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when i think of school, i think of
bullies. four in particular. four
below average, unattractive, hairspray-clad girls. they
were popular, and i wasn't. i liked to read, and they couldn't. i listened to michael jackson, while
they preferred happy happy hardcore.
these irrelevant differences caused them to torment
me for the duration of senior school. i
was a wimp. when confronted, i
would turn crimson and shake. i
didn't have a clue how to stand up for myself, until my final year of
school. to this day i
hold marilyn manson
mostly responsible for my survival of year eleven, and in particular the
track 'beautiful people'.
before i reached that
year, i'd experienced my fair share of crap. i'd been kicked, pushed,
shoved down stairs, called names, laughed at, spat on, talked about,
ignored, intimidated and had things stolen from my bag. the
verbal was so much more difficult to deal with. being
called a name specifically engineered to humiliate you is a lot harder to
forget than something physical. if it wasn't my
hair, it was my shoes. if it wasn't my
achievements, it was my weight. they always found
something to draw attention to. something to
ridicule.
it gradually wore me down. i didn't walk without fixing my eyes upon the
floor, i tried to make myself as un-noticeable as
possible and pray that they'd overlook me. i had a few boyfriends [not sure how, considering
my shyness] and they tended to be older than me, or in some way generally
accepted. i hated
myself, consequently the 'relationships' never lasted very long. my self-mutilation began at age thirteen, the slight present
day scars on my arms are nothing in comparison to hidden ones.
when i look at people
who've hacked their visible bits [forearms, etc] to shreds i can't help thinking the main reason they've done it
is to attract attention. maybe they're starved of
it, or something. when i
did it, drawing attention to myself was the last thing on my mind. i needed an outlet for the
pain, frustration and anger and i didn't want anyone else to know i was
doing it.
this was before manson,
so anybody who's about to mention his onstage broken bottle antics in
conjunction with what i did is mistaken. i wasn't influenced by anything
other than my self-pity.
age fifteen
one afternoon, i was at home [i
had no friends - where else would i be] repairing
one of my RE folders while listening to 'history: past present and
future'. my brother was cleaning his room, and in
the midst of throwing out old cassette tapes. i later spotted a copy of 'antichrist superstar'
and out of curiosity more than anything, took it from the box and put it
aside in my room. that night i
couldn't sleep, and ended up listening to the tape on my headphones. i fell asleep with the music
still playing, and woke the next morning to the chorus of 'beautiful people'
assaulting my eardrums. i
felt decidedly different.
i took it with me to school. my
armour.
instead of staring at my shoes while everyone else
piled onto the bus first as usual, i pushed infront and walked straight to the coveted back seat.
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i sat down, trembling under
everyone's glaring. that day i
ignored everyone, i turned the volume up to it's
fullest and stormed down the corridors, feeling them stare at me and just
not caring as much.
night after night i
listened to the tape. i
quickly deciphered the lyrics to most of the songs, and found the rest
online. i printed them
off and put them on my wall above my bed, so whenever i
was in my room i saw them. became
enveloped by them. felt safe in them. i'd never encountered such channelled violence. such
brilliance.
my thirst for mr. warner-related information was unquenchable, and i began to make proper use of the internet. i wanted to know where he was
from, what he looked like, why he was so angry, what motivated him, how he
made use of every resource in order to reinvent himself, what school was
like for him, if he had a girlfriend. this was, of
course, well before all the manson television
appearances and magazine covers we have here now. over
the following months i accumulated posters from
my brother's old issues of 'kerrang!' and any
magazine article of relevance i could get my
hands on was promptly stuck on my wall.
for a while, i didn't
branch out to any other goth/metal artists, i just kept listening to the tape religiously. within a year i had all manson's albums and all four walls of my tiny bedroom
as well as the ceiling and both sides of the door were covered in pictures
of him. it spurred my interest in corsets and
fishnets, now so mainstream. i
acquired my very first manson t-shirt [which i still own, of course] and wore it proudly.
while i was out, or at
school, i wanted people to see me. the black lipstick crept in and my hair was dyed. i wanted them to pay attention
to me, to mock and ridicule my clothes, and to laugh at my make up. it was a mask. i
was bubble-wrapped, i felt like nothing could
touch me and i began to stop caring if it could. i wanted them to look at me
because i knew if they were laughing at my clothes
and the facade i'd adopted - they weren't really
laughing at me. my obsession grew, and the
bullying stopped. i was
still laughed at, but it wasn’t so bad.
it sounds stupid, but it was all i had. it got me through the
last year and my exams, and in the final months i
even thought i was enjoying school. because i was able to hide the
'real' me, i had new found confidence. i became quite relaxed and
enjoyed my favourite lessons [drama and religion]
properly. i could talk
to people, and in many cases my taste or attire was the conversational
starting point.
then i left school. i went to college, picked the
wrong subjects and ended up quitting after a year. i'd gotten so deep into hiding the way i used to be, it truly became the past tense. now i'm the way i am because it's me. i'm being myself and i'm
not forcing anything i don't want people to see
down. i'm still a freak,
and i still suffer name-calling from random
people on the street. people who don't know what i've been through. people who
would ignore me entirely if i looked like
everyone else. i'm still me.
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