The truth behind those glassy eyes people used to look straight through and ignore the pain...
Staring at the bright screen in front of me, it's not hard to remember at all. It caused me too much pain to ever forget. She caused me too much pain to ever forget.
Looking back to before year 3, I never would've imagined my life turning out like the hell it became, I never would've expected myself to have gone through so much torture, and I never would've thought I could feel so much hatred for one obnoxious person.
I was very young, and very naive and I guess I hadn't learnt what to do in the situation I found myself in, let alone why I was in it.
I remember endless days of sitting in my bedroom and crying my heart out into a pillow so that no one could hear. I felt so helpless. I felt so worthless. I felt unwanted, unloved and unneeded.
All these thoughts lead to many mistakes. Mistakes I aren't proud of. Mistakes that weren't all my fault. I don't think I'm being out of order by blaming some of this on her because it was her that made me feel the way I felt. It was her that made me depressed. It was her that nearly killed me, in a sense.
I was hurting so bad, and I had that feeling. The one where I didn't want to live because of the pain I felt, but where I didn't want to die either, I just wanted to stop it all. I was scared of a lot of things, because I didn't understand why they were happening. I didn't understand how she was swanning around, guilt free when I was hurting like that. I didn't understand how to deal with the pain I was feeling. It was unimaginable.
As the years went on, I lost every single speck of my confidence and self esteem. It made me want to hide away. It made me want to scream at the rotten world for having a good time without me. Eventually it made me want to kill the pain, kill the shame, kill the anger, kill the fear, all the emotion. The only way I could think of to do that was to kill myself.
I'd sit there in complete silence some days. My life felt like something you would read about in books or watch on the telly but you would never imagine it happening to you. I never imagined I would hate life so much before I was even 13 years old. It was so unreal.
I thought about how my beloved family would react if something happened to me, yet even that didn't stop the thoughts. My life had got so bad that I didn't see the point of it any more, when she was swanning around as happy as ever. That really got to me, how she was so unaffected by it all. It was so unfair, that she made me feel like this, yet she was getting these big thrills out of it all. For years I had these feelings and as I grew up, I never realised anything new. I didn't necessarily feel that the world would be a better place without me, but I felt that I had no choice but to give up on my dreams and my life because I couldn't take the pain of it any longer.
I remember standing in the kitchen one day staring at the murky cupboard. I had the huge house to myself. I took out the several tubs of medicines, pills, creams, and plasters. Ironically, painkillers were what I was looking for. I grabbed a couple of sheets, not wanting to make it obvious they were gone. Not that it would matter because if I'd died they would've known anyway but I guess I didn't think about that at the time. Back upstairs I searched through one of my mums draws, knowing she had some hidden away somewhere. Sleeping pills. I took a sheet of those too. Staring at the staggering amount of pills in front of me I was in shock of what I was about to do, but there was no turning back. I had to stop the pain. I picked up the cup of water beside me and swished some round my mouth. It had felt so dry before. As I popped out the pills from the acrylic sheets, tears began to roll down my tainted face. What had happened to that sweet little girl people had got to know just a few years before? I couldn't believe it had got this far.
As I hid the empty sheets in my room, all I could think about was not waking up. I laid on my bed, curled up in a ball and cried myself to sleep.
The next morning I woke up and couldn't even lift my head off the pillow without almost throwing up. The only thing going through my mind was all the pain I still felt inside. That day must've been a football match that my granddad had gone to, as my nan came round. She never comes round, it's always us visiting them. I sat in the armchair downstairs resting my head on the back of it. I felt like I was in the middle of an earthquake. My head was throbbing. Dragging myself back up to bed I kept asking myself why I hadn't died. I couldn't even do a good job of killing myself properly it seemed. Nobody downstairs even noticed I wasn't OK. They carried on with their shallow lives as if I was just some invisible little rat who meant nothing to them.
I didn't know what to do after that. I was forced to keep pretending I was so happy every day because I was so afraid that if someone found out, my life would be made ten times worse. It probably couldn't have been made much worse in reality, as I had completely hit rock bottom, if not further. The fact I kept it all inside totally ripped me to shreds.
I was texting my best friend one night. Not just the normal chatty texts you would expect at our juvenile ages though. I told her I hated myself and I hated my life. I didn't think she would take it so seriously, but it wasn't a lie. Maybe it was a cry for help, or maybe I was about to give up, but she saved my life. She told her mum, who of course told my mum, who then spoke to me about it. I denied what I'd sent reassuring her I was fine, even though I so obviously wasn't. I was scared of what she would do, and just wanted to be alone, but she didn't give up that easily.
