After the door shuts and the footsteps die off, I'm left with my thoughts. They've always scared me - thoughts. Sometimes I don't think they're appropriate. Sometimes I want to control them but there is no controlling them. I used to scare myself with them when I was little, imagining that the car would come to life and eat me. I thought I heard it growling in the garage as I was drifting off to sleep. As I got older, the thoughts plagued me on a deeper level. I critiqued everything I'd said that day. I critiqued every look I'd received. I replayed all of the teasing and taunting in my mind. And I cried. A lot. About everything that I just couldn't handle.

Like the time that my friend told me that I was the ugliest person he'd ever met. His words haunted me for years. I thought I was probably the ugliest person anyone had ever met. Everyone else seemed so much more than me. I felt that I couldn't do anything right and at night that feeling could not be shaken. I covered my ears but it did no good against the voices in my head. I tried to sleep but I dreamed of the teasing. I dreamed that I became beautiful but that eventually my ugliness worked its way to the surface and I was discovered. I was a fraud, not beautiful at all.

These thoughts messed with my head in a way that nothing else could. I remember in junior high, overhearing people talking about me. Someone said: "I think she's pretty." and he was laughed at. I don't know if he was laughing with them. I guess I'll never know.

After the door shuts and the footsteps die, I'm left alone to be tortured.