Now that you know where I am in the present, are you ready for the past? You could say there's a few ways to interpret it, starting with the general opinion of irrational, selfish, pathetic, and pointless, but opinions are opinions.
Let's start with the beginning of 7th grade, back where it all started. It was my first year in Crossview Middle School, as that I had just moved here to Florida from Ohio. In case you've never been to Ohio, It's a pretty quiet place, and did nothing to prepare me for the "adventures" that Florida would provide me with endless stories of.
You know that awkward middle school stage you go through in middle school? Yeah I was still in it. The difference, is that in Ohio, everyone was still in it, unlike almost all of the 7th graders of Crossview Middle, making the new girl who was already at the center of attention, a joke. From the very beginning it was rough, no one would befriend me no matter what I did to fit in or be liked. I know what your thinking, that's part of growing up, everyone has they're struggles, poor first world teenager.
Through out 7th grade, the bullying was simple, and I dealt with it, although it was hard, but when 8th grade began, everything changed. The torment escalated from simply being called weird, boring, and ugly, to being told the world was better off without me, I was a suicidal freak, and that I should just kill myself. At first I tried to ignore it all, and thought they were just being stupid kids. But, eventually I began to believe the horrible things being fed to me. Constantly have your flaws pointed out to you 24/7, and see how long it takes you before you begin to believe it.
Then, the problems at home began. My parents got divorced, my Mom began drinking, lost her job, then we had to move into some pitiful excuse of a house. Usually it just happened when my Mom would drink, the insulting and yelling, but eventually it began to happen when she wasn't drinking, and instead of a bad habit she had, it became a personality trait of hers. Sometimes I wasn't sure whether I enjoyed being at school where the constant bullying was, or at home where the verbal abuse was. It seemed like no matter where I went, I was always a failure, and if everyone thought I was, I figured I must be.
My stress was building up, I had no outlet. Sometimes I thought about it, suicide, but never did I ever really consider it, not until that day. It was the 22nd of October, and everything seemed to be going wrong. I started off my day finding a dead rat in my homeroom locker, then being told to stop breathing, because I was wasting the air. Then I was hit in the face by a door, which knocked me over, causing me to drop my binders, which the kid who knocked me over with the door proceeded to pick up, pretend to hand back to me, then throw down the hallway, causing all my papers to spill out. I felt the heat of tears threatening to push out from behind my closed eyes, but I just blinked them away as usual. Then to top off my day, my Mom was drunk out of her mind when i got home, then when she saw I left a sweatshirt on my floor, told me I was a worthless failure who she was embarrassed to say was her daughter. I then began to think, why do I try to be so strong? I know I'm really not. I put up this front to make the bullies think they don't bother me, but then I realized I've been putting up a front to myself.
For the first time in two years, I cried that night. Then I thought to myself, I must be worthless if even my own mother thinks so. That's when I went into the bathroom and found my razor. I looked into the mirror and saw the mess I had become. My hair was matted from me running my hands through it and tugging in frustration, my eyes were red an swollen, my nose runny, and a single tear running down from each of my eyes. I looked from the razor, back up to myself, then down at my wrist. I knew what to do.
I hovered the razor above my lower forearm, hesitating at first. but gradually growing the courage to go for it. What did i have to lose? No one cared anyway. I began to cut, one at first, then more came when I began to let my build up frustrations out. I took the anger out on my left arm, the anger built up from almost two years of torture.
That's when the cutting began, October 22nd. For the rest of 8th grade, it was simple, have a bad day, come home and cut. I never really seriously considered anything more serious throughout that year, but you know what they say, "high school changes people."
