all my electronics and went through my private possessions. I couldn’t talk to anyone at school about it because that place was the same way, Christian and frowned on it. It’s not like I can change who I’m attracted to. So again I turned to palringo, which was fine communication wise, it just lacked that physical aspect. I couldn’t hear them say the words, or I couldn’t feel them hug me, and I really thrive off human touch in all forms, romantic, platonic, etc.

I quickly spiraled into being suicidal at the age of 14, already been self harming for about 8 months, at that point. I still have horrible scars from it that I’ll probably have forever. I had been seriously dating my girlfriend (who I’m still with!!) for a year by the time I was 15. It was long distance and text based, sometimes we could talk on the phone but had to make sure our parents didn’t find out, so that was very limited. She has talked me out of suicide a few times now, but the most notable time was the very first time. After living in Alabama and going to this Christian school, my dad’s job moved back to California, so we picked up and moved again. I was about 15 I believe, or 14 about to be 15, and we moved in the last third of my 8th grade year. My parents, for financial reasons, decided to put me in public school for the last third of 8th grade. I had never attended public school at this point. I’d only ever attended private Christian schools. Oh man did this public school almost kill me. I experienced outright bullying like never before. I’d experienced it before but it was always subtle and underhanded. At this public school, it was very direct. I was called fag, fatty, fat lesbian, and more of those in other variations, along with bullying in the form of the popular girls wouldn’t let me change in the bathroom because they didn’t like the fact I wouldn’t change in front of them. They would harass me and physically push me around. And of course I didn’t fight back, I was taught my whole life to turn the other cheek.

That small span of 3 months, I almost put a bullet in my head. I couldn’t talk to my parents, they disapproved of the fact that I was gay, they didn’t like the people I hung out with because they were also gay, I wouldn’t have gotten sympathy or help from them. I knew where my dad kept the guns. We were in a small apartment that my dad’s company was providing us and my dad stored his guns in the closet in his room. I planned it for a week. Grocery day, I would come home from school while my mom and sister were still out, I’d grab the hand gun, load it with one bullet, and stash it under my bed, which I did. It sat under my bed for 3 days. Every night, I sat in bed thinking about pulling it out and finally ending it. For all I knew, high school would just be another 4 years of this bullying. One night, I was sitting in bed after a particularly bad day. They bullying had been extra bad and I was beyond reasoning. I finally pulled that gun out. I was talking to my girlfriend, Jali, and telling her my goodbyes. I told her goodbye and was talking to her, trying to calm my storm and get the balls to just end it. She had nothing but soothing words for me. Somehow she knew I was serious, despite me not actually telling her what I was doing or about to do. I remember putting the gun in my mouth, loaded and cocked, all I had to do was flex that index finger, and I would be gone. Jali had sent me a message saying “I will miss you. You have been nothing but a light in my life and I don’t know what I’ll do without you. Please don’t do this.” I remember it vividly. I can see the screen in my head to this day as if I’m reading it all over again. I put the gun away. Unloaded it and stashed it back under my bed. And I cried. I cried so hard my eyes hurt for days. I bottled so much up and hid so much from everyone in an attempt to be the person my parents want me to be and to be strong for all my friends and for Jali that I was being broken from the inside out. I forever thank her for keeping me alive that night and the other couple times I was close to ending it. She kept me around to finally meet her beautiful self and finally find peace and acceptance.

 This was a tough post to write, and it didn’t even really scratch to surface of the things I experienced in middle school and high school. Christian school showed me that even in extreme peer pressure to be like everyone else and in strict guidelines of who to be, you can still pull through and be your own light and be yourself. The internet and Palringo have shown me things my parents haven’t even talked to me about yet. I’m 20 years old and my parents still have not had a sex talk with me. I learned it from the internet and my internet friends. They taught me it’s okay to be me and who I am and that I am my own person, not something to please my parents.