Jennifer L
Untitled
Copyright, Jennifer
I’m currently in high school. I guess I started in early 7th grade. I couldn’t stand the way people used to call me fat, or weird. I had a lot of friends at the time. But the few people who thought I was a ‘freak’ treated me like crap. I did drugs, mostly pills. The first time I ever hurt myself was because I wanted to die. But after about the twentieth time I realised it wasn’t about dying. It was a way to get rid of my pain. I didn’t tell anyone. But eventually I stopped talking to all of my friends. I had no one any more besides my cat, and my four best friends who were always there, but didn’t want to be near me at this time. The teachers in school were worried about me. They were always talking to me, asking me what was wrong. Nothing. One day the guidance counsellor showed up at my second period social studies class, I knew it had to be serious because the guidance counsellors never show up to anyone’s classes. She excused me from class, and took me to her office. The teachers have been complaining about me and asked her to talk to me. ‘OK’ I thought, ‘she’d never know’. But yeah. She knew. She kept me out of all my classes that day. She said the gym teacher saw it when I was changing my sweatshirt after gym. She had to call home and tell my parents. She had the nurse make sure they weren’t infected, but they were. People have big mouths, so it got around school to all my friends pretty fast. I ended up skipping school a lot that year. I got through school. Pretty good grades. In the summer after 8th grade my mom didn’t want to see me any more. She couldn’t take it. I went to Florida for the summer to live with my grandmother. She kept an eye on me and checked my arms. She made me take out my hand piercing. When I got home a week before school started, I was changed. I no longer hurt myself, I wasn’t depressed any more, I had all new friends. But now, I had ADD, and my depression wasn’t in the way of it, so I was really hyper all the time. Some of my friends got tired of it, and here I am now, back to the way I was in 7th grade. Except I’m not goth. I keep to myself and my friends ask whats wrong, they all think I’m depressed, but what do they know? I just deny it and get on with my life. I’m depressed but I realise now that cutting yourself or drugs isn’t the way to deal with it. Once in a while I heat a spoon over my stove and place it on my left knee, but I’m fine now.