My Life Story

My journey started as a young child, I basically grew up without a father my entire life. He was there one moment and went the next, kind of like a magician doing a magic trick but without the bunny in the hat. That affected me very greatly because it made me believe I wasn’t good enough for my father to stick around, like he regretted me or something. It wasn’t just my father that gave me a negative impact on my childhood; it was also being bullied all throughout elementary school. I could never understand why I was being bullied, just like with my father leaving I assumed it was because something was wrong with me and it was who I was that grasped hold of me. Also from the age of nine until the age of twelve I was molested by someone very close to me, and again it gave me the insight that maybe something was wrong with me and maybe it was something that I did to deserve it. Well, people found out about what happened to me and the teasing never stopped. They blamed me, who is still just a child for this happening to me. There was also this girl growing up, I won’t say names but she was the bane of my existence. She was the number one bully who always tormented me, saying I was weird or that I was different. I had moved schools from her in grade 6, hoping it was a chance to meet new people and start over away from the place that brought me down for so long. At first, it was a new start, I was the new girl and I had made some amazing new friends and then she showed up and that’s when the bullying started again. She made up lies about me, and of course I didn’t understand how to stick up for myself so I let it happen, believing that something could be wrong with me in this situation and not her. In grade eight, I tried to fight back and stick up for myself. Yeah, I wasn’t the sanest person at the time, I was a little weird and silly but I was me and I shouldn’t have had to apologize for being myself. It escalated into more bullying and everyone turning against me and this is where it all started with my self-harming addiction. Everyone else made me feel so numb inside, and cutting made me feel something again. Even if it was pain, at least it was something. High School came along, and for the first two weeks I was the loneliest I could ever let myself become, no one wanted to talk to me and no one wanted to even give me a chance. I spent lunch periods in the bathrooms, eating alone and crying. Gym class was the worst that same bully from elementary school was always comparing me to other girls saying how fat she thought I was and that’s where the eating disorders started. So here I am, 14 year old girl; first year of High School spending her lunch breaks in the bathroom not even eating most of the time, cutting herself and wishing it could all be over. There was this time in gym class in grade 9 when I had cut myself pretty damn badly and I wore long sleeves to cover it up, and then the girl made a joke saying I was wearing sleeves to hide the fact I am an emo freak, and in front of everyone pulled my sleeves up. Well, the guidance counsellor got wind of that and more bullying started yayyy…Let’s fast forward a few months, I have finally made some new friends and had a good group of people in my life and everything was starting to get better. Happily ever after? Nope. Grade 10, first half was great, still had friends, learned to deal with the bullies better, I was even dating someone…then my mother met someone. He was a great guy at first, but she was spending so much time with him and less time with me that I was alone at home most nights, I don’t blame her for any of my problems it was just hard to deal with at the time. But then there was a situation involving a laptop and me sending bad pictures to someone I thought I trusted because I was young and naive, and they turned out to be a hacker set on ruining my life. So more depression came out of that, and then I think it was mid-November maybe... I stepped on a fork in my messy bedroom and had to get stitches in my foot, wasn’t a big deal at the time and now it’s just a funny story. But weeks later, it got all infected and I was really sick and missing tons of school and failing classes. I even remember actually passing out in my English class and the bullies making fun of me for it, so much fun. Alright, now it’s the second half of grade 10, my foot is healing my mom and that asshole moved in together so now I’m living with my grandparents and stuck taking the bus to school every morning. I still have my same friends, not dating anyone anymore (spoiler alert, it was the guy I sent pictures to who I thought I trusted). Things are once again, OKAY. And I ended up failing 3 classes from the previous semester since I had skipped class a lot, oh and at this point is where I am introduced into weed. And now, let’s introduce another person who had a role in ruining my life; I won’t say names once again but she was the biggest bully and narcissist I have ever met in my entire life. She started out as becoming a very good friend of mine, but every time I introduced a new guy to her she would basically steal them away, she was good at this. And then blaming it on them for being jerks, even though she was the one clearly coming on to them; nothing was good for her in her eyes. The way I dressed, talked, acted, etc. I was basically her little puppet on a string; my final straw with her was probably last year when she left me at a stranger’s house during a party to go off with someone else. I was wasted, woke up with my shirt off in a bathtub, which made me walk home alone at 6 am because she couldn’t be bothered to come and get me. She’s the reason I can’t trust females. Again, I am not blaming anything on anybody, but she’s defiantly someone I am glad I cut off. Grade 12 was also a bad year for me, (grade 11 was fine) I was almost not going to graduate, got into a major fight with my best friends, so I was basically back to the same start like I was at the beginning of high school, alone and sad. I was also smoking pot and skipping classes nearly every day so that didn’t help the nearly not going to graduate situation. But, things got better and I did graduate. It always gets better, even if its just for a moment it always gets better. So after high school comes college, I stayed in my home town for college, and was living with yet another boyfriend of my mothers. First day of college I met a new friend, things were great. Then weeks passed, semester one went great; I got good grades, made new friends, went to tons of parties. Semester 2 comes along, and that’s where it goes downhill, this new friend I made during first semester was turning into a real nightmare, she didn’t like any of my other friends, I had to tell her where I was at all times or she’d get mad, I didn’t go to class once and she blew up at me, so not only is this happening but my work load for school is getting worse and worse, my depression is coming back in a big way… and I started cutting again because school and everything was making me numb. So, first year of college comes to a close and now I am in debt because I decided to drop out and take care of myself. The summer came and went and I sunk deeper and deeper into depression, there was also one lonely night where I just tried to end it. Luckily I survived and I am more than grateful that I did. September 2013 was when I was sitting down on a curb; waiting to go into work at my new job that I hated having a panic attack and thought to myself….enough is enough. And I did something about it right then and there, I started seeing a counsellor, and talking about my past and my feelings. I started taking medications; they did help mostly for the anxiety and panic attacks. It helped for a very long time, and things again started to get better and they were great for a very long time. Next downfall in my life was September 2016, I started working nightshift at a local coffee place, it was fine at first but the lack of sleep was truly getting to me and I tried to opt out of doing it but it never seemed to happen. So again, into the rabbit hole I go, not coming out into wonderland but into a hell. It took about eight months of the same shit routine, to finally get off the nightshifts and into a better routine. About summer of last year, then I started working 5 am to 1 pm shifts. Which was truly the best decision I could have made for myself at that point, I had to go to bed at a decent hour and get up early and walk to work. Walking to work at 4 am really made me see things from a different perspective, and I truly fell in love with the world again. But, unfortunately summer came to an end and I couldn’t walk to work anymore as it was beginning to get cold in the mornings and I couldn’t always get a ride. Fast fowward a few years of trial and error, and Here I am, January 2020 writing out this story to share, my moods have been up and down lately, but I think I am doing better than I ever could be. I am hoping things stay like this for a good amount of time, and I continue to get better. Next week a friend of mine and I are starting a peer support group to help others who have been in the same boat as us. It’s a very exciting eye opening chapter, but also very nerve wracking one and I can’t wait to get started on everything new in my life. What I wrote down here isn’t my entire story, I may have left out things that I have forgotten or blocked out but my story isn’t over yet. I still have many more chapters to write, and those were just the beginning, shaping me into the woman I am meant to be. It will take time, and it won’t happen overnight but it’s going to happen, and it does get better.