To you, my friend,
You know that I am a pony of many colors. Angry red, sad blue, mellow yellow, dark black. And you know that there have been many who over the course of my life have decided to judge and even abuse me without care of the potential repercussions, people I called friends, family...even lover. These abuses have caused me to be a bitter young stallion full of hate and sadness. Only with the support of my family and my true friends have I learned to truly live and love. And yet I still feel the anger pulsing in my veins. I still have the haunting dreams of death and vile will. But I do not let them break me, friend.
I write this letter because there will come a time when you feel like you cannot stand on my hooves, like the world is crashing down around you and you have nothing left to lose. When that time comes, you will read this letter and know that you can overcome.
Let’s begin.
For a while, I was a happy colt, carefree and full of love. But then as time went by I began to see over and over the true face of my so-called ‘friends’. It started in kindergarten, actually. It’s one of the few memories of my childhood that I have, and it is not a pleasant one. I was born with a disorder that not only made it difficult for me to concentrate on my work, but also that I could not sit still. This, as you can imagine, made me a prime target for jokes and pranks from the other kindergartners who thought I was mentally retarded. And that’s actually what they said. I remember it clear as crystal. They called me mentally retarded just because I acted out a little, just because I was different.
After my family moved from Appaloosa to Ponyville, I began a new life at another school - only to have it scarred when I thought I had lost my dad. He had gone on a business trip to Canterlot right before it was attacked by Changelings. I was so young then that I couldn’t possibly have known exactly what was going on, but I did know that something bad had happened, and that my mom kept going on about my dad. At that point, I think, I was perhaps twice my true age. I knew about death more than any six year old colt should ever know. I suppose it was a morbid fascination that I had grown attached to, and I don’t know why I did. But I put two-and-two together. I thought my dad was dead. This does not bode well in a child’s mind, and as my mother told me later, I didn’t stop crying for at least two days, even when she received the news that my father was fine. To have that be the first major event of your life when you move to a new town...it is devastating. And I would come to learn that my family had lost friends on that day, friends that I can’t say that I knew personally, but whose passing hurt me nonetheless.
So the years went by and I began to grow worse. Middle school was hell for me. You would not believe what sort of bastardry such young colts and fillies can commit. To say I was bullied would be an understatement. I was heckled, assaulted, abused, and shunned from anything that ever happened at my school, and yet I was blissfully unaware. It was my inattentiveness, my complete inattention to anything around me that kept me from truly seeing that these little ponies considered me the school punching bag. Even the foals in first grade had names for me. Creative names, I’ll admit, but horrid nonetheless. The teachers were the only tolerable ponies in the school. They did all they could to support me, and yet still seemed to be blind when the colts and fillies would treat me like a fool in a king’s court. But perhaps the worst part was that these ponies, or at least most of them, were the ‘popular’ ponies. Every school has them. The big ponies that everybody looks up to and absolutely adores, the colts that get all the fillies and the fillies that get all the colts. I came to learn that it was mere pageantry, that when they felt like their popularity was being threatened, they would bite at you and make you bleed in far more than blood. It’s a stereotype, I know, but sometimes the stereotypes are true. And the size of some of the inflated egos of the popular ponies in my middle school, most who had only just broken double digits, was unbelievable. They thought they were above everypony, and they would smack anyone they deemed unfit for their presence out of their way. I’m sure you’ve run across such irksome ponies in your life, my friend.
At this time I started to become more aware of my surroundings. I started to realize that these ponies didn’t like me, that they were making fun of me. And it was at this time that I began to really loathe ‘popular’ ponies. As you may know, it carried well into my teenage years.
But finally I made it through. Eighth grade was over, and I was free from the unkind bullies of middle school. So what happened then, you may ask?
It started all over again, but this time it was even worse.
When you’re in middle school, all you can think about is being older and in high school. I remember falling for that same trick. I thought things would be different, that I would find my own ponies that I could relate to, who would accept me for who I was. And to be honest, that is what I found. I joined the marching band and made some dear friends...but it was not meant to be.
So as I progressed through high school I found that things were just as bad as middle school, if not worse. But the reason it was worse was because of how subtle it was. It was the little things that cut deep, like a sideways glance or a huff. Body language. A pony’s body often gives away more than the pony cares to give away. As I grew I came to realize that life is a real pain in the rump. But then, everypony knows that, don’t they, friend?
Did I mention that out of all the people who bullied me in high school, most of them were mares? Yeah. I got bullied by the mares, and I got bullied by the stallions because I was bullied by the mares. Ever since then, I have always had a particular dislike for certain mares, and it would ultimately influence a very important decision a few years later.
Things in high school were bad, but a few things were even worse. Around the time I started sophomore year I started developing facial tics, many of which I still suffer from to this day. As you can imagine, this was comedic gold for the school bullies to make fun of me. They called me Twitch or Jaws (I had a bad jaw tic.) But these were probably the nicest names they called me. They used horrible language and would jump on every word I said, everything I did, wherever I went. And sometimes they would say nothing at all. Sometimes it was just the look they gave, the look of utter loathing, or the look of somepony about to crush an ant beneath his hoof. A sneer, a growl, it was all the same. This time, however, the popular ponies were either nice to me (or perhaps patronizing, I never could tell) or they just ignored me. But the torment from the high and mighties of middle school had left me with a bitter taste for anypony whose name I had to hear over and over in the halls and the classrooms and the games and at home. Everywhere I went I could not be free.
So I turned to writing and chatting with my trusted friends on FaceHoof, but still I felt no comfort. Even my bandmates were starting to poke fun at me, and none of them realize that I had thin skin, that every word they said was like a punch to the face. I admit, I went home and cried a lot.
