Teenagers

I’ve been pondering the past the last few days, finding my mind wandering at the most inopportune of moments. It’s all Facebook’s fault though, and here’s why.

I’m on Facebook (if you can find me, feel free to add me, btw, but please tell me who you are first so I’m not scratching my head). At first, it was all fun and games. Most of the office is on there, even my sister’s on there and I thought it’d be pretty useful at keeping up with friends. Of course, really, it’s not, it’s just another way for me to see how rubbish I am at not keeping in touch with people. Messages on my wall I’ve not replied to, emails sitting waiting for a reply as well. I am the queen of procrastination at times. Anyway, I digress slightly.

It started with just current friends but then I found a couple of old childhood friends and got back in touch with them. It feels fairly safe, I’m on there on my married name so most school friends/enemies wouldn’t be able to find me so easily. It was nice to get back in touch with people but it fuelled my nostalgia. I started searching names and reconnecting with a few more people.

And then it hit me. I’m still an 11-year-old girl inside, desperately terrified of being bullied again, or tricked in some way, by people I thought were my friends. I added a couple of old school friends today and then had the overwhelming thought of "What if they reject me? What if they really hated me at school?" I still have confidence in myself. Oh, I can fake it quite well, I have to if I’m gonna start leading post natal groups at some point, but really, when I go home at night and I can’t sleep, it’s the thoughts that really, everybody hates me and is laughing about me behind my back, that keep me wide awake. (Well, that and Zoe losing her blankie in the middle of the night!)

I try so hard to not let it hold me back, but the truth is, I live in an almost constant paranoia that everyone is laughing at me. It would be very easy to say that it’s because I was bullied at school (nothing physical, more emotional/mental, which is very hard to get past) but I’m not sure it’s all about that. But, at the same time, I can’t always have been like this, is it just the human condition? Is everyone like that or is it just me?

And whilst I wrestle with the demons of my past, I look at my daughter. My beautiful little girl, the one I’m still amazed I have, the one I still, once in a while, expect someone to come and claim, to tell me it was all a mistake. And I don’t want her to go through this but I have no idea how to protect her. And that scares me, that I’ve brought her into this world and now I can’t protect her from everything. I don’t want to be that controlling, smothering mother, and I know it’s not really an issue right now, but where’s the balance? Where’s the book that’s gonna tell me how to deal with this?

Until there is a next time…

xx