Psychologically Embedded

Psychologically Embedded
Their hazing was nothing new to me, but that day, my basketball teammates cut completely through me twelve year old self-esteem. “I could feel myself psychologically collapsing, the combination of embarrassment and humiliation was far too overpowering for my feeble self-esteem.” This is the indescribable feeling that ran through my mind at the end of the year pool party for our basketball team. It was exactly how I felt at the time but unable to put it into words until looking back at it as a memory now.
It was a dry, uncomfortably humid summer day. I’m not sure if it was as hot as it felt, maybe it was just the nervousness setting in. I can still hear my excuses conforming to not take my shirt off as a harmless pool party soon turned into an eternal day of hell. My teammates had always teased me about being fat but that day at our end of the year party held by the parents at the local pool, they shattered me for life. When I took my shirt off, it felt like I was completely naked. They poked and laughed, it was nothing I wasn’t use to, but that day, twelve year olds turned into cannibals. I remember the exact moment that I completely and utterly crushed and I ran as fast as I could and jumped into the pool as the tears started to stream down my face.
At the age of twelve, my self-identity was destroyed, completely taken away from me. This moment in my life still today plays over and over in my head; I have not been the same since. The memory of that painful day describes my self-identity because I am extremely self conscious of my appearance. When I look into the mirror I still see that fat little kid that I once was. No matter how fit I strive to be, in my eyes I am still that fat kid that everyone points and laughs at.

AKO