I couldn’t tell you why I felt that way. No one would help me; they just watched me make the same mistakes again. I didn’t know where I belonged, I was lost. I wanted to feel safe and at home again. Home was different now. It was where I’d cry, bawl my eyes out and question why I was still alive even though I felt dead on the inside. People assume that a simple name or label won’t hurt a person, which is why when they do want to bring a person down they do whatever it takes. You’d expect your parents to understand, yet they say that it’s all in our heads. What they don’t understand is just because it’s all in our heads doesn’t make it any less real.
Sitting in the corner I felt the screams in my head tear my brain apart with their twisted words. it was like the bad people had shrunk down to less than a centimeter tall and crawled into my ear and screamed, screeched those treacherous, hurtful things so loud they left marks inscribed starting from my eardrums, all the way down to my disabled heart. At that point I’d assumed that I became insane due to long intervals of horrible sanity and consciousness of what was happening to me. Still sitting in the dark daunting corner I clenched the blade between the thumb and index finger of my right hand, dragged it across my skin and prayed for the courage to press down. No one ever knew how much what I had done affected me. I guess seeing a smile on my face made them think I was alright. My skin told a different story. People self harm for many different reasons, while I did it because I blamed myself.
I spent two years of my life feeling as if the only way I could completely get rid of the pain and regret that was immovable in my throat and chest was to one day slice my wrist open so deep that I would be gone forever. I was suicidal. From name calling, to walking into a classroom finding my name written next to spiteful things on a table, and to being threatened by things that would completely ruin my life forever. I was a victim of bullying. They took their aim and fired away until they saw me fall and no one felt the need to help me up. To them I was just ‘weak’ or ‘dramatic’, to all of them in fact. Those I’d once called my friends had left me, and my parents alleged that I was over reacting. No one understood me. My problems were like a worthless mystery that needed not to be solved. The worst part was that I couldn’t even figure out why myself. We all make mistakes don’t we? Why was something I did so etched in people’s minds? Why me? All I could conclude to was that everything was my fault. I would have been all right if I hadn’t made a mistake, which is why, I suppose, I took it out on myself.
The bathroom stall had become a familiar place to me, seeing as it was my ‘hang out’ spot during recess. Except I was alone, crying, questioning myself when all of this pain, torment and agony would finally decide to neglect me just like everyone else had. It was like the name calling would never stop. It drove me mad. It got to the point where I’d hear those appalling things screech in a little voice in my head that would make me feel as though I was being suffocated, to having reoccurring nightmares where I’d kill myself but wouldn’t die. Yet my life seemed like more of a nightmare than that.
I’d figured that my only source of hope I had left was the all mighty God himself. Veiling what had become of my once clear and mostly content head I bowed down to his greatness and not asked, but begged for his exoneration, mercy and help. I did so for days, months, and finally to the point where I disintegrated in tears of frustration and agony falling to my pathetically shaking knees. Why wasn’t anything getting better? I acknowledge that patience is a virtue but must one suffer to the extent where they are on the verge of committing an act of ridding their own soul from this heartrending, cruel world to deafen themselves from the whispers of society? Still on my knees on the cold, solid ground that seemed to imbibe my hopes and faith in the great Lord that I believed could rid me of my pain and suffer, I managed to whisper, “please, help me”.
The room was chilly. I tried not to move around too much for the old dark green sofa I’d been impatiently sitting on would make an aggravating squeak every time I’d budge. Bored out of my mind, I read the sign across the room, slightly above my eyelevel that read “psychiatric clinic”. Yes, my parent’s resulted to psychiatry when they’d discovered the slits in my wrists that had always seemed to be covered. According to them this man who had supposedly studied in the UK was the most professional psychiatrist in the Middle East. Still impatiently waiting while this so called ‘professional’ was discussing my problems with my parents, after having gone through two blood tests and an MRI scan, which I had found completely unnecessary, I exploded with tears of frustration. I didn’t want any of this. I was diagnosed with clinical depression and it was then when I realized all I wanted was to know what it was like to be happy again.
To this day I question myself why people think that it’s okay to put people in positions where they feel as if they have no choice but to just wait till the day that they’d be gone so that the pain would stop. Do people think it’s not possible to make one feel that way? I’m living proof that it can. Why did I blame myself? They were the ones calling me names. They were the ones that drove me to depression. It wasn’t me, it was them. To those who claim that words can never do you any harm, you are wrong. To all of those parents trying to comfort their children when they get called a name on their first day of preschool, telling them words can never hurt you. Let’s start being realistic and say “Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will ‘only’ cause permanent psychological damage.” Maybe that way those same kids that learn to grow up not to get hurt won’t turn out to be the bullies themselves
