I'm 23
now and over the course of my life I have gotten a few awards. Small
things like most improved in math (6th grade), some
science award (8th grade), presidents honor roll and
golden seal diploma (HS). Even so, these awards mean nothing. I am 23
and have nothing to show for it. I'm a struggling college student.
I'm divorced. I'm unemployed. I have no real friends or family to
speak of. I have a boyfriend and a dog and that's about it. My
singing ability is wasted because I didn't want to compete for the
sake of my teacher. My creative ability is wasted because I don't
know what to do with it. There are so many things I can do and so
many I do regularly and yet here I am stuck living as if I am
worthless. I live as if I am not good for anything. I am stuck in a
depression. I am stuck hating myself. I am stuck wishing I would die,
all because no one cares. No one really recognizes anything I do or
have done. No one tries to get t the bottom of what's wrong because
it's too much trouble and they have their own lives to live. Never
mind how much I help and encourage those around me, never mind how
much of their pain I feel all the time. Never mind that I struggle
just to leave the house because I am afraid that I will kill myself.
I am afraid that I will suddenly decide to finally end it an I will
drive into the center divide at 100+ miles per hour or that I will
dive head first off of and over pass into the freeway traffic below.
The worst part is that I'm not afraid of dying... I'm afraid of
hurting other people. The reason I don't blow my own head off with my
boyfriends shotgun is because it would hurt him, I don't want him to
see that or have to clean up the mess or pay for that loan we took
out together. I don't jump off of an over pass because I don't want
to cause an accident and kill or hurt someone who was just driving on
the freeway minding their own business. Same for driving into the
center divide. I am 23 and I have been trying not to kill myself for
10 years. I have also been self harming for the same amount of time.
Usually the scars fade in about 1 year from when they were made. It
also depends on the type. Some fade faster then others. I haven't
even mentioned my weight struggles yet or how in the 6th
grade I wore a size 20 in womens at only 5'6” tall. I hadn't
started my period yet either. I didn't get that until the 8th
grade. I had breasts because I was so fat, not because I had
developed any as a young women yet. Then all of a sudden I was slim.
At 14 I got down to a size 12, I was 165lbs. It's the smallest and
lightest I have ever been and I was not fully developed yet. I did
not reach my full breast size until 18 and I didn't reach my full hip
size until about 20. About a year and a half ago I tried to join the
army. My bf at the time had joined and I didn't like being left
behind. I trained constantly and dieted very strictly. I was running
almost every day as well and regular body weight exercises. I did not
eat any carbs like bread or pasta, no chips, no candy, no soda. I
lived off of mostly soup, salad, and unsweetened tea. I reached
176lbs. The smallest I have been since age 14. Now after my divorce
and with many more mental problems and health problems I have a hard
time working out. I am up between 220 to 230lbs. Sometimes I get
sharp pain in my knees from just taking the stairs 2 at a time. I had
to quite my job at the college because my joints and my mental health
couldn't take it. I can't stand my life and I don't know how to take
control of it. I have so many things I am responsible for and it
overwhelms me. How am I supposed to take care of myself physically,
mentally, financially, academically, creatively, legally, and then
still have time to have a social life and keep a house, not to
mention having a family of any kind, be it the family I was born into
or having a family of my own. I don't even know how I can show
someone the whole picture. My life seems so strange. I have 3
brothers, 2 older, 1 younger. My father moved out when I was 4 years
old. He was behaving strangely (moving money around, which would make
any mother of 4 nervous) so my grandmother convinced my mother to
file for divorce. The divorce was final sometime between 5 and 7
years old. He married his girlfriend (she had been around since I was
5) when I was 7. He never told us, I just figured it out. Also during
this time my father had a heart attack and was absent from my life
for an entire year. Maybe slightly before that my second oldest
brother started acting out and abusing my little brother and I. We
both got beat up an threatened with death. I distinctly remember my
2nd oldest brother standing over me with a rock
threatening to kill me, only because I was messing around in a
plastic lawn chair and fell backwards twice. I guess he didn't like
that. Much of my immediate family is very short tempered. I was also
short tempered growing up. Anyway, my 2nd Oldest brother
started molesting my little brother, he tired it with me once but
apparently it wasn't his preference. At around 10 or 11 (my age), he
