So with the quarantine still in full swing, I'm finding new ways to pass the time. One thing I decided to do was read an old short story I wrote in the summer of 2012 when I was 14 years old. Like most things 14 year olds write, it sucked. It really, really sucked. As I got older I realized this and cringed whenever I thought about it. Upon finally rereading it in full nearly 8 years later as a 22 year old, I realized that not only was the story exceptionally bad, it was also an absolutely terrifying look into my mindset at that age. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's go back a bit.
Just so you, dear reader, have the necessary background information, I'm going to let you in on what was going on during my early teenage years. From ages 13 to 16, I was depressed. Upon entering middle school, I had zero self esteem and was painfully socially awkward. Seeing everyone else be a social butterfly (or at least have the appearance of being one) didn't help either. To make things worse, I was also relentlessly bullied by various people throughout this point in my life. Needless to say, I was very sad and angry and buried myself in music and video games to take my mind off of my situation. I decided to write a short story as a catharsis during the summer between 8th and 9th grade. For what it's worth, I do think it helped me a little bit but that doesn't change my current feelings on it. I'm not going to go into the full details of the plot because it's
really gut-wrenching to even talk about, but I will say it was
essentially a mystery story about a semi self-insert character who, while sleepwalking, exacts
revenge on people who wronged him and goes on the run, slowing figuring out the details of what happened. It wasn't like a shooting or mass murder type thing, I wasn't that screwed up, but it did involve people being attacked. Now that I've set the scene, let's get into the story and why I'm ashamed of it.
Right off the bat, my main character gives this super pretentious and annoying "not like the other kids" spiel and that vibe carries throughout the whole story. I also for some reason felt the need to have characters representing pretty much everyone who was in my life at that point, even if they only appear once. All the characters in this story regularly get into violent fights for some reason, like excessive violence is just a part of everyday life in this town and no one really questions it. Come to think of it, I wrote just about every character to be a fucking lunatic. Some characters help the main character knowing he's a wanted murderer just because they were friends before or casually talk to him even though they just met him and know he's a fugitive. In addition to the sleepwalking attacks, the main character, while in control of himself, assaults by my count at
least 7 people and even kills a few. Some of them are attacking him, so
in those cases it's justified, but it's just so fucking dumb that this
dude is just casually beating up and shooting people without a second
thought. Also, nobody seems to have any sympathy for the victims of his crimes. Like, yeah, they were over the top assholes but they were still people. Even the main character, who involuntarily attacked them in his sleep, is like "yeah they all deserved it, so whatever" with others around him agreeing with him. While I'm on this, I'm going to talk about how I portrayed the bully characters because my God, this is so out there and extreme it makes me want to bang my head against the wall. Every bully character is pretty much an irredeemable human being with no positive qualities, acting comically evil and judgemental. The thing that finally sets the main character off is a super over the top prank that involves him being kidnapped, stripped naked by these characters, tied to a pole, videotaped, and that video being shown to hundreds of people. Also, the way the reveal of the video is done is very contrived and idiotic and would never happen in real life. There's also a scene that involves a fight between a gang and white supremacist group that the protagonist and his friends are caught in the middle of because both groups have a bone to pick with them, but they also both happen to find them at the house they're staying in at the same time for some reason. The guy who owns the house ends up pulling out a bunch of military grade shiny weapons and arms the whole group of friends which makes no fucking sense. Oh, by the way, that character happens to both be a psychologist with a ton of brain scanning technology in his basement but he's also a lawyer. Jesus Christ my head hurts just talking about this. I'll skip over a bunch of dumb shit and wrap it up: the main character turns himself in, goes to a wacky shack for 8 months, gets better, and continues his life like nothing happened, the end.
Okay, because talking about this clusterfuck of a story is driving me insane, I'll leave the details at that, I'm sure you get the picture. What I want to talk about now is how the story reminded me of who I was back then. I was honestly horrified. Since the plot is so incoherent, I was really reading this as a case study, a look into who I was at 14. I know I was not doing so well, like I said previously, but reading this story really showed me how hurt and angry I was back then. I was honestly a pretty miserable person and it showed through my writing. I remember sending this to a very helpful therapist who I was seeing on and off at the time due to my anxiety and depression. He's the only person other than me to ever see this work. I don't think he read the whole thing and I thank God for that because I would have probably been seeing him until the cows came home. I know he printed it out and that remains the only physical copy of this to ever exist. It's probably tucked away in a file somewhere or thrown out. There was a silver lining to this experience, however. Rereading this showed how much I've grown since I was 14 and I'm proud of what that angry, sad kid grew into. But, like I said, reading this was painful. That's why I deleted the story after I finished reading. Honestly, that felt pretty cathartic as well, deleting something born from adolescent anger and sadness. It kind of symbolizes that I'm not that person anymore. Most of those emotions I felt as a teenager are gone. Many of the people I once held absolute contempt for, I no longer really think about. Many of the things I thought were super important at that age ended up not mattering. The leftover feelings I have from that time in my life I use as motivation to improve and work hard in school and my career. I want the people who treated me poorly in high school to hear my name again one day when I accomplish something. I hope they've grown up a bit at that point and they're happy to see I'm doing well. It's like Frank Sinatra said: "The best revenge is massive success." I regret having a shitty adolescence, but I'm thankful that I've had a pretty great young adulthood so far. Here's hoping that continues.
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