When I was a kid, I was always the loud one in the class. I was always talking and telling stories. I wasn’t disruptive or anything, but at times my teachers would have to tell me to be quiet and stop being so chatty.

After I got a little older, I could see when I was being annoying. I was called annoying by people to my face and behind my back. I became afraid to talk.

I stopped talking in class and to my friends. I wouldn’t text or reply to people with more than a few words. I was so afraid to be called annoying.

I became anxious over every time I opened my mouth. Even when I started dating boys and showing them my real self, they would also call me annoying.

At that point, I was so depressed I just stopped talking altogether. Instead, I would write plays for my creative writing and theatre class. My classmates would come up to me and say that they didn’t expect the quiet girl to write that well.

It was nice to know that when I wrote people liked me. But I was still scared because I knew I was still annoying. I didn’t want to lose my friends and I wanted to try dating again after my disastrous first attempt.

Still, I kept quiet until about my senior year in high school. At that point, I realized I didn’t care what people thought about me because I wouldn’t see most of them again.

I let myself be annoying. I found a few friends that I loved and they let me talk as much as I wanted. I got to make people laugh and that is all I really wanted, but I was so afraid of being called that awful word.

Even now when someone calls me annoying, I get really depressed and don’t tale for a few hours. I regress to that old mindset where I just shut myself down. But at least now I have friends that let me use my voice as much as my heart desires.