Hey there, Ricky again. I hope you enjoyed the blog last week. This week I thought I would dive a little deeper into my story. Growing up I was always provided for – I was able to participate in extracurricular activities, my family and I lived in a nice house, and we always had pets around. It looked like we had it made on the outside, but looks can be deceiving. I was a very emotional child and was often called a cry baby, so when I began being sexually abused by a family friend I didn’t want to tell anyone because I was scared that I would be labelled a cry baby or get in trouble.
Looking back now I can see the determining factors that influenced my social anxiety. I was extremely shy as a kid when in groups of people, but if you put me in a room with individuals I knew well I could talk your ear off (I still tend to be like this). As a result of my social anxiety, I found it quite difficult to make friends or close friends I should say. Because I always felt so desperate and pressured to get and keep friends, I pretty much did anything people asked of me which did tend to get me into a lot of trouble. There is one specific example that I think will always stick out in my mind. I had one friend who we will call Bri for the purpose of the blog. One day Bri came to my house and had this great idea that we should make a list of “bad” things we wanted to do and one by one we would check them off the list. Some examples of things that I was participating in at 11 years old were breaking and enterings, marijuana use, and so much more. Although getting in trouble was one of my biggest fears, that kind of got put on the back burner because all I was concerned about was keeping my friendship with Bri.
Getting through elementary school was hard for me. I always felt like I didn’t belong and I couldn’t pinpoint why. By grade 9 I was almost completely isolated from everybody, but I was ok with it because I knew that I would be moving to the big city by the end of the school year. That’s where things took a turn for the worst. More to come on that in my next post.
Ciao for now, Ricky
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