The Middle School Bitch: How One Cruel Moment Still Shapes My Creative Voice
I’m currently on Week One of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a 12-week creative recovery program designed to unlock creativity and dismantle the blocks that keep us small. One of the first exercises is to create a “Monster Hall of Fame” — the voices that first wounded your creative self-worth.
Most of us can name someone who made us question our worth: a teacher’s harsh comment, a friend’s betrayal, a peer’s casual cruelty.
When I sat down to write mine, one monster rose up so clearly it took my breath away. For me, it was a girl in middle school. Two decades later, I remember the wound she left more vividly than I remember her name.
The Wound
I grew up with a single parent. I had blonde hair and somehow avoided both braces and glasses, and I was a cheerleader. I know what you’re thinking—I should have been the bully in this story. But I was never quite in. I was a cheerleader because I did gymnastics and dance, not because I was popular. I didn’t have many friends in middle school—maybe two or three. The rest were just classmates.
I was twelve. The middle school was newly opened, so kids from three different schools had been poured into this one building like ingredients in a recipe no one had tested. It was lunchtime, about halfway through the year.
This girl—let’s call her what she was, the head bitch—looked me dead in the eye after lunch and said, “I don’t like you.” She pointed to two other girls. “They don’t like you either. So we don’t want you to sit with us anymore.”
I had no friends during my lunch period—the worst period to not have any friends. I was just a shy, introverted 12-year-old trying my best to fit in and be liked, to not be too awkward, to tiptoe the line of conversing, sharing, and making friends that even at 32, I still stumble over.
Her words cut like a knife. How she said them with little to no remorse was astonishing for a fellow 12-year-old.
(I can now see at 32 that this was probably learned behavior from a Guardian).
I wish I’d thrown my chocolate milk at her.
Instead, I burst into tears.
Twenty years later, I don’t remember her name, but I remember the look of horror on the other two girls’ faces. One of them even comforted me on the walk back to class.
The thing is, I already knew I didn’t quite fit anywhere. I was caught in the in-betweens: too young for one group of friends on my street, too old for another, not religious enough for the Sunday schoolers, not popular enough for the other cheerleaders. I just was.
But hearing it said out loud, so matter-of-factly, like a diagnosis—that cut deeper than I expected.
The Rebellion
The following week, I was determined not to let it faze me. I would show them. They didn’t want to be my friend? Fine. I’d find a new group of friends—someone who was a good person and wanted to sit with me at lunch.
And I did. I found a new group, and eventually a best friend who stayed with me through the rest of middle school and into high school before she moved. It should have been a victory, a lesson in resilience.
I didn’t know it would take twenty years to understand what really happened that day.
The Recognition
Because here’s the truth: that moment left me afraid of being “too much.” It’s still a fear that creeps in with writing and content creation. My limbic system (aka lizard brain) still panics sometimes: if I share too honestly, will I be cast out? Will they laugh behind my back or worse—in front of me?
At its root, this is about survival. The need for validation is fundamentally human—it was crucial for our ancestors’ survival. If you were too different, you might be ostracized from your family pack. That primal fear of rejection? Twenty years later, it’s still running the show every time I hover over the “publish” button.
I can rationalize this now. My lizard brain still wants the same thing it did back then: a place at the lunch table, proof that I belong, reassurance that I’m safe. I can also see, with twenty years of evidence, that one middle schooler was utterly wrong. I have friends, family, people who genuinely want to spend time with me, which I’ll admit, still shocks me sometimes.
Damn, is that the middle school bitch again?
No, she was wrong.
The Evidence
Recently, I went through my old baby box—the one with dried corsages, report cards, letters, and journals I’d forgotten I kept (or that my mother snagged). I reread entries and letters from when I was eight up to twenty-two, and a pattern emerged that I wasn’t expecting.
For all those years, I was in my head so much. I might not have been outwardly awkward looking, but inside, I was an anxious, awkward ball of feelings—worried about my future, about fitting in, and anxious about getting good grades.
But as I flipped through letters and yearbooks and into college journals, I found evidence of people who saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. Friends who wrote about how much they valued me. Teachers who believed in my potential. Even that girl who comforted me after the cafeteria incident—she saw my worth even when the mean girl didn’t.
Maybe I need to start seeing myself the way others see me. Not just how I see myself through the lens of that twelve-year-old’s rejection. Because if they thought those things about me then—if they think those things about me now—maybe it’s true.
The Question I’m Sitting With
But even with all that evidence, the wound is still there. Twenty years later, I’m still that twelve-year-old girl standing in a cafeteria, being told she’s not likable by someone whose name I can’t remember.
I’m learning that knowing something intellectually doesn’t automatically heal the emotional wound. I can read a hundred letters telling me I’m worthy and still feel that knife-sharp rejection when I’m about to share something vulnerable. The evidence matters—it’s teaching me to question the story I’ve been telling myself. But it doesn’t erase what happened or how deeply it shaped me.
So here’s where I sit today, in this messy middle of creative recovery, asking: What does my twelve-year-old self need? What can I give her now so she feels safe and validated and accepted?
Maybe the answer isn’t just showing her the letters. Maybe it’s something more.
Maybe the answer isn’t a destination but a practice—a daily choice to speak gently to the girl who still lives in my chest, who still flinches when I hit “publish.”
Maybe healing isn’t about forgetting the wound but about changing the story I tell about it. Maybe it’s about recognizing that the very thing that made me “too much” for a middle school mean girl is exactly what makes my voice worth hearing now.
I’m learning to sit with my 12-year-old self more. I know she needs a bit more tenacity and audacity from me. She needs me to be brave and show up for myself and ultimately for her.
I’m still figuring it out. But for the first time in twenty years, I’m asking the right question—and maybe that’s enough for today.
What does she need from me today?
An Invitation For You
Because I know I’m not the only one carrying a “Monster Hall.”
Here are some gentle practices I’m trying — maybe they’ll help you, too:
Gather the evidence. Look for the notes, texts, and memories that remind you someone has already seen your worth.
Talk to your younger self. Ask: What does you need from me today?
Reframe the story. What if the thing that once made you “too much” is exactly what makes your voice magnetic now?
And I’d love to know: Who lives in your own Monster Hall? What would your younger self need to hear from you today?
This is part of my journey through The Artist’s Way, a twelve-week creative recovery program that teaches me as much about life transitions as it does about art. If you’re in your own messy middle, know that you’re not alone. Sometimes, the wounds that hurt us most become the very thing that makes us human.
