Ever feel like some people are just born to be more mature than others?

Some of us
have to think and reflect a lot more, because there is a lot more to come to terms
with, a lot more things to make sense of. My nursery school teacher forced me to eat
my own vomit and locked me in a dark office for hours after getting angry at me for
not listening to her. What kind of teacher does that? And when I tried to tell my
mother, I was too young and my vocabulary was too limited to tell her what had
happened. Because of that incident, I was so resentful and defensive as a child.
Entering kindergarten and even in primary school, I was singled out for being
antisocial. Later I found out it could have been a trauma response, but it was an era
where no one cared.

As a kid I remember creating some gang. I was 8. I forced all the primary ones in my
school to bow down to me. They were my people. It's hilarious now when I think
back, but as a kid, they actually believed it, they were loyal to me. We made
weapons. I took stock of my own armory. By the age of 9 I was crafting my own
weapons from ice cream sticks and rubber bands. And I gave them out for their
protection from the school bullies, because other people could turn a blind eye to
such things, but not me. You see, I stood up for many people. So of course, there
were those who stayed by my side, and there were those who hated my guts.
Because in their minds, an ugly and deaf girl cannot be a heroine. So the bullies saw
me as a prime target.

I remember their names. How do you forget? Every day. If they bullied me once,
sure, but it was every day for 2 years. I studied my guts out for PSLE because all I
wanted to do was enter a girls' school, and finally escape from the boys. I remember
that one time, I was tired, I felt like I had grown up and I was done with everything. I
was 11. I went to ask the school bully who tormented me and shamed me in public
every day, who led a group of boys from the gate to my house every day screaming
my name and making fun of it. I asked, "Why?" He said, "Because of your teeth.
They're ugly." I said, "That's all?” He said yes. It made zero sense. It was so
superficial and I honestly felt like laughing. But I genuinely felt empathy for him at
that moment. I felt bad that he could not see my thoughts, that I was not withdrawing
into myself and feeling shame for existing. Instead, for the first time, I was realizing
that all of his actions meant nothing to me because we are not the same.

There was this one time where someone moved that bully’s bag from inside the
classroom to outside, and I was the only one present because I liked to reach the
classroom early. He asked me if I was the one who touched his stuff. I said no. He
started begging me to admit it. He was panicking, but it really wasn't me. I didn’t do
it. And he said, if I admit it, he will never bully me again. Now here, my mind was
playing a game of chess. Hypothetically, if I had actually been the one who had
messed with his belongings, telling him that I didn't do it would be psychological
manipulation of the highest order. And he probably was thinking of that as well. The
problem is that I actually did not, in fact, touch his bag. So I said no. I knew I was not
just saying no to telling him that I took his bag out of the classroom. I was saying no
to wronging myself for something I did not do, and more than that, I was saying no to
a chance to finally stop being tormented daily. I knew what I was saying no to. And
yet I still did it.

Did I regret that? Yes. I felt stupid for listening to my heart. I walked the usual walk of
shame home, trying to pretend that the howls of laughter from the school gate to my
HDB apartment gate did not exist. But it was the beginning of finally figuring out who
I am as a person, what I stand for, why I do things the way I do. Of course, at the age
of 12, I don’t think my thinking was that mature. On the contrary, it was quite unclear,
I wanted revenge and I wanted to get out of that hellhole. So I thought, I will work my
ass off for PSLE and become a top scorer, and I will get into a good school and have
the last laugh. I will go into an elite secondary school for girls and never get bullied
by boys again. How I wish I could turn back time, and tell that child, “I’m sorry, that’s
not how the world works.” I got my first wish, the result of my hard work. But the
latter wish was out of reach for a child who still had not learned how to interact with
the world.