Psychosis

I remember so many days spent sad and alone. It all started after 8th grade. There were three high local high schools, and my middle school was placed in such an area that if you attended, you could go to any one of three schools. I didn’t know in middle school, but almost none of my friends would go to the same high school as me. The ones who did, changed so much over the summer that we weren’t really friends anymore.

There was this one girl, who I had a crush on throughout all of middle school, she moved to Washington, but I remembered one thing she said. “I will only marry you if you’re a brony or Matt Smith,” I knew I wasn’t Matt Smith, and I didn’t want to admit it but I also knew that I would never see her again. Naturally the two of those things combined with the loneliness inside gave me a ‘nothing to lose’ mentality. So I logged onto my dad’s Netflix account and started streaming the show My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic.

I cringed through the entire first two episodes, but I kept watching because I felt like I could relate somewhat to Twilight. After I finished watching the second season I started to legitimately enjoy the show. By the end of season three, I had read many fan fictions on the internet such as My Little Dashie, and I came to decide that my favorite pony was Rainbow Dash. I got so obsessed with the Rainbow Dash, and kept watching the show just to see her.

As time went on, my life was sad. I had no love, no friends, and no sense of self, figuratively my world had faded to grey. I would come home from school sore and tired wanting nothing but to cry. The show was like a crutch to me. No matter what happened I knew that it would always be there waiting for me. When I couldn’t even make it that far I pretended that she sat beside me, three foot tall and eyes wide with empathy.

By the time Christmas had rolled around and none of my wishes had come true, I actually printed and bound My Little Dashie, and read it three times over. With some of the money my family gave me, I ordered my first piece of MLP merchandise. I got myself a stuffed rainbow dash that I could hug and cry into when I was sad. It was therapeutic, and if I closed my eyes I could even convince myself that it was real.

My dad knew about my obsession, but he was kind enough to not bring it up. The rest of my family wasn’t as such. The following summer we went to a family reunion in Utah, which meant that my entire extended family was there. I got along well with the young ones; I talked about dirt bikes with my cousins and taught one of them how to use a butterfly knife. They thought I was tough yet gentle, which isn’t too bad of a mix. All it took to win the girls was be willing to watch My Little Pony with them, and laugh with them at times.

My sisters just couldn’t stand not being the cool ones. They’ve been spoiled attention seekers for as long as I can remember. And for them to see me, their stupid brother be loved by all was just not okay. Naturally they picked on me as sisters do, but just picking on me wasn’t enough. They needed something to destroy me with. What better than to investigate than the 16 year old boy, who avidly practiced twirling a butterfly knife and fixed motorcycle engines watching none other than My Little Pony.

The very first place they looked was the Netflix queue, and much fruit did it bare. Right next to Breaking Bad was My Little Pony S4E12. Without restraint, they shared it. They knew perfectly well what it would do to me and that was why they did it. I was humiliated. The extended family didn’t care, but it was still something I didn’t want people knowing because once people know that, they like to question things like sexuality and mental state, and generally harass you.

This is a small part of why I think I might be insane, usually insanity is caused by desire accompanied by trauma. Looking back, that isn’t very traumatizing. However it still hurt and it revealed to me that I could not trust the people that I lived with every day, and that is something that I think is worthy being called traumatizing.