We all have the same skeletons in ourselves, we are all human, we are all the same.
Sure, we all have our own lives, we do different things, but at the end of the day we are all human. We each have our own demons and skeletons in our closets, secrets society doesn't know about. We need to step up and stop the stigma on mental illnesses. This is a very touchy topic for us, we all don't want to believe our minds are sick. We have memories we want to erase, a time in our lives things went differently, or even memories that haunt us. The worst thing you can do is tell someone is that what they believe they have is "made up" or "attention seeking." I know this pain and reality all too well. There is a time to come clean about your lives, this is my story.
My first time I cut myself, I was in the 8th grade. At this point I had transferred three times, to three different schools and I had a sinking feeling this school was temporary too. I had made a grand total of one friend, because why make more if you're going to leave again? I did it in the bathroom of my parents bedroom with a razor I had unscrewed from a pencil sharpener. I remember looking at my wrist and thinking "what did I just do?" During the winter time of my 8th grade year, my parents told me they were separating. When they called me upstairs my mom simply looked at me and said "we are separating, who do you want to live with?" I had instantly said "dad." That night, I had grabbed my razor and just looked at it while I cried and cried, I had horrible thoughts going through my mind like "I came into this world and they got married, I was the first kid they told and I am the reason they don't love each other anymore." I got really depressed after that, I had to be strong though, I had two younger brothers who looked up to me. I couldn't let my emotions show through, they needed me, I couldn't let them down. My mom finally saw my wrists, when we were making pierogies one night. She said "don't do such a stupid thing, I already watched your brother do that to himself." That was the first time my mother didn't brush me under the rug, in my eyes.
My mom stopped questioning me when the scars on my wrists started to fade, I just got better at hiding them so she wouldn't see them. I started dressing in all black, began my "emo phase" and that was that. Soon enough high school came around, freshman year I still had my one close friend a few new friends, but I mostly kept to myself. I got bullied a lot in freshman year, that my suicidal thoughts and self-harm got worse, I convinced my dad to pull me out of public school and to home-school me, I lost all my friends and was basically alone. My older brother, was a trouble maker during these times. I remember smoking pot with him, meeting his friends, staying up all night and doing my school work and sleeping all day. As time went by, it got kinda better, I stopped cutting for a bit and got my grades up high enough to pass. Just because I stopped cutting doesn't mean my depression got better. Every time my parents fought or had an argument, I sunk into a deeper hole. Sophomore year came along, I went to public school again and you guessed it, I transferred. I had smaller classes and teachers that treated us like their kids, it was really nice for awhile. Then my friends started turning on me, I started rebelling, I felt like I always had something to prove to my mom. When I graduated early at 16, got good grades, etc, it was to finally hear from my mom "I'm proud of you." I never got that, she always told me she would tell her coworkers she was proud of me but not tell me to my face, so it was like a slap to my face. I started drinking underage and smoking cigarettes to drown my demons, sometimes it's your own mind that can haunt you.
Two years ago, my best friend shot himself in his parents house. I never got to say goodbye. I felt like it was my fault because I was the last person to talk to him. I remember that day so vividly, I was going to a hookah lounge, I got a phone call from a mutual friend and I thought my best friend picked up. My best friend and I walked into the lounge, and when I didn't see him I was so confused; that's when his ex told me he was dead. I instantly said "you're joking" and "no he's not, you're lying." Me and his friends cried and cried all night, there was not a dry eye in the room. His death impacted so many of our lives, his death made me so much more aware of life and death. It still hurts to this day, there's never a day that goes by when I don't think about Sam. I wish I could have held him again, and actually told him goodbye and not in a dream. There's never a day that goes by when I don't think about how we were supposed to get black out drunk on my 21st, or go to disney world.
The present: I still struggle with depression, I have a cap on my suicidal thoughts and self harm. I put all my sad thoughts and anger into poems. I started to get tattoos to cover all the lines that mark my body, I started getting piercings and color my hair to feel like me. My parents stopped arguing, my depression is getting better. It's a climb over a rocky, steep, dangerous mountain but it's a task I'm willing to take on.
I want everyone to know, you are never alone. You have so much support if you look around, you are never as alone as you feel. Stay strong, your life is worth more then what you know <3
