Psyke.org

Kaitlin

Broken Smiles

Copyright, Kaitlin

When I was in grade 5 and under I never would have thought taking a razor to my wrist or popping pills to make my pain go away. Now that’s how I live my life. Ever since I was little I can remember feeling worthless and like I’m not good enough. I would walk around the house singing ‘nobody loves me everybody hates me everyone thinks I’m an idiot’ to the tune of a Sesame Street song. I refused to go back to my dance classes because a couple of girls were better than me. And I refused to make friends until I was older for fear of rejection.

I never started feeling really terrible until about grade 6. I was one of those girls who matured faster than anyone in the school (since my school only went up to grade 6) and I felt very left out. Throughout the years I would get picked on by a cruel group of girls for no reason and when they split my best friend and I up in grade 5 it was torture because I was left with those six girls and no one else. I was miserable every day and dreaded going to school. And from here it just escalated. That’s when I felt the beauty of self harm. Since my parents are divorced I had to go to Saskatoon which is six hours away from where I live to see him and his family. And when I went there I would usually hide in my room because I couldn’t (and still can’t) stand my step mom. There I would do things like take the backs on my earrings and cut my ankles until I would bleed. I never really understood what I was doing. All I knew was that when I did it, it felt like the pain would leave me.

I was never truly happy in grade 6 but I managed to get through it and was still somewhat happy. That all changed once I got to grade 7.

My grade 6 class had to move to a different school for grade 7 and 8. It was so much bigger and so much different. My friends and I were faced with drugs, boyfriends, and backstabbing bitches. There were new people and new problems to face and every day I felt myself getting weaker. Between broken hearts and broken friendships I felt the urge to hurt myself harder to withstand. I couldn’t stand that I wasn’t the person I wanted to be. I didn’t have many guys liking me in grade 7 and not many friends either. I had the occasional best friend but they would always ditch me for the more popular girls. I would cry almost every night wishing I was different or at least wishing I was dead. When my best friend started cutting when her boyfriend dumped her something inside me snapped. On April 26 I attempted suicide. At first I couldn’t decide how to do it. There was a place on my stairs that was perfect for hanging myself but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So I decided to overdose on Tylenol. I took about twenty-five or so of them. But before anything could even happen I threw them up because I was so scared. By the end of the school year I was probably the most hated girl in the class and really only had one friend. We were known as the ‘hoes of hoeville’. Because this one girl was my only friend I completely ditched my other friends and couldn’t care less about them. So when that girl ditched me at the beginning of the summer and wanted nothing to do with me I was completely alone.

That’s when I started cutting again. I did it with a razor and every time I wanted more and more blood to come out but none did. I couldn’t bring myself to draw as much blood as I wanted to. I had the lowest self esteem ever. I’ve never been happy about my weight or my looks or my personality but now it had gone to the extreme. For about a month I threw up everything I ate even if it was something as small as a cracker. I constantly worried about what my friends were saying about me behind my back and everything I did it would criticise myself. When I lost the guy I was in love with to another girl I couldn’t take it anymore. I attempted suicide for the second time. Once again I threw up the pills because I was so scared. But after that I wasn’t the same. I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. Once when I was doing my makeup I threw the hand held mirror across my room and watched it shatter into a million pieces because I couldn’t stand to see myself.

Once I got into grade 8 my world seemed to brighten. I got back with my old friends and everyone seemed to forget about what a bitch I was. I had a minor setback when I found out my boyfriend had cheated on me (to this day he still denies it) but I got right back on my feet and started going out with a guy that meant so much to me. I had liked this guy on and off for so long. On and off through grade 7 I had liked him and now he was mine. He was my first kiss and my first love. And when we broke up I couldn’t handle it anymore. I started cutting again even though I had stopped for some time now and my confidence was as low as it was in the summer. I had at least fifty cuts on my wrist. Each one had it’s own meaning. They were small and delicate and not very deep, but when I looked at them they reminded me of the pain and anger I felt toward the world.

