| Life for me generally wasn't so great. With all this going on at home I had found it difficult to make friends at secondary school, it took me about 6 months, because I just didn't connect with anyone. It was that people actively disliked they were just indifferent. I was petrified about losing these fragile bonds that I would do anything to keep them. I altered my personality, my clothes anything to fit in. The problem with being someone else every day is that the line between you and the front begins to blur as you both grow. I became mnore confident, but was it really me, or another front? At the home the situation continued to deteriorate. I would visit people houses and be amazed when they argued with their parents, in my house you didn't talk back, or question what they did, you just follow what they say exactly. It was all falling apart at the seams, my sister came to me to solve her problems and to get things done because my parents couldn't cope with being parents. I also had a cousin who had parents who had never realised they were supposed to help bring up their offspring. She was a year older but still for some reason I became the mother figure. Yet my parents wouldn't trust me with the simplest responsibilities. They seemed to resent me for something but I could never figure out what I had done. At sixteen I just lost it one night and screamed at my mother. Venting my frustration at always being the good girl and yet being treated like a 12 year old delinquent. Things changed after that, I was suddenly allowed to do what ever I wanted. The worst times When I turned 17, life finally seemed to finally slipping into place. My dad was finally allowed to retire on medical grounds at work, we could finally afford to live. My parents began to heal, flashes of the old people they used to be began to emerge. Then my sister was indecently assaulted. She told me a month after it happened. I held her while she shook and cried. She had only turned 13. But thats her story. In the spring of 2000, things began to fall apart once more, as the years where I had bottled everything, eternally being the good little girl came to haunt me. I'd spent the past 5 years on autopilot and never realised. I was at sixth form, I finally had real friends, must have finally felt safe enough to let the flood gates open. All the emotion I had been storing came pouring out. For the first time I began to feel emotions in full technical colour. Now looking back I can only describe as I would feel only a shadow of the real emotion. I would get angry but shut it out, boxing it up, I would be upset, I could never cry something out, I would just shut down. It was amzing in one way as I would laugh properly, but then the despair soon came afterwards. The past few years had already made me a little neurotic and ruin any self esteem, but now I had all of it to deal with at once. Plus my cousin was becoming more and more dependent on my, I was the one who went to visit universities and talked about filling in the forms. It was all too much, but I didn't want to worry anyone I just kept it all inside. The worst moment culminating in my head replaying over and over again. I thought I was worthless, nothing but a burden on all the people I loved. I wanted to die but didn't think I was worth shedding tears over, so i stayed alive. I became convinced that if I could just find the write words and put it in a letter, that would make them understand it was better if I went. The world seemed like such a beautiful place II didn't deserve to exist in it. Then the perfect solution occurred to me. I f I hated myself so much, why not just hurt me. No one else would ever have to know. It started off with just scratching until I bled. But it wasn't enough so I moved up to pencil sharpner blades, it wasn't the same as knives as it couldn't go too deep. I still had control over it. The cuts could be hidden easily no one would ever know. No one must ever know. But it got frightening, and it was difficult to keep my mouth shut having just discovered I could say what I thought. The problem was I now couldn't stop saying what I thought, it meant I told some friends. Then one moring I just woke up feeling happy again. The walls had shut down once more. The pain had been too intense and my body just shut down again. I started my second year at sixth form, feeling the shadow of the depression constantly behind me. I knew I would fall again it was just a matter of when. It crept up on me slowly. I began to cut but only on a superficial scale, but it wasn't enough. I wanted blood to pour down my arms, little scratches weren't letting out enough of the pain it was still bubbling away. Eating me up until I had no more hope. It no longer mattered if my entire arm was covered in scars because I just didn't care about the world anymore, it was all too much. I was over-whelmed by all this pain and anger. My body was just too small to hold it all. |
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