My Story

So, I stumbled upon this site from Google. I haven’t been very depressed recently, and actually, my life has somewhat improved. It still is hard, but I would like to share my experience with you all.

I was 9 years old, and it was the summer after 3rd grade.
I had been raised by a loving, Catholic family, and went to a Catholic school. In my eyes, the world was a lovely place, and there was no other place I’d rather be. I had one best friend who I spent every day with. To me, everyone believed in God, because who wouldn’t?

My perfect vision of the world would be shattered in mere minutes.

It began when my family went to church in that very summer. My mom was visiting family in Mexico, so it was me, my dad, my sister, and my brother. My sister was 14, and my brother was 12. We parked in a parking garage next to the church that we attend, and something seemed… off. As I stepped out of the car, I saw a man with a bright, neon orange t-shirt and long dark hair sitting on the ledge of the parking garage.

My sister saw this, and whispered to my dad (hoping I wouldn’t hear) “Is he going to jump?” My dad laughed and responded no, of course not. So we continued on our way to the stairs. Just as we reached them, my sister turned around and called out to him: “Be careful.” He looked straight at me and said, “I will.”

As we walked down the stairs, I asked my sister the very question she asked my father: “Is he going to jump?” She shook her head. “Dad said no.” I nodded, because at the time, I still had faith in my father.

We were just turning the corner at my church when I looked over my shoulder. I cannot describe to you my utter terror as I saw him falling. He looked almost peaceful. And then the sound came, the sickening crunch of flesh on pavement. My sister screamed and called 911, and I simply ran. I ran as fast as I could, whimpering “Oh my God” over and over.

Later that day, my sister was still crying, my dad was cussing about how the man was “such a selfish bastard”, but I never shed a single tear. In fact, ever since then, it has been very hard for me to cry.

Fast forward to 7th grade. I made many friends in the 6th grade, and had become quite popular- however, I left my very best friend behind. (I should also mentioned that my neighbor had hung himself in his backyard while I was in 6th grade – he was in 8th, at the same school.) I still regret it, but back to my story. 7th grade was when my depression began to peak – it had been there since that time before, but I had never noticed it. I began worrying about my weight, my looks, my everything. The popular girls called me things like fat, whore, ugly, slut, attention whore. It really hurt, because I was so used to people liking me. I tried to get a teacher’s help, but they didn’t believe me, since those girls were “such good students”. After this, I began to be more reclusive and I talked to less and less people each day. I found it was difficult to smile, so I fashioned a mask for me to wear each day – a mask that looked like the old me, but wasn’t the person I was now. I tricked everyone, everyone thought I was happy, no one would ever have a second guess.

Flash forward to December of 8th grade. I began to write suicide notes. I hated myself, my body, my personality. I hated other people for judging me, and in turn, I judged them. Soon, my friend found out about my depression, and told one of my teachers. At the time, I was home alone with my brother- my parents were off for the weekend. So, the teacher, who had received the email from my friend, emailed me to call him. And I did. We had a long conversation, but I felt it was very hard to say anything. I wasn’t used to talking about my feelings, especially with a teacher. Most of the conversation consisted of vague answers and just “Yes” and “No”.

A week later, I attempted to hang myself- only right before, my father caught me.

Let me give you a little background on my father. He is an alcoholic. He hates my sister (she now lives in California, across the country from us). Some days I wish my parents would just divorce already, it would make everything easier.

And so when he found me, he said a number of things, including: “Why would you want to kill yourself? No daughter of mine would be stupid enough to do that!” Then he woke my mother, who sent me to a psych ward, where I was an inpatient for a week. After I was discharged from that, the cutting began. It was nothing real, I have to admit, just light cuts on my wrist with a razor I took out of my shaver. I didn’t really know how to do “real harm” to myself.

People at school noticed it. I had gotten a new puppy, who bit and scratched me all the time, so I simply told them it was that. The boys would look at my wrist and make motions of scratching their wrists, going “OH I HATE MY LIFE”. The teachers did absolutely nothing.

I am now in 9th grade, and everything has been slowly getting better. I discovered in the summer that I had PTSD from my earlier experience, and I’m slowly coping. If you ever need someone to talk to, just contact me- I can guarantee that I can relate with you.