8th grade was the worst year of my life emotionally. It felt like I had gone from on top of the world to the bottom of the barrel being stepped on by every living creature imaginable. I was a wreck…but I couldn’t let anyone see that. But then again, they never asked.
My parents told me I had lost their trust so I figured, “Welp, guess you just need to be sneakier.” At no point did I regret what I had done, I just hated that everyone knew about it! Once my business was all over the school, I was confronted endlessly by students about what had occurred. I was embarrassed, even though I loved attention, this wasn’t the attention I wanted. At the time I wanted to be left alone. Why couldn’t everyone just forget what had happened? I sure enough was trying to!
The friends of the girlfriend were the worst. One girl, who frankly was much bigger than me, approached me in the hallway and threatened to beat me up because I was the “slut who slept with her friend man”. Surprisingly I wasn’t scared of her beating me up, I was scared she might sit on me and crush me. So I smartly walked the other direction without enticing her further…I knew better than to get in a fight over a man….esp with someone who seriously outweighed me lol.
Another girl was a person I considered to be a friend. She approached me while at my locker and asked me if everything was true. I told her yes it was, then she slapped me. As I felt the heat of my anger rush to my ears a thought came in my head, “You just got off from suspension, don’t hurt her.” Still angry, yet subdued, I got in her face pushing her into the locker explaining to her, ” because I considered you a friend I will not hit you back, not to mention I don’t want to get in trouble, but please understand we are no longer friends and if you ever lay a hand on me again, I can’t promise I won’t hit back…my mother didn’t even hit me, so consider yourself lucky”.
Well, it went something like that. Let her tell that story she will say that she hit me so hard that she left a handprint… NO MA’AM, YOU DIDN’T…But I forgave you then and still forgive you now, this is just me keeping it real. So now that the air is clear on that…I will continue…
As I was saying, on more than a few occasions I kept getting accosted by the girlfriends friends, but at no point did the girlfriend ever approach me as if she wanted to fight. That fact right there made me understand how people thought girls were dumb. Like, why you trying to fight somebody else drama? Besides, I don’t fight over men! Even then I realized that to do that would make me look weak and like I couldn’t handle all the talk. So I figured to turn the other cheek and ignore them would make me look like the bigger, more mature person.
But on the inside I was dying. No one once cared to ask me how I was doing, not my parents, my siblings, my family, the counselors, the teachers, the students, the church…not even my “friends”. So I began to be distant to all of them. No one cared about Faithe, so why should I care about them? I’ll just use them to fake like everything is fine, but I don’t trust any of them.
I began to be so emotionally distraught that I had suicidal thoughts. Eventually, that turned into me “attempting suicide”. One day I popped about 20 pills and I laid down on my bed. As I sat there I wondered, “Will this work? Did I even take enough? Maybe I should have taken something else? Will anyone even miss me? “How will I know if it’s working?” “Do I really want to die, or do I just want someone to pay attention?”. As I sat there with my thoughts, I started to feel a little sleepy and then realized,”This is stupid! I don’t want to be sick or die!”
So I rushed to the bathroom and made myself throw up. When my father inquired I just said I wasn’t feeling well and told him I had taken 6 pills because of bad cramps. He scolded me said I knew better than to take that many and put me back to bed. I remembered thinking, “If only you knew how many I had taken…” I didn’t attempt anymore, but the thoughts never went away.
Instead, the thoughts became more morbid. I had always had a twisted mindset growing up, burning ants with matches, laying hot wax traps for insects, using scorching hot water to kill insects. I was enthralled with the way they died. Wondered if they knew they were dying and what their thoughts might be. To some, that may seem like nothing, but I tortured insects because I knew I would get in trouble if I harmed animals or people.
But I wanted to. I fantasized about stabbing and cutting so many things, even myself. I remember wrestling my little cousin knowing I was holding his neck too tight, but I wouldn’t let go; not even sure why I did loosen my grip. I did this on several occasions. One time we went swimming and I held another cousin under water knowing he was struggling to come up for air. Eventually I let him up, and pretended like I didn’t know he was serious.
At no time was I confronted, I knew I was wrong and I knew I had a problem but no one cared to investigate my aggression. Maybe because like everything else, I hid it and masked it with a smile and my quiet nature. But little did everyone know, I was a ticking bomb. I was just so ANGRY.
At home, I always had an attitude and wanted everyone to leave me alone. Meanwhile at school, I just kept ignoring the comments while I smiled, plotting my revenge. I wanted people to bleed. Wanted them to feel my pain. Daydreamed of choking some people or poisoning them so no one would know it was me. I desired to hurt and kill…only thing that stopped me was knowing that consequences would follow.