But never did I cry harder than that one day. It was a Tuesday and near the end of the school day. I was in the bathroom making water, when a student came in. I knew him, but he was not my friend. He was actually a very annoying stallion who I didn’t really like. He started joking around with me, telling me some stupid drivel that I don’t remember. When I told him to go dunk his head in a pile of cow dung, he did something to me, something I don’t want to write down. I think you know what it is, my dear friend.
I’d never felt so helpless in my life. But the worst part was that we were the only two ponies in the bathroom. It was my word against his, and nothing was ever proven. So he got off with a slap on the hoof, and I was stuck with that nightmare for the rest of my life. A lot of ponies make jokes about this sort of thing, but it is not funny. It is by far the least humorous thing that could ever happen to you. It left me weeping in my bedroom, a nervous wreck that didn’t know who to trust or what to do. I didn’t want to go to school anymore. It was at that time when I first considered suicide. I felt like I could not rid myself of such a horrible experience. As time went on, I would prove myself right. But I pushed on, my friend. I pushed on because I had a family that loved me and friends who cared.
After that, you’d think things couldn't get any worse. But they did. They really did. I was diagnosed with a rare mental disorder at the end of my sophomore year, something that was both a relief and a curse. It explained my lack of social skills and my tendency to obsess over certain things. But I made the mistake of trying to explain it to somepony who was bullying me. It was a very stupid move, and I paid the price. Everypony was calling me a freak, a maniac.
My grades started to slip. Ponies were trying to avoid me altogether. But then something new came into my life. When I switched meds, for the first time in my life I felt sexual desire. It was for the same gender, however. At first I wanted to be on both sides, because I felt attracted to a certain mare that I knew even as I received mixed signals from every gorgeous stallion that I passed in the halls. I talked to a trusted friend of mine about it, but somehow my parents found out, and on the same night, too. They never gave me a chance to really think it out, to decide if it was what I wanted or not. Instead I had to explain to them...well, everything. But they took it well, my friend. They loved me nonetheless and told me they only wanted to see me happy.
Even with my parents’ support, I still fell into an even greater depression because I was trying to hide my sexuality from those around me. I got a little happy when I met a friendly pony on FaceHoof, a fluffy stallion living far away at the Crystal Empire. It felt so good talking to him, and I thought we were going to be best friends forever.
But then things took a turn for the worse. One night in October I was chatting on FaceHoof when I shouldn’t have, and I was very unstable. Something had happened, something bad that I cannot remember, and I was off my meds. I was threatening my friends with death, and obviously the school didn’t like that. I was lucky they didn’t expel me, but after that day I spent the next two weeks in a mental hospital recuperating from a near-complete mental breakdown. It was horrible, dear friend.
After that, the furry pony from the Crystal Empire disappeared from my life. We had had a little falling out, and all of a sudden he was gone, saying he would never talk to me again. And it was entirely my fault. It was absolutely devastating, and again I considered suicide. Some may think I was making a mountain out of a molehill, but those people don’t understand. They just don’t. But I know you understand, friend. You understand because you have gone through the exact same thing. You know what it feels like to love and to have your heart ripped from your chest.
But you know that I met another person, a young stallion, far younger than me. You know that I loved him the moment I heard his sweet voice and saw his glimmering brown eyes. But he was so far away, so young, and he had his own decisions to make, his own life to live. He claims that he loves me, and I love him, but even if we do not kiss and make love together, I know that we will still be great friends. Because there is no greater pleasure than having a loving best friend...friend.
Even my new best buddy couldn’t save me from what happened the end of the year, however, when I made perhaps the worst mistake of my life.
One day at school I was called into the principal’s office. They told me that they had been concerned about the amount of time I was spending on FaceHoof on the school computers, so they hacked into my account and discovered that I was talking to a former student about...things. Illegal things. It was taken out of context. My parents and my teachers knew that despite all my rage, I would never hurt anypony. But it didn’t matter. The school board deemed me a threat to the school, and I was expelled.
As if my life could have sunken no lower. I had been so close to the end, dear friend, and then I went and screwed up. I cried myself to sleep and I cried myself awake. I felt like my life had ended.
But there was a silver lining. The school would allow me to get my diploma if I could complete the coursework. So I went to a new school, finished the coursework, and managed to get my diploma, and the sadness of my failure seemed to fade away as my family and I basked in my accomplishment. Truly it was one of the happiest days of my life, when I held that placard diploma in my hooves.
But even that didn’t last. I grew farther and farther away from my real life friends, to the point where I didn’t talk to them anymore. I joined a group called the Hug Patrol, a group of happy ponies dedicated to spreading love throughout Equestria. For a while, I was truly happy to be a part of it. Then came the bullies, the haughty braggarts that I had grown so familiar with, who could not even stymie their arrogance for the good of the Hug Patrol, where love was the key to life. Not to name names, but ponies were doing everything from attacking me for the campfire stories I told to spilling private secrets of mine just for the sake of argument. I realized that I was not safe anywhere, and for the third time in my life, I truly considered killing myself.
But I didn’t. And I don’t know why. Perhaps I thought that there is more to life than merely living. Perhaps ending my life would hurt my true friends and family far more than it would hurt me. I don’t know.
And so I am here today, a product of my upbringing.
I don’t know what else to say. I’ve said everything already. People need to know this, not because they need to know my life, but because they need to know that whatever darkness you bottle up, you must let it out eventually or else it will consume you.
I love who I am. I would never change a thing about my life, with all its ups and downs. And throughout this miserable life, I have always followed hope, because nopony has broken me, and nopony will.
Remember that, my friend. Nopony will break you. Nopony.
Sincerely,
