PTSD

Interestingly and literally, I have almost no recall of my two years of junior high school.  The things I do recall seem less like memories and more like vague recollections of dreams I had while passed out drunk, and a lot of the time they're very different from what others who were there with me remember.  Sometimes I think it's like a mild case of post-traumatic stress disorder; those were probably the two worst years of my life.

Mostly I remember just feeling really awkward and not having any friends.  Only, most of the people I consider my closest friends now are people I met in junior high.  And when I tell them this, when I tell them about my memories of middle school friendlessness, they remind me of that.  But yet, despite the fact that I know I met them all in junior high, I almost don't remember it.  More so I remember them being there, and my having a sense of their having been there for a few years already, in early high school. 

I wonder if this horrible experience of junior high is somewhat universal?  It makes sense to me.  Seventh grade is about when puberty kicks into full swing, when hormones are raging, people are learning to be deceitful and cliquey, and some sense of the future starts to set in.  But I remember it being more than that; I was hopelessly distraught over something.  I just don't know what it was.  Looking back with an objective eye, I can say with a fair degree of conviction that it really was just normal pubescent kid stuff.  I felt weird, awkward, and lonely, but I remember it being so much more than that.  Only it wasn't.