depressed…
A word that seems to fit me true, at least in my mind.
Maybe not in yours, but this is true acting.
Not like in shows, where you can change around.
Crying yourself to sleep every night, yet waking
up and going to school with a smile on your face,
Acting euphoric is true acting.
Making people believe that you're normally happy
when everyday you're crying inside is true acting.
People always told me I was a good actress, they
never knew quite how good i am.
*when it all began*
Well, I never quite knew how it started, but I think
it started in sixth grade, right about at the end.
I had had a really good friend during this year, yet
at the end, she decided to skip the one thing we had
been planning all year, to do it with another girl.
this other girl was my worst enemy, who hated me.
I was absolutely devastated, I mean, she stood there
asking me if it was all right that she worked with this
other girl. I had no idea what to say, I mean, I couldn't
Say no. It would have been possible but I couldn't.
I started to fall, I could feel the abyss inside me
opening, yet didn't know what to do. I started crying
myself to sleep, if I didn't, I couldn't sleep. I did
find another good friend that year, one who, for about
half a year, was always there. Next year, seventh grade.
That was a disaster as well. I mean a true disaster. For
one thing, it was the first time I ever loved anyone.
My first case of unrequited love, and I still can't forget him His name was *Apollo*. Actually, it's not so unrequited at the moment but we'll get to that later. I worshipped the ground he walked on for around
three months. Every time I saw him, my heart would stop.
He never liked me, he liked my friend that I had just become
close to. He ended up asking me to a dance but he never showed
up. That really hurt. I stopped speaking to him, and in that time,
my other friend stopped speaking to me. I found a couple of new
friends, who I really liked but I had sunk even deeper. I found myself
keeping lists, of all the different ways I could kill myself.
Actually, something I had forgotten to write earlier about seventh
grade. When I was trying to forget the guy I worshipped, I met someone
new.
*andrew*
I was 12, he was 16. Somehow, he loved me. I don't know how.
He always said that I was way older than my years. People have always
said that. Well, I hadn't realized this at the time but he was also
depressed. After a couple of weeks, I noticed this fact. I tried talking to him
about it but he would always brush it off, saying it was just a "phase". Now I know
that he didn't believe I was old enough to understand it. Two weeks after the first time
I really said "I Love You", he killed himself. I really changed then. I tried to kill myself.
*seppuku*
I was with my best friends in the states, visiting them. My parents were back in Hong Kong. It was only teenagers. I tried to kill myself. I slit the largest veins I could find, in my wrists, my ankles, my neck, my arms and anywhere on my body I thought might help. I also took a bunch of tranquilizers and sedatives, sleeping pills and some stuff that I wasn't sure of. It didn't work. My friend Erik came back early from a basketball game and found me. He got really scared and called the rest. I managed to stay alive. The last thing I remember before I blacked out (earlier) was this intense feeling of wanting to stay alive. A couple of those friends don't speak to me anymore but most of them do. Some of them were really supportive, especially Erik, Mikey, Lindzey, Rachel and Sammie. They were really special and I still talk to them a lot. When I went back to Hong Kong, I realized I couldn't tell anyone about this. My parents still don't know. My friends and I made a pact never to tell anyone.
*disaster*
Seventh grade came and went, like leaves off a tree. Every day the same as the next. People thought I was happy most of the time. Little did they know that every day I was screaming inside, voices screaming at me, telling me how stupid and ugly I was. I got told that a lot at school, people voting me second ugliest person in school. And I'm not. People told me that, yet I still can't believe it. I have this self-image of myself as incredibly ugly, all because of a group of 13 year olds. I was so relieved when seventh grade was finally over. I had only told a select group of people what I had done, but I had really scared a few of them. I still loved Apollo, yet he scorned me. He thought it was horrible, what I had done to myself. All I wanted him to do was consider friendship.
*doomed*
We had to go on a school trip to China and Apollo was in my group. We got to be pretty good friends, but there was always this aching in me, this void, this emptiness. It hurt so bad, that I couldn't concentrate on anything.
Everyone started to notice, and they laughed. They all thought that I was just trying to get people's attention. They didn't know how wrong, yet how right they were. On the outside, I was attempting to pretend that nothing much was wrong. Inside I was screaming, trying to get someone to look behind the cool façade and see how I really felt. No one did. Seventh grade finished, and eighth grade started off just as badly as every other year had. I got put in a class where I didn't have a single friend. I am not exaggerating. While everything had seemed good over the summer, the pain started again. I started to fake being sick, just so I wouldn't have to go to school. Just so I could stay home and have someone care, have someone look after me and love me. I couldn't get anyone at school to love me so I had to look to other places. I stopped doing my work, I just didn't want anything at all to do with school.
*lies, lies and more lies*
I did really badly the second quarter and I was tested for a bunch of different stuff. I was so scared of anyone finding out about my results that I lied on my depression test. We had to rate ourselves on different things, and on every question, I answered with one of the optimistic options. My results came out as "Alicia rates herself much lower on the depression scale than most girls her age". My parents laughed and said "that's our girl". I smiled and said "of course" but I was sarcastic when I said it. They didn't notice. When I heard the results, my spirits sunk. Although I hadn't wanted anyone to know, I did want help. And now, I thought that no one would ever know. I was enraged with myself, absolutely irate. When I went to bed that night, I waited until my parents were asleep. Then I sneaked out of the house with my lighter. I burned myself, purposely, just because it felt good. I thought I deserved it for being so stupid. I couldn't look in the mirror without wanting to cry. I felt so stupid and ugly and pathetic, I wondered why I had been put here. I wanted to kill myself again but all I could remember from before was wanting to live so badly. This was right around New Years. I threw myself into other things, hoping it would take away the pain. I started writing poetry and stories but I found that all I could write and understand was pain, suicide, unrequited love, emptiness, loneliness and degradation. That didn't help much at all. Nothing helped, not even acting helped. I used to love acting, during part of eighth grade I really despised it. I believed that it was the root of my problems, because I was always acting like something I wasn't. Teachers used to love having me in their classes, but my attitude changed. Several times I found myself getting into fights with teachers, friends and my parents over really stupid things. One time I got into a huge fight with Apollo, and when he called about it, I tried to explain it but he didn't understand. No one did, or at least I thought. I never knew what I was going to say next, it was if some demon had possession of my soul. But really, that incubus was me. I began to hate the light, anything associated with happiness. If I ever found myself thinking happy thoughts, I would cut myself, just deep enough to hurt but not deep enough to kill. I believed that someone like me didn't deserve to be happy, I only thought that I justified pain and suffering. A couple of months ago, I described my life as a void, filled with pain, sorrow and nothing else. It still is. I don't know if I'll ever be happy again. I hope so sometimes. Normally though, I think that I'm luckier than happy people, they are so naïve and know nothing. I at least, am disenchanted and know what is going to happen. Nothing that happens could be any worse than these last three years… I hope….
*assimilation*
you look at me, and what do you see? I'm only a shattered reflection of that girl you used to know so well. That girl who used to laugh and love. And now, I'm the dark shadow, overpowering her. All around me, the rain falls. Falling on my face, mixing with the constant tears. For the last few months, there hasn't been a night when I haven't cried. No one knows, they only see the happy girl who used to exist, and who exists for everyone else's convenience. Damn it! Can't they see that I'm screaming inside? They'll never know… that was my story, but where are the reasons… right here. I hate myself all the time. I can't look in the mirror without wanting to kill the girl I see. I feel like a murderer all the time, for not being able to help Andrew. He's gone and I can't accept it because I wish I were dead as well. I don't always wish that in the front of my mind, but always, underlying is that wish… "I wish that I weren't here".
