There have been times I almost got a persecution complex. I felt like people wouldn't let me grow up. They always saw me as a smiling kid or goofy teenager, no matter how much I'd changed.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I never really fit in growing up. I got made fun of a lot of the time in high school. People never liked me, and I was always the new kid.
I never wanted to be like anyone growing up. It's always been about the enjoyment, and I've just never wanted to imitate anyone.
When I was a teenager, if anyone recognized me for anything I did, it would ruin my day. I couldn't handle it. It was some sort of neurotic phobia. I guess I was paranoid that people would treat me differently, or in an unfair way, because of my job.
Growing up, I just wanted to be like everyone else. I didn't value or understand the beauty in being different at the time in my life.
When I was growing up, particularly during puberty in my teen years, I was so miserable because I elicited so much teasing and meanness from my teenage cohorts.
I grew up in a difficult environment, but I became a Christian as a teen. My mom and my sister soon became Christians also.
I was kind of an unhappy kid. I always felt like a cynical New Yorker trapped in a little kid's body. I started to get some pretty bad anxiety disorders around puberty, which totally did not work with growing up a mile away from the beach. I started cutting my own hair.
When I was being honest with myself, I had to own that there was something about me that was drawing an energy in my life that left me feeling underserved and unfulfilled. I decided to grow. I decided to purge myself of anyone and anything that was not full of goodness, serving me or making me happy.
A lot of my personality was informed by feeling very different in the world I grew up in, feeling that I didn't fully belong, that my parents didn't belong.
I was fortunate enough to have an upbringing that made me more accepting of who I am.