Growing up, I heard the phrase "you're so weird" often. It tore me apart inside, but I never let others see it.
I just kept being me. In second grade, I went to a small private school. I was only one of six girls in the class, and I was the only Latina.
All the other girls were blonde-haired and blue-eyed. That was my 3rd school in 3 years, and it was the same at the others as well.
As the only dark-haired, dark-eyed Latina, it's no wonder I spent years distrustful of blondes. Even now, as a queer woman, I'm completely turned off by them.
I remember the girls teasing me for looking "weird" because I was different. They started to bully me for it too, but I didn't care then. I was content to go off during recess and play on my own. I'm an only child so playing alone was never an issue for me. They were shocked. They thought I'd cry because I had to play by myself.
I'd play hopscotch, Jacks, or read a book, and this seemed to infuriate them. They would call me worse names and exclude me from sleepovers, but it had no power over me. I just got "weirder," lol.
After my parents divorced, we moved around a lot and I attended other schools. I was used to being the "weird new girl," so I had no problems eating lunch by myself.
I was bullied over and over.
It started fresh at every new school. I was bullied for looking different, being chubby, raising my hand in class, and even for not caring about their cruelty. I internalized it all, never telling my parents any of it. To this day, they don't know the extent of what happened to me and the things the girls (and boys) said to me to try to crush out my weirdness.
Finally, in my second 3rd-grade class (I missed so much the year before that I was held back), my mother found a place she liked in a nice neighborhood and worked 3 jobs to put me in a Catholic school. She told me we were going to stay put because she'd skipped a grade at my age and she wasn't going to allow me to fail another year because she wasn't happy with where we were living.
So, St. Andrew, it was. And I loved it there. I even made friends. With other "weird girls" just like me.
It was a group of 4 of us. Me, Maggie, Lisa, and Norma. I loved those girls. (Norma became a porn star, Maggie and I lost touch, but I'm still close friends with Lisa - @justlemon ).
As I got older and went into middle school, I got 'weirder'.
I liked heavy metal, punk, and alternative music while everyone else around me was dancing to the New Kids On The Block (Ok I liked them too but only in secret, lol). I spent most of my time listening to music I could find in the record store that wasn't being played on the radio. But that just helped me keep my 'weird' label.
Eventually, I left Catholic school and went to a public high school. It was my first time in public school. It was way different than private school. People can openly bully you in public schools because not many teachers care. And I got it bad. High school was the worst for me.
Yet, I refused to hide my weirdness from anyone. In fact, I was about to make it even more known.
In the mid-90s, I hit tenth grade. It was then I decided that I was queer and got into a relationship with a girl, and omg it made me crazy-weird to everyone in my small town.
The weirder I was the more the people in my life tried to squash it.
I know they meant well. They were trying to save me from being labeled 'weird,' or 'gay,' or getting bullied. But they thought that the problem was with me. They thought that if I just 'toned it down' then people wouldn't bother me and my life would be better.
My mother made me stop visiting her at work when I got my nose pierced (again, this was the '90s, and piercings were rare). I was so mad at her, she worked at the hospital and the cafeteria there was the bomb! I used to skip school lunches and go eat at the hospital, charging meals to mom's account instead.
But my shaved head and piercing was too much for mom so she kept trying to get me to "dress normal", wear less jewelry, and be more like the other girls. But I refused.
And my weirdness increased over the years. Drugs, BDSM, art, polyamory, queer, kink-entrepreneur, etc.
For years I refused to play by the rules and act or dress "normal." But somewhere along the way, they got me. I don't know when it was. Maybe becoming a mother at 19 made it happen, the pressure being too much for me, so I subtly gave in?
Either way, I started to care what others thought. I started to suppress my beautiful weirdness. I hid it from others, and especially myself. I pretended I didn't care.
By the time I met @ryzeonline, I'd been beaten down by parents, ex-husbands, and my own need to be seen as "normal" by people. And I was holding all my 'good weirdness' inside. I didn't share personal things about myself with anyone. I had friends, but I didn't tell them 'real' things.
When I met Jay and started showing bits of my weirdness to him, I was afraid he wouldn't like me.
I thought I had to hide it from him. But he insisted he wasn't interested in me, so I felt like I had nothing to lose. I let the weirdo in me out. I thought, "well he doesn't even like me, so eff it, I'll just be myself."
And the coolest thing happened. The more myself I was and the more weirdness I shared, the more he liked me, loved me even. He encouraged me to be as weird as I wanted. And he encouraged me to share it. I thought people would hate me for it, but Jay taught me to not only share my weirdness but to turn it up.
The weird things about you that you think people will hate, will be the reasons why people actually love you.
