Rejection

    Rejection is something that I have a LOT of experience with and it's something that everyone deals with in their lives. Some people are better at handling it than others. I am definitely in the percentage that does not handle it well. I've been directly rejected by family, 'friends,' crushes, girlfriends, employers, and even total strangers.

    The first rejection I remember experiencing was in 7th grade. I had a HUGE crush on one of the girls in my class. I had finally worked up the courage to ask her out on a date, only to have her laugh at me with her friends. I was devastated. I couldn't be around any of them without hearing their laughter for a very long time. And it took me even longer to try asking someone out again.

    I was involved in my first relationship when I was in ninth grade. The kicker is, I wasn't the one that acted first. There was a girl in one of my extracurriculars who came to me one day and admitted that she liked me. Turns out, I liked her too, so we started hanging out together. We never really went on a date, mostly because of her family, but we got to see each other at our mutual activity, which worked out nicely for both of us. Until, one day a couple months into our relationship, she decided to end it. Didn't tell me why, just told me we couldn't be a "couple" anymore.

    Obviously, I didn't take this very well and seeing her multiple times a week, every week didn't really make it any easier for me. But I was eventually able to move past it. Wanna talk about awkward though, I developed a bit of a crush on one of the other girls in that same activity. I finally told her about it, but she didn't want our relationship to be anything other than 'friends,' which made it even more awkward. As I said in my first post, I'm married now, so this kind of rejection isn't a problem for me anymore.

    Between these two rejections, I had a different kind of rejection. I got my first job at 18, straight out of high school, working for a major retail chain in my hometown. I had worked there for several months with few problems. Come winter and I fell ill, causing my work performance to suffer. This didn't sit well with management. Ultimately, I was terminated for inability to perform the job function.

    This wouldn't be the last job this happened at either. I have been fired from 7 jobs in my lifetime. Each time this happens, I find myself asking what is so wrong with me that I can't keep a job? Again, feeding back into my depression.

    I mentioned earlier that I've been rejected by my own family. This sad reality of my life is one that I've dealt with the entire time. Several of my aunts and uncles on my mom's side of the family have it in their heads that they're better than my parents and me. I don't know what gave them that idea, but it's there, and it is something that has pained me for years, not only for them rejecting me but for them rejecting my parents as well.

    I'll end it with the complete strangers that reject me. That's more recent. You'd be amazed at the number of people whose hearts disappear as soon as they get behind the safety of a keyboard and computer screen. In the few places I've tried to share this blog, there have been many (a majority I would say) who have done nothing but make negative comments or ridicule me for my attempt to improve my mental health, feeding right back into my depression.