Things got worse and the year went on. Because I am a dancer I put a lot of pressure on myself to be the best. Every time I don’t get something right or my foot isn’t as pointed as it could be I yell at myself silently in my mind telling myself how terrible I am and that theres no point in trying. I have also attempted suicide again. But once again I failed. I’ve tried numerous ways of self mutilation. I cut, burn, pull my hair out and pop pills. I have a notebook that I keep filled with angry letters and poems. One page I wrote to my boyfriend right before I broke up with him. You can’t even see what I wrote because the blood from my wrists and my tears fell onto it. I can’t stand seeing the same people and the same places anymore. I’m sick of waking up every day dreading what bad things are going to happen. I hate waiting for me to get happier or for my friends to accept me for who I am. I have to get out of this place or I don’t know what I’ll do. I’d like to say that this story has a happy ending but unfortunately it doesn’t. It just ends with me finishing this sentence and then going to my room to cut away my problems.

Update: It has been ten months since I posted my story on here. More than a year since my last suicide attempt, and two weeks since I cut. To many peole this sounds like an accomplishment, but it isn’t to me. For you see, I have gone back to the one thing I pulled myself out from. Depression, cutting, anger… everything that made me so miserable last year is gone, and replaced with new things. More cuts, more angry letters, and more pills. I’m very ashamed of myself because I have a good life. Yes, my parents are divorced, and there was an incident that made me not trust people for a very long time, but other than that I have everything I’ve ever really wanted. My therapist says that it’s ‘a chemical imbalance and I really can’t help it’ which frustrates me even more because I wonder is this something that is going to stay with me my whole life until I get medication? And even so will the medication even work? I have also been told that I have a higly dependant personality, which means I depend on certain things very easily. That is one of the reasons I refuse to do drugs. I know that from past experiences from other things that once I find one thing to take my mind off the pain that is all I do. I feel very bad because I depend on my boyfriend a lot, who is going through a lot of his own struggles. I love him more than I can even describe and he always seems willing to listen and help me in any way, but I can’t help but feel guilty because it must be frustrating for him to have to listen to every one of my pathetic problems, plus he’s giving up drugs for me and I probably should give up cutting for him but I just can’t. It’s something that gets me through the tears. I would much rather be sad for ten miutes… cut… and get it over with. Then be miserable for days on end without any explaination. There are days even when I just go cut at school to not feel so stressed out and tired. Unlike some people that cut I am also suicidal. I don’t necessarily cut to kill myself, but I do pop pills to the extreme at times. When I’m very upset I pop my moms sleeping pills or a bunch of Advil, enough to knock me out for a long time, then I’ll usually wake up and get sick to my stomach. My boyfriend calls it a suicide attempt, but I don’t classify it as one. It’s just another way for me to forget about the pain. I wish I was different, everyone sees me as this happy preppy girl, but that’s who I am or who I want to be. Past that stupid fucking smile is someone that needs to be seen for who she truly is, a sad pathetic fucked up teenager who is too sad to care anymore.

What Should I Do?

Copyright, Kaitlin

My name is Kaitlin, I am fifteen and I’ve been cutting since I was twelve. I’ve always had pain and been confused. Ever since I was eleven I had been with a girl. I didn’t think anything about it until I got to be thirteen and started to have strong feelings for her and she had had them all along and I just gave in finally. Then we were together and I was happy, and I just thought well am I gay? Or bi? I don’t really know. The stress and depression got worse over the years. We stayed together but my parents and hers didn’t know, nor any of our friends. We stayed together and were deeply in love and I would get stressed and I stared to cut my hand with a safety pin. My girlfriend didn’t like it but it made me feel better. I continued to do it and my depression got worse and worse. No one really knew the real me or my girlfriend. We got depressed together and confused, so the summer before 8th grade I decided to tell my mom about my girlfriend and that I thought I was gay or bisexual. Well, it didn’t go over so good. She didn’t like that so I was still her friend but I lied and said we stopped but that’s what made things worse in the end. So in 8th grade I lied the whole year about us and the summer before high school and all the way until I decided to tell one of my best friends. Big mistake. Anyway, she told her mom and she also told her about my cutting and depression, and her mom called my mom and told her all that and I was pissed and so were my parents, so then I couldn’t see my girlfriend and I was so pissed. We wanted to die and we almost ran away several times, and we both got way more self destructive. I started cutting my hips so my mom wouldn’t see and I cut my stomach and arms and sometimes my hand. It didn’t matter. And while my girlfriend was taking tons of pills and drinking I was cutting and smoking, doing anything to relieve the pain. Nothing seems to be working and I love her more than anything in this world and I am going to be with her forever and I want to marry her. We’re engaged and I would do anything for her. So now I am stuck feeling lost and depressed and not knowing what to do. I feel like I don’t have much more time I need to do something and I want to talk to someone to feel better but there’s no one to talk to.

 

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