"It's Just Hormones"

I hate it when my parents say, “It’s just hormones.”

Oh, really? So all those times I lied in my bed in the deafening silence, no noise but the screaming in my head, making me want to scratch my eyes out, were all just the result hormones? What about when I was 8? When I got violated and exposed to something I shouldn’t have known about for at least a couple more years, and all you did was talk to him. Remember that? Well, was it just hormones then because it made it so much harder to talk to you about anything because I was afraid you weren’t going to take me seriously, afraid you were going to dismiss it as nothing because I thought you didn’t care and just kept it all building up in me for years. Was it ‘just hormones’ then?

Oh, wait, no, it wasn’t. It was your shit parenting. You don’t think that I wanted to come to you when I first started liking boys? When I first started liking girls? Oh, I did, but you made it so fucking hard because all you ever seemed to care about was your job and keeping the house clean. You never asked me once if I liked a boy while in elementary or middle school, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be feeling things for boys.

You made it too hard for me to come to you when I was really sad because my best friend, the first guy I fell for, really fell for, toyed with my feelings. So I turned to self harm, and I stuck with it for two fucking years, and you noticed one time. Actually, you didn’t notice. My older sister noticed it, and she pointed it out to you. The only reason she caught it is because she did it too. I managed to convince you it was from the pavement because they weren’t the typical cuts, and the sad part is, you fucking believed me. I was so scared you were going to find out because one of you two think it’s a pitiful joke, and the other allows him to make the rules.

And so I continued with the self harm for a while before a few people pulled me out of it. Best people of my life. One of their moms offered to take me in if I got kicked out for being a pansexual apatheist because one of you is against gays and is a very Christian person, while the other just complies with what he wants. Offered to adopt me and meant it. And then you guys got mad when I told you I felt more at home at my friend’s house than I did where I lived. One of their moms gave me dating advice because I spilled more out to her in one night than I did to you in my entire fucking life, and she’d only known me for a couple years.

You made it hard for me to come to you, and so I didn’t, and for the longest time, I’ve been so fucking miserable.

The most recent problem I’ve been trying to handle is my best friend and the feelings I have for him. Nothing is ever going to happen, probably, considering he lives states away, but the feelings I have for him are so fucking strong, and I know he doesn’t feel the same for me, and it hurts like hell. I want to fucking talk to you about it, but I don’t feel like I can. I’m just scared you’ll be say something like “You don’t know what love is.”

Maybe I don’t, but I know what I’m feeling is strong and hurts like hell, so instead of telling me what it isn’t, maybe try telling me how to handle it because I lay in bed and think about him, and I start crying every time I do because I feel like he’s never going to care about me like I care for him because if my parents can’t even care about me, how could anyone else? How could he care about the real me when my parents don’t know the real me and already seem to not care when all I’m trying to do is act like I’m the straight Christian girl you want me to be. I don’t even care about me anymore… Why would he?

Maybe I don’t know what love is, but you never told me how to handle the feelings I had as a child, and these are so much stronger than that, and if it isn’t love, I don’t wanna know what is. These feelings are hard enough. They’re tearing me apart from the inside, and it’s so hard to keep going on with my life, trying to be okay when I only have one person to talk to about it. And I’m getting kind of sick of bothering them with talking about him too because she hates his guts.

I want to talk to you about how I feel on a day-to-day basis, but you won’t take it seriously, I fear. Pass it off as ‘just hormones.’ I just don’t understand how, some nights, feeling like my chest is collapsing while I sob my eyes out because I don’t want to be in this world anymore can be passed off as ‘just hormones.’