Feeling accepted

I never felt accepted around others as a child or adult.  I still don't, not in person, or on Twitter.  I always feel like someone is thinking "she's so stupid," "she's so ugly," "I really wish I didn't know her," "I can't wait until she leaves," and a few other ones left over from being bullied that are much worse.  I'm afraid if I wrote those out I would just sound stupid.

I was bullied severely as a child and teenager, which made me less accepted than I was before.  I think part of my neck pain issues stem from an injury I received when a bully beat the shit out of me my junior year in high school.  It left me in a neck brace for two weeks.  So I really think it's possible.  Add that to severe emotional abuse from my bitch of a mother, and my self-esteem was tattered.  I've been working on putting it back together, but I still always have that feeling that everyone secretly thinks I'm stupid, clumsy, an idiot, ugly, etc.  My mother used to tell me because I so shy I look like I'm mentally retarded.  So, the really bad social anxiety I have isn't a surprise at all.

That's why I find it so awesome that the EDS community on facebook accepted me so easily.  Part of me keeps thinking that if they really knew me, surely they wouldn't like me.  Yet, the longer I know these wonderful people, and the better I get to know them, the more I feel accepted.  This is a new feeling to me.  It is wonderful, and I am afraid I will do something to mess it all up.  Knowing that people who have never met me share the same problems and care about me, well, it's almost overwhelming.  For the zebras reading this...thank you for your friendship, it means so much!