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malreynolds
349 M Embraced 3
PathStep 12 Compassion hearts10 Forum posts6 Forum upvotes11 Current upvotes11 Age GroupAdult Last activeFebruary, 2017 Member sinceAugust 2, 2015
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i don't even know if this is a good idea
Journals & Diaries / by malreynolds
Last post
 January 16th, 2016
...See more i don't know. i've been thinking about writing something in this forum. so here i go. maybe it'll help in some way. even though i feel absolutely ridiculous writing this. (not that i want to discourage or make fun of anyone else doing this, you do you) i had a normal childhood with two younger siblings, nothing special. i skipped two grades at school though so i was always the youngest kid in class, which lead to some bullying, but it never got too bad. when i was 10, i started writing stories. my parents split up around the same time, and for a while i was very sad but then it got better when i got used to the situation after some time. i've been closer to my dad than my mom for pretty much my entire life. i didn't have a best friend until about seventh or eighth grade, which was when i started growing closer to a classmate who i'll be calling Jay, pretty much a literal sunshine with a huge ton of serotonine in her brain. we're still friends to this day. even though she likes to ignore the fact that i'm sometimes not as happy-go-lucky as she is. when i was 13, i started putting some of my writing on websites designed to share those things. one day a girl called Lou (changed name) messaged me. she became my first internet friend. we've lost touch since, but that first time i fell in friend-love with a person online was vitally important. (for this next part, please remember that i was 13. please don't blame me because of this.) at the time, i still went to church every now and then. during december, they let a group of musicians play there every day. in that group was a man who had known me my entire life. he was maybe 35 at that time. we talked a few times. he asked for my phone number. "cause you're really nice", he said and smiled shyly. i gave him my number. "let's go swimming sometime", he said. i avoided that topic. we started texting. after a few months, he told me over text that he'd fallen in love with me. i didn't know what to do. i said i loved him too. my dad moved and i found out that his house was right across the street. he found out too. when we met on the street and there was nobody else there to see, he kissed me. that happened several times. one evening, he invited me into his flat. he kissed me. "how old are you?", he asked. "thirteen", i said. "oh", he said, shocked for a second. "oh." he kissed me again. after several months of all that, i started running down to the house after school instead of walking so he wouldn't see me. i ran away. got a new phone and a new number, ignored his attempts to contact me on skype. he hasn't moved. i still run down the street, and i keep pepper spray in my backpack at all times. when i was 14 (Lou and i were starting to grow apart), i found a website for uploading fanfiction (pls don't laugh at me). i put some of my stuff up there, and people liked it - a lot actually. some girl messaged me saying "hey if you're not busy with your awesome writing could we talk because you seem cool". she'll be called Vee in this text. we became friends because we were the same age and we liked the same stuff and wrote fanfiction about the same people. over time, i found Vee to be so overwhelmingly cool that when i found out she had a twitter account, i went and got one too. thus began a time that i look back on with quite a bit of cringing to be honest. but looking back, it was important, because i found so many friends that would end up saving my life. two girls called Leah and Sanna in particular, with whom i pretty much formed a golden trio; and one girl called Ida. that same year, my dad got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. you don't need to know what exactly that is, suffice it to say that it really, really threw me off track. i was in shock and i was utterly terrified for a long time. but nothing ever happened. and we dealt with that illness. it's since become normal in our lives, but back then... that was the most scared i'd ever been. i don't like tiptoeing around this point. when my dad's next birthday came close, i got so anxious that i started self harming. i think that's where it started, the really bad things. it grew progressively worse over the next few months. two months after i started, i met Leah and Sanna for the first time, and i felt happy. i really did. i told them about what was happening with me after i got home. they were overwhelmingly lovely and supportive and started writing letters for me to read when i felt bad. they tried so hard, and i love them for that. i told Vee, as well. she had the same response. they all tried to make it better. on my 15th birthday, i met Vee for the first time. again, i felt happy. then my parents found out. i was laughing about something with my dad, my sleeve rode up and he saw. he told my mom. they were supportive as well, i guess. they just didn't quite understand. i don't blame them for it. they tried so hard. they sent me to a therapist that didn't help and declared me cured after about eight meetings. after the seventh, i'd had another relapse. i'd also started having panic attacks. i intended to tell her, to try and get better, but when she started the meeting with "you seem much happier, i don't see why this would have to continue", i couldn't do anything but lie. that same evening, my dad came into my room and said, really quietly, that he was so proud of me for overcoming all of that. i felt like throwing up. one day a few months later, my friend Jo tried to kill herself. i got upstairs and went on twitter, and the first thing i saw was a picture of a bunch of pills that she'd posted. and she said she'd swallowed some already. while panicking and crying, i called her. once i had her on the phone, i typed with shaking hands, "i'm talking to her", so the others would worry less. i talked to her for about ten minutes, the both of us crying so hard we were trembling. i convinced her to stop. to put the pills away. Vee, who knew what was going on, called Jo's father. he took her to the hospital. she lived. i still have nightmares about that moment. i don't wanna make this unnecessarily long. my depression grew worse overtime, as well as the panic attacks. my friends tried to make it better. sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they didn't. i cried a lot. a girl with bright red hair called Izzie came into our school, and i found out she was recovering from various mental illnesses as well. Izzie, Jay and me became a trio of best friends very quickly. the summer after i turned 16 was the first time i ever felt suicidal. after that, it never really stopped and only grew way worse. on a school trip to Spain with Jay (Izzie had stayed home), i relapsed, got drunk on a beach and said to Jay that i wanted to kill myself. she didn't answer. i said, "did you even hear me?", and she said "i am ignoring you". and i felt like i'd been punched in the stomach. i never actually tried to commit suicide. there was always someone there who texted me until i could cry myself to sleep, someone who wouldn't leave me. Leah and Sanna and Vee and Ida. i cannot express how grateful i am for that. it doesn't change the wiring of my brain, though. it doesn't change the fact that some chemical elements in my head are so off-balance that the idea of killing myself seems really neat actually. sometimes the only thing stopping me is the thought of Izzie being triggered by my actions. i cannot have that. so that's pretty much where i am in my life right now. 16 years old, almost done with school and suicidally depressed. what a goddamn life.
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