Nope

You will never know my childhood nickname.  The Ex (with whom I had a 2-decade relationship) never knew it.  What makes you think I would tell you?  Any of you?

I have collected many other nicknames since then.  Mostly short term little things people gave me at various jobs I've had.  Little Amish Girl.  Gretchen.  Science Monkey.  Cute, innocuous things that settled on me with all the weight and seriousness of a glow-stick necklace.

My childhood nickname, though, was created by a particularly clever bully.  One simple syllable that summed up all the ways I could be hurt.  Or all the ways I was repulsive to my peers and therefore forever and always unlovable.

Because it was so clever, people didn't understand that it was also cruel.  Soon, my closest friends and even my family started calling me by this "cute," clever name.  I started using it myself, hoping that maybe it would lose its appeal if I didn't show how bothered I was.  Maybe then I could be my own self again.  But, like many simple clever things, it sunk in and would not go away.  Somewhere in there I lost the chance to get back my own name and it stuck.

I had laughed at it once, thinking that would kill it, and I had to keep on laughing at it lest something worse happen to me.  I smiled when my best friend handed me birthday cards addressed with that nickname.  I answered cheerfully when my mother called me by that name.  I crossed my arms and put on a pretend smile when the person who created that name for me decided that we must be some kind of friends -- so he could sit down next to me and ask me intrusive questions about my body, all in the guise of "being interested."

When I went to high school, I finally found myself in classes mostly with girls who never knew me by that name.  I also found my death glare, and the one time my best friend used that name I stared her down.  I never killed that nickname.  I moved away from it.  And I carried around this hard kernel of hatred for the girl I was -- this physically repulsive creature who earned a clever-cruel nickname and only made it through by taking every hit.  Right in the stomach.

So, no, you will never learn my childhood nickname.  Not from me, at least.  And if I ever hear you use it in reference to me, I can guarantee that I will not trust you again.  I might roll my eyes good-naturedly (old habits die hard), but I will definitely watch what I tell you.  There are some things that just need to stay trapped.