[QoTW] I hate my nicknames.

As many of you might know already, my childhood sucked. I got picked on and all that other crap.
The constant bullying I could tolorate. It was the fact that they all had this wee little nickname for me that really pissed me off. My name is Jazmin. Everyone knew that. Yet everyone refused to use that name for me, despite that name being everything that I am. I was the misfit little sister of the popular neighborhood boy that all the girls wanted to date and who all the other kids wanted to be like who also happened to be his foil. I lived a sheltered life as a child. My parents were so over protective of me that I was never allowed to leave home. Even if I wanted to hang out with a friend (which I didn’t have anyway at the time, rofl), unless it was to do an errand. People seldom saw my face but they knew who I was. They saw me and I was simply known as Tony’s Little Sister or just Tony’s Sister. Whenever they asked me a question, they called me that. Whenever they just wanted to say hi, they called me that. Or if they just pointed me out to someone or even introduced me, they called me that. It was so frustrating. My name is Jazmin. Jazmin. Call me by my fucking name.

I suppose that nickname was better to hear rather than them using my brother’s nicknames for me which were Mustache Girl and Pinnochio.

…
Yes I know. Please don’t laugh. Aw, fuck. Go ahead.

The only way I could get away from my terrible home life was to go to school, but even then, my name was hardly used except in award ceremonies or during attendance calls. My teachers would Jazmataz in reference to the Tazmanian Devil from the looney toons. I hated that name. It sounded stupid. I was a fan of the looney toons (and still am), but I just didn’t like how it sounded.

Each grade I went up, there was a new nick name for me. In second grade, there was this huge girl (who was OBVIOUSLY going to grow up to be a lesbian) who didn’t like me for any reason I was aware of. She would constantly call me Skeleton because I was so skinny when I was a kid. Then everyone started calling me that. And they did. All the way until I graduated into middle school.

In middle school, I began to become more aware of having feelings for boys and how I myself was growing. My breasts were much larger than any normal girl my age, which earned me a lot of attention from boys but not the kind of attention I wanted. It also earned me the attention of girls, but only their hatred an contempt. I’ll never know why. I’d like to believe it was jealousy because my body was more developed than theirs. But who knows?

But while I was earning attention for my body figure, my face wasn’t getting as much praise. I guess you could say that even if someone was willing to have sex with me, they’d put a bag over my head and save themself the horror of looking at something that would ruin it for them. People called me E.T. Because while I had the body of a goddess, I had the face of an ogre. My irregularly long and slender neck also earned me the nickname of Giraffe. I was the school giraffe. Apparently.

In high school, people were less creative, but their words still stung nonetheless. By then I was as boyish as they come. Save the short hair. My body was already fully developed. I had the sweet figure of a model, but still the same sour ugly face as ever. I wore baggy clothing to hide myself from the prying eyes of boys with hormones too strong to control. I was content with being ugly. If I were ugly, none of the boys would bother me or look at me or watch me. I would have rather have been made fun of for my looks than become eye candy and be disrespected even further by being seen as nothing more than an object that a male uses for sexual purpose. So I dressed like a boy. I wore big shirts that hung down to just above my knees. I wore jeans that were baggy to hide my legs. Of course I wore a belt because I think the whole trend of letting your pants sag and showing the world the contures of your ass was just plain fucking stupid.

I was often called a Lesbian even though they knew that I wasn’t but they called me that anyway because they assumed that even if I was a lesbian, that it was a bad thing to be a lesbian. It angered me in more ways than one. I was upset because they used a term of homosexuality as an insult. Much how like people use the term “Gay” to describe things that are not pleasant or when they use “Faggot” as a term of insulting someone else. That in itself is disrespecting everyone who is homosexual and I have a lot of gay friends. I don’t like it when my friends are openly disrespected.

I guess that does it for my horrible nicknames. Throughout the course of my life, I’ve barely ever heard my name. Even my boyfriend barely uses my name. He has nicknames for me too. Most notably, he calls me Period Girl when I have my period. I like my name. It’s unique. I think it’s beautiful. But I never get to hear anyone say it. Just once I want to hear someone say my name and not a nickname. The name that was given to me at birth is my identity. Not some nickname.
No nickname, no matter how awesome it is, can replace my real name. My real identity.

‘Till next time.

~ Jaz