Going into public school for the first time in 5th grade, I was totally excited, yet completely nervous. In my mind I had this image of loving, caring individuals who I would have wonderful friendships with and we would have tons of fun together. Unfortunately, what happened was completely the opposite of that. My days were filled with intense emotional bullying that never seemed to end. I was told things like, "Your shorts are too tacky for even tacky day," "Who would even want to hang out with you? You are totally weird, like not even normal weird." This never ceasing bullying caused me to develop a severe social anxiety disorder. All the while this was going on, my life at home was falling apart: I was under the impression that my parents would file for divorce and that it was all completely my fault-that I just was not a 'good enough' child. That summer I began to hurt myself to try to relieve the severe emotional pain I was feeling. Going into 6th grade the bullying continued without any reprieve. The summer following sixth grade, I completely shut God out, for I could not understand how he could let all this pain and anguish happen to me without doing anything to stop it.  During my 7th grade year, the bullying especially intensified; I was bullied especially for not being 'girly' enough. I was told I was fat and ugly, and the only reason I wore loose fitting clothes was because I wanted to hid my fatness.  And that the reason I did not wear make-up because I knew it would do me no good to fix how ugly and disgusting my face was. That year I almost became anorexic. That year was also the first time where I considered suicide as an escape from my misery. No one really knew what was going on inside of me for I thought I had to be 'perfect.' That if I just got 'perfect' enough grades, acted 'perfect' enough, or had the 'perfect' life, then I would find the love and acceptance that I so desperately craved. During my 8th grade year, the bullying continued to be unrelenting, but this year tons of the bullying was fueled by my extreme impulsiveness due to my undiagnosed ADHD. During my 9th grade year, the never seeming ending bullying by my peers persisted. During this year, I had thought I had taken all that I could take. Not knowing how to deal with the severe depression and all the anger and pain I was dealing with, I thought I would end my life by ODing on my allergy meds. When I had the pills in my hand, and was about to swallow them, God told me to give life another chance. Thankfully, I listened to him, though God and me were most certainly not on talking terms,  and I absolutely, positively did not trust him a bit.  During my 10th grade year, the bullying thankfully had basically stopped, though I was still severely depressed and full of intense anger over what had happened over the past few years. As I looked forward to marching band beginning my 11th grade year, for in the high school band I had found acceptance for who I was. It was the one place that I sort of felt 'safe', and could be myself. Unfortunately, that marching season did not turn out the way I had hoped. The one place that I truly looked forward to, I began to dread, for, that year, many people turned against me. They in essence began to bully me for my marching, saying things like, "It is your fault that we did not win that competition because you did not try hard enough," or things like, "Well since I am good at marching, you should be too, for we have been in marching band for the same amount of time." As in everything else in life, I tried my best to be 'perfect' at marching, for my life's philosophy was that that my life was crap because I was not 'perfect' enough. My stress and anxiety during that season became so severe that my heart began to skip beats frequently, though I did not let anyone know, for I thought that people would look down on me if I did. That year's New Years Eve (2012), I went to a church service. I had not wanted to go to, but instead I had wanted to cry in bed and hurt myself to try to relieve the extreme depression that I had. During the service, the most wonderful thing happened. God came and touched me. I do not know how to describe it, but it was if he was holding me, giving me the world's biggest hug. In that moment, he took away all that pain, and anger that I had been dealing with for years. That sense of relief that I felt than words cannot even describe. It was the first time in years that I felt genuinely happy. Loved. Cared for. He took my burden, and I did not even ask-and I most certainly did not deserve it. I had been as far away from God as I could for I blamed him for what had happened in my life. About a week after this, I was listening to a song, and it was speaking volumes to me. After it had finished playing God said to me, "Why do you think you have to be like your sisters? I made you to be you. No one else. I gave you the strengths that you have for a reason. You have the talents that you do for a reason. I do not expect you to be anyone except yourself." It was then that I decided to give up my perfectionism-my belief that I had to be 'perfect' in everything to be loved and accepted. That summer, my dad told my family that God was wanting us to leave our current church and go to where ever he led us too.  I was overwhelmed with emotion when he told me that. The church we were a part of then I had been going to my whole life, and the people there were like family to me. I asked God, "Why?" He showed me a dream he had given me a year earlier. In that dream, he revealed to me that through my brokenness of leaving my church he would take me and plant me somewhere where I would continue to grow. Boy was he so right. During the summer after I graduated high school, my Tourettes became severely worse, and I was forced to have to delay my plans to go to college for a year. God has been right there with me this whole time, helping me to deal with my Tourettes, and he has also continued to help me overcome my social anxiety disorder, that I have been fighting fiercely against, made so much worse by my Tourettes getting worse. Even in the times when I wonder "Why?" he is there to comfort me.