Simply Bella

simply childhood

I had a normal childhood, I'd like to think and I was surrouned by amazing people. My family consisted of my mum, Amber, my dad, Henry, and my little brother, James.

I was born on August 30th, 2000 at 7:41am (I literally just asked my mum) as Arabella Alayna Jones. I have lived in the small town of Cynthiana, Kentucky all my life. It's far in the country and it's not much, but I love it.

When I was four, my parents divorced and immediately, I blamed myself and that led to my eating problem. I ate my feelings away just as Catherine in my story "Soda Pop and Muffin Tops" does (shameless self promo rn). I can't blame my dad leaving for my weight issues. That was completely my fault. I didn't know how to control my feelings, so I ate them away. I still do that.

I do blame my dad however, for my having to go to therapy.

My father used to do this thing that my mum and I have named "The No Call-No Show" in which he would say that he was going to pick us up, but then he wouldn't come and he wouldn't tell us that he wasn't coming which ended in me waiting and waiting for him to come and him never coming. It was one of the worst feelings in the world.

After the divorce, my dad moved further into the city, settling in Ludlow, Kentucky. We were a good two years away from him and he didn't want to try to be a father when I was growing up.

I may have been young, but I remember what it was like growing up with both parents. Or rather, my mom. Even when dad was in the house, he wasn't a great father. Most nights he would come home drunk. He wasn't like the stereotypical raging alcohol father. He didn't beat us. He didn't even yell at us. He yelled at himself. My father was what you could call a crying drunk. He cried when he was pissed.

My mum became both parents very early in my life. She worked, she went to school and she took care of two toddlers by herself while she was married. That's pathetic. It's pathetic that my father couldn't do anything. He couldn't do anything until Paula.

Paula is my stepmum. They met while my mum was pregnant with my brother. They never slept together until after the divorce thankfully. Paula was a nice woman. She was obviously a lot older than my dad. Her eldest daughter is only two years younger than my father, but I don't so much mind the age difference anymore.

Paula fixed my dad up. He no longer drinks and parties thanks to her and I could have never asked for a better stepmum.

I was seven when they married. I gained a bitchy stepbrother and annoying stepsister out of it. Clay is just a druggie and Becky was simply annoying and she whined about everything, but I could let it slide.

I started therapy the same year they married. I didn't like having a stepmother at the time. I thought that she was going to be like Cinderella's stepmother. I was naïve and childish. Paula was great. At times, she overstepped the boundaries asking for me to call her my mum, but otherwise, she was fine.

In therapy, not much happened other than they gave me toys and asked how I was feeling. They asked my mother every question after that.

I was nine when therapy stopped. By that time, I had gotten over my dad's antics. I was done with him. This meant that I no longer wanted to see him, but my brother did.

James is my half brother and he never had a father other than mine. His biological father wanted nothing to do with him and so, he became a Jones and my father claimed him as his. The other problem was that he refused to see James unless I came along. I never wanted to go to dad's, but I always went for James because James loved his dad and it was unfortunate that his dad didn't love him as much as he did. My dad is a dick and James just wanted a father and so I went so that James could have that.

My brother and I were closer than close. He was my best friend and we did everything together. Sure, we picked on each other, but that was a given. Some of my friends always envied my relationship with James because we were so close. James and I are only twenty two months apart. A lot of people always mistook us for twins because we both look nothing like our dad's.

In first grade, that was the year that the bullying started. I don't remember who said it, but I vaguely remember the first time someone ever called me fat. I was seven, at the time, and this experience was another reason that I had to go to therapy.

I remember a boy came up to me and he looked me over and he laughed and he said, "You're so fat, you could be a whale." I remember how much that hurt. I remember excusing myself from the classroom and going to the bathroom. I remember crying so hard I was worried a flood would ensue. I remember I lifted my shirt up and I looked at the pudge on my stomach and jumped and it jiggled and I tried to suck it in, but it didn't make a difference. I cried even harder at that. After my tears had become less noticable, I went back to Math and I laid my head down. My teacher was my uncle and he just patted my back and let me sleep.

By the time the end of Elementary rolled around, the bullying got bad. In sixth grade, I did a lot of things that I'm not proud of. I was already cussing by fourth grade and no one really knew I did it other than my three friends; Morgan, Samie, and Riley.

They were my support system and they always stuck up for me. By the time I was eight, I was diagnosed with high cholestrol. That meant that I was on the brink of diabetes. In sixth grade, I was over two hundred pounds and that was so much for an eleven year old, 5'3" girl. The nicknames got so much worse then. In sixth grade, basically everyone was cussing. The most famous nicknames were Fat Ass and Whale.

When I was ten or eleven, I tried to throw up my food. I looked at my myself in my mirror and all I felt was disgust. I thought maybe if I threw up my food just once, I'd feel a bit prettier. Just as I had my fingers down my throat, James walked in and before he could notice, I fixed myself. He saved me from possibly inducing an eating disorder.

When I was twelve, I tried to cut myself. My great grandfather had diabetes which meant he had needles and he left them out. It was right before I had to go to school, my first day of middle school, and I held that needle to my wrist and just before I could do any damage, my mum walked in and I dropped the needle. My mum saved me that time.

That was when I realized that I had severe depression. Sixth grade and I was already imagining what life would be like if I was gone and planning out my suicide and nearly doing it if someone didn't walk in like every other time I tried to do something drastic.

I felt selfish when I learned that I was depressed. I felt selfish because so many people had gone through so much worse than name calling and shoving. The people that were severely bullied or never had parents or were abused, they had every right to be depressed, but I didn't. I had a good life and when you had a good life, you didn't have the right to be depressed.

I realized that same year that depression and anxiety were family illnesses. I couldn't have stopped it even if I wanted to.

My childhood starting out great, but ever since four, it's just gone further down hill. Well, I can't exactly say that, because now I had Tianna, Ella, and Matt.