Everyone has a past filled with memories, regrets, and special moments. You remember the toys you got from your favorite Christmas, the first time you rode your bike without the training wheels, and the first time you were asked out on a date. These are what define us. Each little memory and moment make an impact on us for the rest of our lives. Our past can define our present, but it will not determine our future, or at least I thought so.
Many people have things in their past that they wish they could change. I know I do. We all want to go back and change the day we were bullied, the day someone close to us died, or the day our lives changed forever, but we cannot simply erase what happened.
Last year, a girl was out at a party. She was having fun and hanging out with her friends until she went to leave and most of her personal belongings were stolen. She didn't know why this would happen to her and who could do this. She freaked out and had a major panic attack. Someone drove her back and she calmed down. A security guard took her to the house to help her find the stolen items, turns out he wasn't helping her, he was just busting a party. She made a bad judgment call. The security guard called the police so they could report the items as stolen. She sat helplessly in the vehicle while her friends were being questioned. She went back to her dorm at 5:00 am and cried herself to sleep.
She lost trust that night. She lost friends that night. She lost herself that night.
The next week she found out that she was a joke on campus. People had jokes about her. She couldn't trust anyone and it was hard to make new friends.
She tried to harm herself. This wasn't the first time she tried to either.
In high school, she was constantly bullied. There were rumors about her always floating through school, but she never asked for the attention. The summer before her last year, something happened to her and she couldn't take it anymore. She had a hard time trusting people in high school. College was her new start, it was a time to be herself until this happened; it was like high school all over again.
She struggled thought to semester until summer arrived. Summer was a new break, new time with her family. She found her happiness.
She went back to school with a new perspective. Until she was invited to a party. She debated on going but ended up showing up. She thought that it was a new year and what is in the past, is in the past. Everyone who saw her gave her a look like she came back from the dead. She heard people whisper, 'why is she here?' and 'who invited her?'. She was determined on having a good time with the person who invited her. A little while later, a mean girl came up to her and called her out to everyone and told her to leave, she responded and said, 'I think there is a misunderstanding', but the mean girl gave her no sympathy and told people to stop talking to her and ignore her.
She didn't leave, even though she should of. That whole night she was ridiculed for being in their presence. Multiple people told her that she shouldn't have come to the party. She finally had it when the person driving her home made a snooty comment about her showing up there. She jumped out of the moving vehicle and ran. She couldn't take it anymore. It was in the past yet people were still judging her for it. Maybe if they knew everything she had been through, they wouldn't have treated her this way.
Everything ran through her head over and over till she drove herself to the edge.
Ridiculing someone for something that happened to them in the past is like judging someone for the color of their eyes. They cannot help that they were caught in an unfortunate event. They cannot help the way they acted during the experience or the way people treated them. Treating them differently and calling them out does not help that person cope at all, especially if they have severe depression or anxiety.
Please learn from this story. Think before you ridicule someone for something that happened to them in the past because this could have ended in a dreadful suicide.