- Jim Carrey does funny, weird impressions (have you seen him back in the day on In Living Color? LOL!) and got famous for it.
- Lady Gaga wore a meat dress to the MTV music awards, and her fame skyrocketed after it.
- Salvador Dali is known for being crazy, but his art is super famous and so is he.
The list of famous people who are weird is too long to list here. They are famous because they expressed their weirdness.
So I decided just to let go of that crap everyone tried to tell me about caring what others thought and how important outward appearance is to others.
I decided to do it online. Just be me. And when I shared who I am deep down inside on Instagram, my page grew, I got attention, made sales, got die-hard fans, and people who LOVED to share with me how much they love what I wrote. They loved my weirdness and encouraged me to share more.
Turning up my weirdness and sharing it made me FEEL so good.
The more people accepted me, the more I wanted to share. And the more I shared, the more people connected with me, which inspired them share their weird as well.
And you can do it too.
Just use as many weird things about yourself as you can and TURN THEM UP. Let go of worry about or care about haters, and TURN UP. Let everyone see who you truly are. I promise you they will love it.
And a handful of haters will come along with it. That's just life. Those that will hate you for being yourself and 'turning up the weird' are just jealous. They want to do the same, but let fear keep them pretending they're "normal."
What's the weirdest thing about you? I'd love to know. And we don't judge here. We LOVE everything and everyone who are "weird."
~love, Cyn
A powerful lesson that many could benefit from. So many people living repressed, judging others, pointing fingers, and secretly wishing they could just 'be themselves.' Well-written and thanks for sharing your story. 🙏
wtf
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Thank You for teaching me how to love myself and how to turn up my weird to get what I want. And thank You for loving all of my weird. I appreciate Your kind words and the lessons. I aim for others to see how awesome their weird is and just turn it up.
❤️❤️❤️
My pleasure! "When the student is ready, the teacher appears." Soooo, props to yourself too :) 🙏
🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️
Beautiful post, @cynshineonline! ~ 🙏 ~
Thank you so much! 🙏❤️
Go for it sister!
lol! I love that sign! and thank you 🙏❤️
It's a shame that children are forced to abandon their unique qualities or or persepctives in order to conform in the world immediately around them. It was bad when we were kids in our youth (especially if you've beeen 39 for a long time), and it's even worse for today's kids.
It's not until we're adults some years out of school that we re-consider our views on weirdness. In many cases, the weirdness we were afraid of as young students became the weirdness we embrace.
We should be teaching today's youth that what makes them weird is what will make them succeed as adults in the future. Look at all the tech billionaires out there. Then look at how things looked upon as "weird"-- conventions for gaming and cosplay, for example-- when we were young(er) became buzzworthy and even cool.
If we want vanilla, that's what ice cream is for. We need more flavor and more spice, and today's youth need it now more than ever. Hell, we need today's youth to have more flavor and spice. For the adults among us, weird is normal.
Great quotes! I love the James Earl Jones one especially.
This! Yes! Every successful person out there used their weirdness to succeed.
I personally love flavor and spice. I love weird people, they're my kind of people. I stress to my own kids to embrace their weird and turn it up. My daughter's get it but my son is 13 and isn't quite there yet. He will be though.
A lot of adults hide their weird when they start businesses for fear of judgment and I get it but if they let go of it, they'd be happier and that will bring success.
Thank you so much for the lovely comment. I truly appreciate you ❤️
Thank you!!
When it comes to weird, is it supposed to be out of the ordinary, or is it supposed to be normal?
That didn't come out right, so let me put it this way:
It's like truth-tellers being considered radical in a world of liars because these truth tellers told the truth.
Also, we can re-evaluate our views on weirdness by recalling what we remember about our favorite movies and television programs from long ago or even more recently. (well, we here wouldn't need to re-evaluate, but everyone else out there would.)
Hmmm very good question. And yes they would be considered normal because everyone is weird. But in our every day how many of us are truly being weird? I sleep with shirts worn by @ryzeonline and some would think that was weird but I like his smell. So I sleep with his clothes. But someone might take it to the next level and think what I do is normal. It's all subjective I think.
And you make a great point about movies and tv and even songs. Jay and I did a live on FB today and he made that point too. He said people love Nicki Minaj's voices in her music. It's weird and stands out because not many people are making funny noises in their songs. If we (and yes not us lol) look at what they like about their fave media, they would see it's the "weird" parts that stand out.
Thank you!!! great comment! ❤️❤️❤️
stay away from here with your hate
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I really don't see where there is any 'hate' @felixxx....I wonder what you are referring to!?
If the roles were reversed, even you would see how terrible such a statement is.