I was cold inside. So when I was told that a guy in our class liked me, naturally I assumed, “Oh, he just wants to have sex.” But because it seemed like every other guy was scared to talk to me now, and I still felt so flattered and amazed that someone had the guts to say they liked me, I decided to see what this one was about.
For the life of me, I didn’t understand why he liked me. I even asked if he was new to the school, but he said he had been there since 7th grade. He told me he knew about everything and didn’t care and still wanted to get to know me. Again, I was flabbergasted. Nobody wants to get to know Faithe, they just want to use her. But I was lonely, so I let him in.
I still had my guard up, but we officially started “dating” and it seemed like we could talk for hours about nothing and everything at the same time. I still figured he wanted sex, so I told him we should do it, even though I wasn’t really wanting to, but I wanted to give him what I thought he wanted. He told me then that it was cool with him, if that’s what I wanted to do. That felt like a trick question so I told him, “Yeah it’s what I want!”
Again, it was to happen at school, in the same back of the auditorium as my previous encounter. However, this time there was a group of couples there and we all sat around while each couple took turns. When it was our turn we went into the bathroom and made out, but I began to express how I felt confused. I recall him looking at me and telling me again that we didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to. I finally admitted that I didn’t. Told him it didn’t feel right and asked if we could wait. He told me that was perfectly fine with him.
That was the moment I realized somebody did care about me and how I felt. After we left the bathroom another couple went in and the guy asked for a condom, my guy gave him his. As I sat there staring at this person who showed me how much he cared, I got horny! I told him I changed my mind, but he informed me he didn’t have another condom…so I was a lil pissed, but still pleased as we continued to make out.
I never had sex with that guy even though I did want to, it didn’t happen and he didn’t pressure me. He was the first guy I felt respected me and genuinely took the time to try to get to know who I was. So I vowed not to have a relationship with anyone who couldn’t at least offer me that same foundation of friendship. But if I just wanted sex…well that was another story… I was still Freaky Faithe.
I never cheated but I wanted to. I still wanted more sexually so whenever the opportunity presented itself I indulged in living up to the expectation of Faithe being a freak. Case in point…Scene: a friend’s birthday party that I lied to get to go to. My boyfriend was there and this was the first time I was allowed to go to a party, so I felt the need to show out. I paid the most attention to my boo, but the other guys really turned me on because they were finally giving me attention like they used to.
I remember wearing my sisters spandex pants and I made sure I danced seductively on every cute guy there. Even did a lap dance train *meaning I was passed from lap to lap as guys eagerly awaited a chance for me to arouse them-about 8 guys in a row*. I hopped from the couch to chairs and even a dresser as I would grind on these guys wanting and feeling them get hard. The look of anticipation from the guys waiting and the moans vibrating in my ear, drowned out the noise of everyone else there… Oh I was on a euphoric high!
It turned me on more knowing my boyfriend was there, watching. But I knew it could also be deemed disrespectful, so I grabbed him and sat him on the floor. Then I proceeded to slide into a split and pop in front of him. That got everyone’s attention! I had no clue what I was doing, but I didn’t let that be known. I committed to it like I was a pro, grinding on him and seducing him more than I had the others, because after all he was my boo. Let’s just say that I had tongues wagging at school again.
Every chance I had to act out, I did. Whether it was with my boo when we were together, or with another guy when we weren’t. I could not go very long without some type of sexual interaction. I needed to feel wanted. So when it felt like another girl wanted my man, and he gave her attention, I felt miserable, like I wasn’t enough.
We wound up breaking up over his reluctance to tell her to back off. I didn’t fight over him, but I was not willing to let someone else have the one person who cared about me. So made a mental plan to get him back. I made sure I dressed cute (i.e spandex dresses), flirted with other guys, even boldly telling him, “I know you want me still, I see you staring”. Regardless if he was or not, lol, we eventually got back together and I felt so much better because I felt as if he chose me over another girl.
I must admit that my experience with my boo was the silver lining to my 8th grade saga. Even though we had highs and lows, breakups and fights, me feeling insecure,etc… it kept me alive..and from hurting others. Little did he know, had he not cared about who I was at that time, I would have probably succumbed fully to my depression. My relationship with him helped me cope with my drama at school. With him, people didn’t talk about me as much anymore, it was like they almost forgot, they accepted me. My life was almost normal again…almost…
***End of middle school…stay tuned for The High School Years…***
FINDING FAITH(E) 