moved in with my father and step mother. My little brother and I were
relieved. Then we switched places over the summer, we stayed with my
father and step mother and he stayed with our mom, only problem was
when he came back and my little brother and I wouldn't go near him,
we heard he was planning to move back in with my mom and us, we
freaked out. My little brother started acting out profusely. Finally
he told my step mother what my 2nd oldest brother had been
doing before he had left. We never went back to our mothers house. We
barely saw them. I had my 13th birthday that winter. Day
in and day out I listened to my step mother say horrible things about
my mother, my brother, or just anyone that wasn't in the room. She
would talk shit about my father, her own husband, and then get me
involved in spending money behind his back, which was a point of
contention between them. At first I didn't really know what to do and
I didn't understand what was going on, I just kept getting all this
bad information and I was trying to focus on school and getting good
grades because I thought it was important. I had no friends outside
of school and I didn't really get to hang out with friends outside of
school. My father was always gone at work or out with his “club
brothers,” being a member of a motorcycle club. Neither he nor my
step mother had the “time” or motivation to encourage school
activities. As the years went by my metal health continued to be a
struggle for me, but no one cared. My grades suffered and all I got
for it was more abuse. I've been called many things, I don't remember
all of them, but here are a few: leech, fat, lazy, ungrateful,
disrespectful, liar, nosy, obligation, etc. The abuse got worse when
I turned 16. I was finally old enough to start to understand what was
going on and to be angry about it, but my biggest mistake was the
time I stood up to my father for my step mother's benefit. He had
been very mean to her (she deserved it, really), but I thought of her
as my friend, so I stood up and told him that he should treat her
better. I said that what he was doing was wrong.... they both turned
on me. They said it was none of my business and things got worse for
me. My step mother was never really my friend, but at that point the
illusion was completely dissolved. They both hated me and they didn't
really try to hide it. Senior year I figured out that going to
college was not in the cards. So I decided to take a year off of
school and work... but I couldn't find a job. So that spring my
father agreed to pay for a single semester of college after refusing
to give me his tax information for the FAFSA financial aide
application. He said that he made too much money and I wouldn't
qualify. Not that we ever saw that money except for in his and her
new gadgets and games. So I went to MSJC for a full semester and
passed all my classes. I got a job at the end of the summer at target
(target sucks by the way), so he was not going to pay for my school
any more. I was supposed to pay for it. All I could afford was 1
class. So I took one class. Not long after school started I got fired
from target for working too much. Then in October, my father told me
that they were all moving to Arizona as soon as the lease was up and
that I was not coming with them. He was taking my 25, almost 26 year
old unemployed brother and my little brother who was always a problem
and who my step mother hounded like there was no tomorrow. But me,
they were not taking me. As soon as class was over that December I
moved out. I moved between Christmas and my birthday (jan 2nd).
I had no car, no job and only a boyfriend to drive me to interviews.
At first I lived in Del Mar. The woman was awful. She expected me to
have a job on top of the work she had me do and I couldn't find one
so I was home a lot. She kicked me out because my walking around the
apartment made her dog bark, which interrupted her naps. After that I
moved to San Diego and essentially became a slave. I lived with and
worked for a Navy Doctor. I was a live in nanny and housekeeper. I
worked full time hours and didn't make a penny. I lived on food
stamps. I did this for over a year. Finally my fiance at the time
joined the army and left for basic training. His parents offered for
me to live with him while he was away. I took the chance and quite
the job in san diego. I struggled while he was gone. I worked a
couple odd jobs cleaning and tutoring but, his family looked down on
me because I didn't have a “real job”. I had been waiting to go
to school or get a more demanding job because I knew that we were
getting married when he came back and then I would be following him
to his new duty station. That isn't what happened. We found out he
was being sent to South Korea. I wanted to go with him, but then the
duty station of 1 year would become 3 years if he took me along. He
didn't want to take me along, but he wouldn't tell me the truth until
right before he left. Not long after he left his parents and started
fighting. They hated me and wanted to control me. His mother was an
extremely manipulative person. The fight was over a stupid xbox 360.