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It seems you've isolated the above quote out of context with the rest of the story. Cyn was young and felt this way for years because blonde-haired and blue-eyed girls were some of her first experiences with people that bullied her. Imagine you were young and your first experience with dogs was a terrible bite that caused you to bleed. You may end up with an irrational fear of dogs.
Trauma can color your experience in life, and it can program you to either rationally or irrationally trust or distrust others. But then, later, we grow up more and realize that everyone is just an individual, and not all peoples are subject to groupthink and group behavior.
Ask yourself this, @felixxx; What kind of message does your downvote say to a woman who just poured her heart out into a post and shared some of her childhood trials and triumphs with perfect strangers on the internet? Come on; I know you're better than that. Hell, I bet if you meditate deeply on the content of the post that even someone like yourself (who is quick to judge) can find it in your heart to turn that downvote right side up back where it belongs.
Thank god for sane, intelligent, competent, level-headed, understanding, appreciative, respectful commenters here on Hive like @barge and yourself, @thoughts-in-time . Much love and appreciation to both of you.
Twas my pleasure, I enjoyed the post, and I'd also like to think that @felixxx just made an honest mistake. Sometimes language barriers can get people to misinterpret things and jump to conclusions.
Possible, and I'd love for that to be the case, but from his previous comments on posts of mine, I'd say such a diagnosis is doubtful:
I guess I see an expression of pain/a painful experience rather than hostility or loathing, which I would associate more with hate.
I think that, within the context of what has been expressed, a role-reversal would not alter my perception.
thank you for replying to this person and getting my post. Thank you for saying this. It's so kind and I genuinely appreciate it, deeply. ❤️❤️❤️
seems fair
Seems racist, actually.
It seems like a "broad-brush" fallacy.
No "more" and no "less" "evil" than any other logical fallacy.
The 5 white blonde girls were racist to her because she was brown and had brown hair.
Glad to see you changed your mind and saw the white girls were being racist.
Her entire post needs to be quoted for context. She is saying she was bullied by the 5 blonde white girls in the class because she was a brown skin girl with brown hair. The author of the post is describing how her classmates were racist towards her and hateful.
How you can accuse the author of the post of being hateful isnt logical.
Care to explain?
You're the only one to say this.
Me being the only to say it, does not mean anything.
I changed my mind: I was the skinniest in my class and now I distrust all fat people, naturally. That's why I keep the downvote as it is.
If you were bullied for being skinny that was people causing trauma to you for being skinny. If those people generally were fat causing you this trauma then it is logical to have issues with fat people.
It could have been x y or z group causing you trauma and you would be logical in having issues with said group. That's just the way our brains work.
I loved reading your article. It's funny how we have a lot in common. I also went to catholic school and learnt to embrace my weird since day one lol. I'm glad I'm not the only proud weirdo on here.😄
Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate it. Yay! I love when people embrace their weird! You're definitely not the only one on here hahaha. ❤️❤️❤️
I'm constantly running out of time... Speaking of which... I'm about to go out and get a whole bunch of steps! Buuuuuuut @cynshineonline (AND @ryzeonline too!) before I do that! I just wanted to do a little shoutOUT!
When I get back from getting all my steps today (I'm off on a big stepping adventure! Should be Epic!) I'll be sending you both a digital #HighFive 🙌 from me to you! That's 5 Hive each! 😁
Here's the little shoutOUT I did on Twitter! I checked the website... I didn't see a Twitter handle so I just boosted your Hive accounts over there!
Annnnnd because Twitter only let's you upload 2min. 20sec. (and I had far more than that to say about the both of you guys!) I'll also include a link to the latest #miniCHALLENGE no. 10!
So I hope this reaches you on a bright day! And I hope that what I had to say gives you both even more get-up-and-go!
Thank you for being here on the Hive Blockchain and making this a friendlier and better place!
#iSEEu 👀
@wil.metcalfe
I won't even lie, I cried. lol! I'm a big baby and I was so touched by your words, and your kindness. It made me soooooo happy and I truly mean it. Thank you so very much. You're spreading wisdom, love, creativity, health....it's a beautiful thing. It's amazing. Thank you for the mentions for me and @ryzeonline. For the Hive and for being such a positive force.
Jay and I appreciate that in people. We love anyone ryzing up and helping others ryze up too.
Thank you again. You made my day. Truly. And thank you for the sub to our YouTube. We appreciate it deeply.
much love,
Cyn
Ps
Everyone calls me Cyn (my real name is Cynthia) so Cynshine (cuz I'm positive and love to bring joy) is pronounced like Sin-Shine. But I giggled at you not being sure if it was Sunshine or not. Thank you for caring and being so kind. ❤️