Kince is a loser ...

Story edited by: Emily Harris

 It was right after Halloween. I was living in the Philippines, attending my first year of high school in a state-run institution that shaped “scholars of the nation”. The school churned out everything from engineers to rocket scientists – literally – and I thought it was a wise decision to apply, especially when I passed the notoriously challenging entrance exam.

It wasn’t.

I was fourteen and living away from home for the first time in my life. I shared two bathroom stalls, three sinks, and three toilets with twenty three other boys in my dorm’s wing.

I had just been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.

I was still in the closet.

Shortly before I was to begin school, my mother left the country. While I was in attendance, she called me long-distance to let me know she was divorcing my father and that I was no longer in her custody. I loved my mother, and I was confused.

I came from a well-to-do-family, but most of the other students weren’t as lucky. They came from less fortunate backgrounds, and had worked hard to meet the education requirements necessary to join the program. I’d never had friends from different backgrounds, and I didn’t know how to connect with them. I felt alienated from my very first day.

I had no friends.

Halloween arrived, and I went home for the long weekend. I loved Halloween and wanted to make it the best one yet. I’d heard from my cousin that a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and ammonia would lighten my hair, which would fit perfectly into my Halloween costume plans. So, I went to the drugstore, picked up hydrogen peroxide and ammonia, and proceeded to spend hours locked in my father’s bathroom doing my hair. Unfortunately, my Asian hair didn’t lighten exactly how I’d hoped.

When I returned to school the following week, my hair was bright orange. I told everyone that there’d been a bad chemical reaction with a temporary dye. I already stuck out because I was different from my fellow students, and now I was impossible to miss! My new hair made it even easier for upper classmen to hurl insults and rude comments at me and tear me down.

There wasn’t much I could do, so I just tried my best to deal with the way I was feeling about myself. I thought I would get used to it, but I never did. Day after day, a group of upper classmen would throw their hands up in a capital “L” shape whenever they saw me. They would look right at me and mouth the word “Loser”, just so no one could mistake what they were calling me. They did it all the time – even when they were running to make a class. It was as if it was some kind of ritual they had to do.

The name-calling and “Loser” tag never went away. Long after my hair had returned to its natural color, I was the “Loser” and I was the preferred victim of anyone’s teasing and ridiculing at school.

Looking back now, I can’t explain how I got through those tough years. Somehow I was able to stick it out to complete my schooling, and stay focused enough to graduate successfully and continue on.

These days I am an accomplished hairstylist, dancer, and songwriter. I have amazing friends, and a solid network of people I care about, and who care about me. I still struggle with feelings of inadequacy that date back to being the “Loser” throughout my teenage years, and I may always have that struggle.

I was in a school of geeks and nerds,

lowest of the social low.

And I was their Loser.