I was going to get it ready and send to him. I'm his new wife, so I
feel like it's my responsibility to take care of his stuff and to
send him what he needs. Anyway. I didn't send it quick enough for his
mother's liking and so she came and tried to take it. She and her
husband yelled at me and threatened to kick me out, because I told
her no. I said I was going to send it to him and no she couldn't have
it. In order to avoid physical violence I didn't fight them when they
came in and took it. I called the police instead. My husband and I
had already been having a hard time keeping in touch from so far
away. Once he heard that I had called the police on his parent's he
wouldn't forgive me, he said he did, but he was lying and he didn't
trust me. I am certain his mother had something to do with it. Any
way they kicked me out after that. They gave me an official 30 day
notice, not so official since they didn't even get my name correct.
So I moved out. My husband and I tried to work things out but because
he no longer trusted me, he would not give me permission to take his
belongings when I left (his parents demanded written consent from him
before I could remove any of his things, even though as his wife I
had every right), so I left his stuff with them. After that I tried
and tried just to get him to talk to me, but he wouldn't. I could
barely even get him to file the papers with the army to start getting
bah or a benefits card. I had to call the IG. He probably got in
trouble with his unit, I kinda felt like he deserved it. By the end
of December, I had had enough. I couldn't get a hold of him so I
broke up with him through email on Jan 1st 2015. I stopped
trying to join the army then to focus on the divorce and also because
I was afraid of what he and his mother would try to do if I went away
to training. Also I had gone to MEPS and I was over the weight limit
by 1lb and I failed the tape test so I thought that maybe I wasn't
suited for the military. I got a job as a Room Attendant at the
Hilton, but it was too much for me. I couldn't deal with the
discrimination of the job and I was such and emotional wreck that I
would just start crying when I was alone cleaning hotel rooms, so I
quit. At this point I was a regular at one of the local bars. I was
there almost every night. I slept with a few different guys. A couple
of them I had a romantic interest in, some of them I was just
desperate to feel someone touch me and some it was just pity. One man
even took advantage of my extremely drunken state (at this point I
was basically an alcoholic) in order to have sex with me. At that
point I started being careful about my drinking. Not long after that
I met my current boyfriend. I was sleeping with one guy on and off
for a little bit but as soon as I met him I stopped, I didn't even
know if we were gonna actually start dating, but I had hopes so I
passed up the guy I had been sleeping with. Luckily it worked out so
far. We've been dating for a little over a year now and my divorce
was final last January 2016. I told him I was still officially
married when we went on our first date. I was worried he would be
scared off but he wasn't. Now we have a dog named Squid and we are
both in college. We plan to move to Michigan in the summer of 2017.
We want to buy a farm. It's seems like everything should be good now,
but it's not. I still struggle with depression, I'm still trying not
to kill myself. I hate my father and step mother, I hate my ex
husband and his parents. I don't see or talk to these people but they
still come to mind sometimes, and even if they didn't, I can still
feel the effects of how they treated me. I can still feel how hurt I
was when they treated me badly, I can still feel how alone I was when
they abandoned me like so much trash. I still worry about whether or
not my boyfriend will stay with me or if he will leave me for reasons
I don't understand. I still worry about where I will live or how I
will feed myself. I still worry about how I will deal with people
everyday because I can't handle how they treat me. I can't handle the
judgment. I don't even know what other people think of me, but I can
feel how they feel and it hurts. The looks of condescension and the
looks of confusion and the look of disapproval. I don't know what to
do about it. I try, but some days I can barely keep myself together.
Some days I can barely leave the house at all. Other days I get to
school and then the whole class I just fight back tears. Some days I
can't fight the tears so I go to the bathroom where I use my knife to
stop the tears. Usually it works well enough to stop the tears, but
the thoughts are still around and they still distract me from what I
am doing. The only way I can seem to keep everything at bay is to
just listen to music and ignore everyone. Nothing else seems to work.
10 years I've been dealing with this. 10 years I have suffered never
telling a single person that I constantly want to kill myself. I have
nothing to show for my life so far. I have not won any awards. I have
not had a successful marriage. I have not had children. I have no
degree to speak of. I cannot keep a job. I can play no instruments.
My voice goes mostly unused. The songs and poems I have written go
unheard. I have no great computer skills. I have no athletic skills
to speak of either. I am 23 and have nothing to show for it, not even
a semi normal life.
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