How It Feels to Be Different

Tin Nguyen

I was just a sixteen-year-old innocent Vietnamese boy. Everyone thought I was a very calm, intelligent classmate. But no one knows more about me. No one knows what they’ve seen in my mind. You’ll probably never know what I actually went through. Now, let me share this story with you all.

When I was a little boy, my world changed. When I was in first grade, I was the victim of bullying. It makes my learning skills and social skills much more difficult. That’s why I always stay quiet for the rest of the class and remain silent. It’s like a super glue that sticks between my mouth, while I try to talk and express myself but it won’t budge. Everytime I try to say something, I can’t. I have to say the words to myself. Sometimes bullying is too much for me, and it makes me depressed and furious. Like the fire keeps raging inside my body. I try to control myself but I can’t. I’m afraid. I’m sick and tired of tears that keep pouring between my eyes, and I tell myself, “Everything is going to be okay.” When I was little, before I came to the United States, I was too optimistic and too excited to go to school for the first time. But why do they treat me like this? After the dreams I’ve had? Should I blame myself for that? It makes me feel embarrassed when I keep thinking about the situation I’ve gone through. I was only 7 years old, and I was marginalized. I knew I was different than the others as I came here to America from Vietnam.

But I do not let the abyss stop me from my dreams. I know I have to stay as strong as possible. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I had to break the walls that I was stuck in the total abyss. I knew that being different isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that I felt special about myself. But the scar still remains in my heart. This is what it feels like to walk in my shoes. I’m very glad that I have let my voice be free inside my head. And spread in the people’s ears to let them know before you judge someone, you have to know about them. You have to walk in their shoes to experience what they have gone through in their life.