Within Arms Reach

Self hatred

- I hate you, I say as I stare at myself in the dirty bathroom mirror. I look down at my wrists, they are covered in blood and all I can see is scars, mental scars that I've made visible. My eyes start to water and I fall to the floor.
"I don't get it, why does it seem so easy to everyone else? Why am I the only one in pain?" I think to myself as I'm sobbing on the ground.
I hate myself for so many reasons, I don't even know where to begin.

Here's the story of me:
I've always struggled with self hate, it's something that I've kinda gotten used to, if that makes sense.
As a kid I grew up in a very confusing situation and I had a very dark mindset. My parents got divorced when I was five after my dad had cheated on her with one of his students. My mom caught them in action one night when he accidentally butt-dialed her when he was on a "school trip". According to what I got to hear from my sister she took all of his things and threw them outside and then she changed the locks. This got pretty messy, I remember hearing them fighting almost every day, it could be over the phone or when my dad came to pick up his stuff. He didn't even seem to care that much that he literally broke up the family. After the divorce my mom got custody over me and all my siblings. I was the youngest out of four so she had gotten a lot on her plate. I've always felt bad for her, because of all that she had to deal with and all that she had to sacrifice for us. My mom was my hero, she was the one who always were there for me when I needed it, we had a special bond, I don't know why or how but we clicked better than all my other siblings. She seemed to have everything under control and it seemed like she could do anything even if it was impossible, she was my role model and she made me believe that I could achieve everything I've ever wanted.
As the years went by I started blaming myself for everything that had happened, I remember the first time I ever felt anxiety cause it was such a special feeling. I still don't know how to describe it but it's for sure the worst feeling ever. I was exhausted and I stopped caring about anything, I didn't go to school, I didn't eat and I didn't get very much sleep.. my overall health was terrible and I didn't want to do anything anymore. Little did I know that that was only the beginning of something even worse.
When I was twelve, my two brothers passed away in a car accident, and I was there with them. It was my mother, my two brothers and I in the car and we had just been visiting our grandparents house in Jacksonville. On our way back to Chicago we got stuck in this big ass car crash in the middle of the highway. There was a car that somehow tried to cross our lane to get to the one on the other side of us, but when he started to turn his steering wheel something went wrong and he crashed into the side of our car. The windows smashed open and there was glass everywhere. My brothers died instantly and my mom got seriously injured, when the ambulance came she had already been pulled out of her seat by an unknown woman who tried to help. I was lucky and didn't get more than a few cuts and a headache that could last a lifetime. After just a few minutes people started to gather around us but I couldn't stop staring at this woman who helped my mom and I get out of the car. I didn't get to know her name but I know that I owe her my life in return.

Fast forward a few months and we're back home safe and sound, but the memories remain and I was scarred for life. I began to look at myself in a different way than I had before, I didn't only feel bad, I disliked every little part of my body. I cried myself to sleep every night and I was only thinking about stuff that no 12 year old should've. I still couldn't believe that neither of my brothers were alive anymore. I thought of them everyday, I wrote them poems and letters that I put in a box on their grave. After bearing this weight for a while I started cutting myself. I began with areas no one could see, like my thighs, when I didn't feel the pain anymore i started doing it on my wrists. It felt good in the moment, it was such a relief and I found it relaxing even though it hurt. It kinda numbed the pain I felt inside. Of course I didn't tell anybody but only because I felt ashamed. It felt like I had reached rock bottom and I didn't want to admit it, I didn't want to say it out loud cause I thought that it would only make things worse also I didn't want to disappoint my mom although I knew that I had already done that so many times before. My life we're going downhill and the only thing that was left for me was to die. I couldn't find the happiness in life so everything suddenly felt pointless. Everyday I was thinking of new ways to kill myself, I was constantly hurting myself and I pushed all my friends and family away so they didn't have to suffer too much if I died. One day when my mom had left for work and my sister was out of town I took it upon myself to make all my fantasies about suicide reality. I had decided to hang myself, I wasn't afraid, I knew how I was supposed to tie the knot and I knew that we had some rope laying around in the garage so I went there and grabbed it. As I was walking towards the garage I bursted out crying cause I realized that I didn't want to do it but it felt right. I couldn't take anymore of the bullshit, I had to do it. I wiped my tears and thought to myself "stop being such a pussy". When I found the rope I slowly made my way back to the living room. I grabbed a chair from the kitchen and started to tie my rope around the beam in the ceiling. I had never experienced time moving so slow before, I had never felt my heart beat so loud and I had never thought that it all would come to an end. I took a last look at our living room, remembering all our happy moments and again I started crying. "This is the time" I thought to myself, this was the right place and the right time to die. I climbed the chair and put the rope around my head. I stood there for a moment just thinking, of what I don't remember but I felt relaxed and then I did it, I pushed the chair away and I felt myself suffocate. I got dizzy and my sight faded, I think I fainted cause I don't remember a shit after that. I only remember waking up at the hospital a few days later.
"Y/N!!" My mom shouted when she saw my eyes open up. She started crying and hugged me tight,
"I thought I lost you, I was so scared" My mom told me all about what happened, apparently as soon as I fainted the rope must've got undone and I hit the floor. She found me laying there four hours later when she had come home, she called 911 immediately and they were there in less than five minutes. I had been in a coma for almost three days cause obviously I hit my head when I fell.
On our way home neither of us didn't say very much, I think we were both in a shock and we both knew that this was going to take some time.
I was home from school a few months after this had happened, but when I finally got there people started staring and people were gossiping about me I guess. I had a big red-ish scar on my throat from the rope, which I didn't really think nothing of until people started commenting on it. I overheard talking at lunch and I had teachers talking to me because they were "concerned". The truth is that they weren't concerned at all, at least not about me. They were concerned for not losing their job for failing some new rule at our school that says that our teachers are supposed to build a better relationship with their students. Anyways I didn't go to school very much after all this, I just couldn't handle it.
Instead I started working on myself, I was tired of being this way. I felt like something was wrong with me. I sought help, I got to see this therapist who helped me a lot. She made me see life from different perspectives and she stopped me from hurting myself. We got really close, and when it was time to say goodbye we both shed a tear.
A year and a half later I had recovered completely, even though I still was kinda depressed from time to time and I still had my scars as a constant reminder of how things used to be... my life were going a lot better and I wanted to get a fresh start somewhere else where I knew no one, so that's why I decided to move across the country to Los Angeles, more specifically Pasadena in California.