I didn't think anything wrong of the text as it was only how I felt. I was blind to how bad the situation had got. I was blind to how bad I had got.
The next day my misery was made aware of. I wasn't invisible after all, I just felt it because of that fake smile I would glue to my lips each morning. I saw that people were actually worried about me, though I hated the fuss. I couldn't see the big deal. I remember sitting in that puny office being asked if the text said I hated myself and my life. Of course I said no, scared of what would happen if people knew the truth. I didn't want my life spread about, not my thoughts and feelings. It was far too personal. But he could see straight through my lies.
"It's like getting blood out of a stone." He told me.
Being asked if there was anything else that had been said to me, I couldn't remember it all so I said no. Then when my friends were called in and they said other things, he could see I was in real danger, but it was because I purely couldn't remember all the insults over the years. I hadn't wanted to remember them, unsurprisingly
Over the next few weeks I had teachers fussing over me, asking if I was OK. Once again I lied through the phony smile, but they were all blind, and satisfied with the answers they were given.
My depression never went away, because I had no idea what to do about it. With her still around insulting me it pushed me to the edge. It kept getting me down, and once again I became seriously depressed, only this time I was older. I understood things a little more, though it didn't change the way I felt.
I still hadn't learnt how to deal with the feelings. I still hadn't learnt what to do in that situation. I still felt like I wanted to stop all the pain forever.
I sat there one night, with a blade in my hand, and ran my finger along the edge. It was so sharp. I was hesitant at first, unsure of how to go about it. Then a rush of anger and emotion swirled through me all of a sudden and I knew it didn't matter. Wondering about it would make it worse. As I pulled the metal over my untouched skin, the pain I felt was almost unbearable. Though it was a comforting pain. A physical pain, to take my mind off the pain I was feeling inside. As I repeated the movement, I knew it was wrong, but I wasn't about to stop when it was making me feel better. Again and again, I couldn't stop. Crying all the while. This happened more than once, as the months went on.
Sitting in that same situation I had found myself in so many wretched months ago, the number of sheets had decreased by one. I had been found out before. Pills were found in my room. More pills, which I had gathered gradually to end the misery, but not yet got round to putting them into my untended body. After that, once again I had managed to convince them I was OK, though I still knew I wasn't. It seemed to be my own little fatal secret, in my own little dream-world, in my own little head.
I swallowed those pills, with all the old venomous thoughts repeating themselves in my decrepit head. Once again I was unsuccessful. I wasn't even sick. That method was hopeless I realised. I had a relapse. I reverted back to the scars. Back to the blade. Back to that comforting pain I could remember so faintly. Not so faint for long. It happened again.
Life slowly started getting better somehow, until I'd have a bad patch. Having a bad patch for me would be remembering all this past. It would come to the front of my mind so clearly. So easily. Too many regrets were made, but now I've been shown I can learn from them. I know they were mistakes.
I've learnt so much about myself and about my life. I've made so many shocking realisations. Good realisations. I'm still learning and making those realisations.
All those years I was bullied, I never thought of it as bullying until after. I saw it as something that was happening to me, maybe as a punishment. I was young and naive and I didn't understand why it was happening or what I had done to deserve it, but I never opened up about any of it, because it was happening gradually and until I now look back, I was blind to the change in me and my life. It was the root to a tree full of pain.
As I look back, it kills me to think that I let myself get that bad. Every little thing that I had said to me killed me inside. It hurt me so much, and I became seriously depressed. I am lucky to be alive. I felt like there was no point in me living in that world of misery any longer because it would just cause me more unnecessary pain.
I guess right now I'm at that point where I'm beating myself up for letting her get to me so much because she's just not worth it, but then I have such a strong feeling of hate towards her for ruining my life and for ruining me. I could never let myself get that bad again. Not even close. I'm not blind any more. My understanding is clearer. Even though I have bad days and feel low every now and then, I realise it's nothing compared to how I used to feel. I could never imagine putting myself through anything like that again. Or my friends. I just regret those times so much.
Story shared: 06/08/2008 16:41:13
#353 View the comments about this story thatartificialsmile - Pain - bullying - suicide - overdose - self harm - bottling it up - depression - relapse - learning - Regret
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