When I moved back home after being away from a year in 7th grade, I had to live with my grandparents over the summer. My whole family did. I stayed upstairs in their office. My mom had found out about me talking to Mallory again, so I wasn't allowed to use the internet for a couple months. It was my first major loss. I felt heartbroken. I would pop the screen out of the window and hide it in the closet until my grandpa found out. I'd climb out the window onto the roof and just sit. It was right in the front of the house, so people saw me and gave me bad looks, but it was okay. I didn't like being stuck in the house, and I didn't have any friends because I had just been gone for a year, and I wasn't in a neighborhood near my school at all. Every day and night I'd climb onto the roof and try to convince myself to jump.
I never jumped.
I couldn't work up the courage. It wouldn't have been a fatal fall, really, I'm not even sure I would have been injured. But some part of me kept me from doing it, even though I was suicidal. Maybe it was because the thought I would lay broken on the ground, undead, but unable to live, -in limbo- sort of. Then I'd be taken to some other therapist that told me I was disgusting.
Oh yeah, let me go into that. Tim. Tom. Some T name therapist guy. Before we had moved back and lived with my grandparents over the summer, my mom found out I had been cutting myself when she went through my messages with Mallory. That, and she forced me to show her them, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. She took me to the emergency room, but all my cuts were superficial and I told them I never planned to kill myself, just that I had generalized suicidal feelings of wanting to die, so I wasn't admitted. The next day I was woken up really early in the morning to drive an hour and a half away to go talk to Therapist Tim (I decided his name is Tim). Actually, I just verified it by looking him up- his name was/is Tim. I don't remember much from talking to him, but I remember vividly what he told me about cutting myself. He gave me a hypothetical. He said some day I'm going to be going to college and spring breaking in Florida with my sorority sisters (Yeah, really) and we'll see some cute boys on the beach to go talk to. They'll be flirting back with us, but then boom, he'll see the cuts on my arm and think I'm a total weirdo and stop talking to me.
Yep, that was PsyD Tim's advice to me. First of all rather assumptive, considering I had previously expressed my interest in girls. Secondly, and holy shit, was that some damaging narrative for a 12 year old girl to digest. Well, to be fair, I didn't really internalize it, I recognized his bullshit because if there's ever a WOW it was what he just said. Thirdly, what a goddamn stigmatizing thing to say. Fourthly, pretty much all of my cuts weren't on my arms, Tim, do your fucking job. I could continue. I could go to fucking, like, tenthly. Tenthly. Is that a word?
Anyways, yeah, the roof. They found out and put the screen back on. After that I was checked on at least once an hour. They all accused me of trying to jump. Obviously I hadn't jumped. But their increased presence just amplified my feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.
I have lots of stories from eighth grade, but I don't really want to talk about them right now. Maybe another day.
I will say, though, that I really really really liked Blink-182's Dogs Eating Dogs EP. It's a masterpiece. I liked it in seventh grade and that continued to eighth grade. I'd listen to it every day, on repeat. It was basically all I listened to nonstop. I love it.
I had study hall second hour after Algebra 1, and it was in the health classroom with a bunch of boys I wasn't friends with. They all made fun of my Starbucks, but I was kind of proud of it. I was deep into the whole Stereotypical White Girl trope. Every morning my mom would go get Starbucks, so I'd frequently be rolling up to school a little bit late with a Starbucks in hand. To be honest, I would've preferred to be punctual with no Starbucks, but I played it up since it was already happening.
