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Tyler didn't like to be different.
Tyler didn't like to blend in either.
Tyler didn't like who he was.
He didn't like his hands, he didn't like his eyes. He didn't like the way he spoke and he didn't like the way he sang.
Tyler didn't like himself.
He didn't push his limits, he didn't climb tall tress or he didn't smile at cute boys with blue hair or pretty girls and he didn't press the keys of his piano in front of anyone but himself.
Tyler didn't like others.
They always made him into someone that he wasn't and they would tell him to change and frown at his new discoveries.
Tyler was five when a boy at the playground pushed him, and laughed at him.
"You are too skinny."
Tyler was too skinny.
Tyler was seven when they made fun of his handwriting.
"It looks like a girl wrote it."
It did look like a girl wrote it. Tyler wasn't a girl.
Tyler was eight when his best friend told him he had to grow up.
"You are too childish and you are not funny."
Tyler wasn't trying to be funny.
He was ten when the boys in his class picked on him for not knowing how to play basketball.
"Are you even a boy? Why can’t you play basketball?"
Tyler did know how to play basketball, he just didn't like gym class.
He was twelve when his classmates laughed at him for trying to sing.
"You sound like a girl. A girl with the vocal chords of a mouse."
Tyler didn't sound like a girl.
Tyler was fourteen when his friends told him he was too girly.
"Tyler are you gay?"
Tyler wasn't gay. He just liked the color of his sister's nail polish and floral shoes.
Tyler was fifteen when he was accused of being stupid.
"I thought nerds where supposed to be smart. Why aren't you?"
Tyler was sixteen when he was pushed into lockers and had his books ripped in front of him.
Tyler was seventeen when they laughed at he poems he wrote.
Tyler was eighteen when his parents forced him to do something he didn't want to do. Tyler was eighteen when he was told to ignore his dreams and do what was expected of him.
Tyler didn't feel like himself.
He mostly felt like a combination of the insults and words he had been called.
Tyler didn't feel like Tyler.
Tyler was twenty one when he chased his dreams and formed his band.
Twenty One Pilots.
Tyler was twenty one when he released the self titled album that kept people from ending their lives and made them believe in themselves.
Tyler was twenty three when he released his second album and saved lives.
Tyler was twenty four when he got signed by a label.
Tyler was twenty five when his label released their third album, he was twenty five when he continued giving people hope.
Tyler was twenty five when he had the chance to travel the world and sing in front of millions of fans.
Tyler was twenty six when he put his struggles in words and made a single person out of them. Tyler was twenty six when he showed the courage to make his demons into a person and encourage himself to fight him.
Tyler was twenty six when he married the love of his life.
Tyler was twenty six when he proved, that in fact, he was not a loser, he was not nobody, he wasn't different and he wasn't supposed to be anyone but himself.
Tyler still didn't like himself.
But sometimes, when his best friend was laughing at a stupid joke in a dark tour bus past midnight and his wife was smiling with a dozen roses in her arms and when he was singing his heart out in front of people and hearing his words repeated, singed back to him, he felt like Tyler. He felt like himself. Tyler was learning to like himself.
It wasn't easy.
But he was learning.