I was bullied all through elementary school. I never had more than one or two friends at a time, and when I did have friends we wouldn't be very close, and my friends would be other bullied outcasts. My grade was small, only 25 kids, so there was no escape when a group of people hated you. Throughout that time, even as a little kid, I self harmed, scratching myself, or hitting myself in the head, or pinching myself, though I never realized that what I was doing was self harm. It got better in 6th grade when I went to a new school, and I was clean for a good 4 months (the longest I've ever been clean), but then in 7th grade my school merged with the school where all of my bullies went, and it got so much worse. All of my friends completely deserted me for the kids from the other school, and left me feeling alone, unneeded and unwanted. I would sit in the corner at the end of the hallway all the time with a book in my lap trying to ignore all the kids around me teasing me when they noticed me at all. They would tell me that I'm a loser, and that nobody would ever like me. I started to believe them that the world would be better without me. I was always sad, even though I didn't show it. I would cry myself to sleep every night almost. My grades fell, so of course my parents who only accept A's were furious. I stayed like that all through 8th grade. At the end of 8th grade it got even worse because the grade went on a 2 week trip together, so I had to spend all day with them. I was also dealing with the fact that I'm not straight. That summer when I went to camp it was awful. That was when I started cutting. Everyone in my age group was dating and hooking up, and I was expected to do it too. Now both of my friends are guys, so everyone was trying to pair me up with one of them, Jake. It just made it so much worse, having it shoved in my face that I wasn't normal. I started getting really angry whenever someone brought it up, so people just did it more and teased me for getting angry. I felt like I didn't belong in this world. By the end of the summer I had started to cut almost every day. When 9th grade started I was a mess, but I dealt with that by throwing myself into any activities I could find determined to keep my mask up. I joined the tennis team and 6 clubs, but I just hid the problem, not got rid of it. In fact it got worse. I started cutting more and more sometimes up to 3 times a day, and became convinced that I was a mistake, that I didn't belong in this world. I seriously considered killing myself and even wrote a note, but never could actually do it. I was in that dark place for about two and a half months. I am trying to get myself out of that place. Now I'm not saying that I'm fine. I still have suicidal thoughts, I still cut sometimes, but I am trying to get better.
So I didn't write this to try and get sympathy. I wrote it because I know there are people that are going through the same thing I did, that I am still going through, to show them that they are not alone, and that they can make it through this.
