The Darkness Within Me.

the darkness within me chapter 3

Chapter Three

I don't feel like I have ever had my depression or self harm taken seriously. In fact for a while after I told my family it made things worse for me. My brothers and sisters thought I was one big joke and called me a freak quite a lot. Every time we got into an argument they would shout things at me about it like "oh go and slit your wrists you freak!" That hurt a lot. I just felt like they all thought I was trying to get attention or being a drama queen. If anything I was the opposite. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone. My mom was supportive of me. When I told her, I was terrified of how she would react, and I was scared she would be angry. I remember it like it happened ten minutes ago. I went into her room and she was sitting on her bed. I asked her if I could talk to her about something and she said yes. I remember saying "mom, what would you do if you found out that one of your kids was cutting themselves?" and she just said "I would give them a hug and promise to try and help them, why?" so I just sat on her bed next to her and rolled up my sleeves. There were so many cuts and scars on my arms that even I was quite shocked. I didn't really notice them when I was self harming, it was almost like I went into a trance when I cut myself, and I was just waking up. My mom was as good as her word. She wasn't angry, she didn't ask questions, she just hugged me and said that she would try to help me and that no-one else had to know if I didn't want them to. That was the most support I got from anyone. And after that it seemed like I was left on my own. I don't think that anyone meant to make me feel alone or abandoned. I think that they just didn't know how to deal with it so they just acted like nothing was wrong. I did manage to stop self harming for what seemed like a really long time, but what was probably only about a year or so. And then out of nowhere I was thrown back to square one. I don't even really remember what caused me to start self harming again, but I know that my depression never went away, not once, it just was either really bad or just about manageable. But when I did start self harming again I hated myself. This isn't about me lookin for sympathy or attention. In fact the less attention I attract, the better for me. But at my worst I was desperate to find someone like me, someone who was suffering that much, or really knew what it was like, so that I wouldn't feel so alone. I love to read and I find getting lost in a book soothing, so it made sense for me to look for books about people who had suffered from depression. But there was only books written by doctors and councillors, people whose experience of depression was purely professional. I couldn't relate to that and it made me more afraid of going to a doctor about how I felt because I didn't feel like they'd really understand. So now that I feel stronger I wanted to find a way of telling my story so that if there's a chance that anyone is suffering the way that I was and is looking for something, or someone they can relate to, they won't feel as alone as I was because there is at least one real person's story out there.

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