The Beginning: From Bad to Worse

I always knew I was different than most girls my age. I was the quiet girl that was lucky enough to make friends. I never made the first move to make friends. It was 5th grade that I was forced to move school to North Broadway for my last year of elementary. It was very tough knowing that I would have to start all over with friends. It elated me when I met Katie on the first day. She invited me to hang with them. We then became AMAZING friends, like the best of friends. I was finally popular-finally part of the in crowd-it lasted about 2 and 1/2 years. 7th grade it ended, I luckily made new friends. Middle School was going great until I met HER, Taylor. She made me believe that she was my friends and that friends abuse one another. Me being as naïve as I was and feeling lucky enough just to have a friend, I went along with it. Constantly playing games that caused pain-like Rock Paper Scissors Slap- and always being punched if I say something. Finally finishing grade school, I finally reached high school, hoping it is just like all the movies: parties, booze, sex, boyfriends, being popular. It was the complete opposite; I was a nerd and did not receive any attention from boys. Freshmen year was okay, being that colorguard was wonderful and time consuming. Joining colorguard was both exciting and terribly nerve-racking. I was alone once again; all my friends were in band and I knew I could not make friends. It took me a full semester to finally make a friend, Mariana, enough to always hang with her during practices. The end of freshmen year, she graduated leaving me alone again.

 Sophomore year was the beginning of it ALL. I met Carlos and Joshua. I was going good till I started drinking. I then saw that everyone was flipping out when they saw Carlos self injured once or twice. At that time, I was tired of being the bystander I wanted to be the center of attention for once in my life. I began scratching myself with safety pins because it didn't hurt a lot but still caused marks. My initial thought was to get attention but after a few tries I began to discover why Carlos hid it. It is shameful and ugly, but so fucking addicting. I went on months and months of scratching every now and then but because they healed fast it was nice to know it didn't leave much of a mark.

It was now the summer between sophomore and junior year. I changed my hair from brown to bleach blonde to become more "scene". That was when I first experienced cyberbullying. My good friend Allison thought that she should call me out in front of all my friends on Facebook calling me fake and that I am trying to be someone I am not just to get attention. It hurt A LOT, like unbearable. it only got worse when a guy I have never talked to named Jose chimed in agreeing and adding on. That was the night I scratched "KILL ME" into my wrist. I even still have the picture just to make sure I never carve words in my body again. it took a long time to finally cover up/ fade those words. Junior year. My drinking continued as a way of self medication and hiding my pain. I luckily never got caught being I did it at school. My scratching was an on and off thing that was heightened by female hormones and stress. That year had a lot go on that is way to much to go into detail on but I drank and even tried drugs. I tried weed and almost ecstacy. My sister somehow found out I smoked and snitched on me. I got grounded for like EVER but that got my head on straight. I still drank but I swore to not do drugs, they are useless; take that from a self medicating freak. It also did not help that our colorguard captain was in love with drama, so any type of gossip she could get her hands on she exposed. I happened to be the "IT" thing to talk about. She told EVERYONE that I was a "wannabe emo" and that I cut myself just to get attention. At that point in time, I had been clean for a while but still Carlos decided to stop talking to me even though he already knew that, like for a long while. I figured it was because now everyone knew, he could not be associated with me. It hurt ALOT like so much I started again. The worst of it all was that I "saved" his musical career because he was addicted to weed and I got him to quit, like permanently. But months later, I got clean and stopped myself and focused on other things in my life. After being "clean" from my scratching I decided to get a tattoo for my 18th birthday.

Between junior and senior year, my stepfather ruined my streak of clean. He got drunk and beat my mother, I will post that essay later. I stayed strong, being I was more focused on my mother and sister. My mother then took him back and tried to "fix" it. It got kind of better but not much. Then in March it happened again but this time my sister and I were not their to help or call 911. Luckily, no one was majorly hurt but that FINALLY caused my mother to file for a divorce. That was when my self injuring came back with a vengeance. I began cutting with a razor. That's where my journal entries begin. These entries are written during and after I cut; it expresses everything that went through my head that day. How I felt, what happened...etc.