Will it Ever End?

This is my first post here, so if I do it wrong somehow, I apologize in advanced.

I found this website during winter break when I was in a pretty upset mood and reading the stories on here didn’t help lighten it.  But I couldn’t turn away from it.  I felt connected to these stories.  It was as if someone felt the way I did, even if it was just a little bit.  I hear stories all the time about people being bullied and committing or thinking about suicide, but you never hear what their stories are, how they truly feel.  That’s what really drew me to them.  I was surprised there was a way to tell someone your story and now I would like to share mine.  If it is long, I again apologize in advanced.

I grew up being the weird kid in school.  I didn’t have any siblings and my parents didn’t pay much attention to me.  They never let me play with the three boys in the neighborhood, so I had no idea how to interact with others.  When I began school in kindergarten, I tried being the confident girl you see in TV shows all the time.  But reality is cruel, and those TV shows didn’t prepare me for the real thing.  I was an outcast from the first day of school.  Older kids on the bus thought I was annoying and beat me up and called me names.  On the first day, a kid punched me in the mouth and I lost my first tooth.

My mom called the bus company and my school about it, but nothing good came of it.  The bullying got worse and that was just on the bus.  In school, no one wanted to be near me because I acted weird.  How I acted weird is unknown to me really, but people have told me some stories over the years.  The popular kids talked smack about me and my classmates called me names as well.

People say to tell an adult if something like this happens.  I did, but no one listened.  My mom just called the school about it, but I guess they brushed it off because nothing happened.  It just kept getting worse and worse.  My teacher talked to me about it, but all she said was to be nicer to them or ignore them.

Let me say something about my parents.  My dad worked until 6:30P.M and my mom is disabled, so she stayed at home.  I was home from school by 4.  My mom didn’t have any idea what to do with a child – I am her only one.  She also can’t control her anger very well, at least not with me or my dad.  She yells and yells until my ears start ringing.  She doesn’t show mercy about her thoughts.  During the bullying, she wasn’t there for me except when she called the school, but even so.  The more she yelled, the more distant we grew apart.  It got so bad that she seemed to stop really caring about me.  My dad was the same, but he didn’t yell – that job had been filled by my mom after all.  Anyway, since there was no one to talk to about it, I was basically on my own.

Now back to school.  The next year in first grade, things weren’t any better.  The bullying continued and I learned to put up with it more or less.  I just cried my frustrations out at home.  One day, it all changed for the worse.  While I was sitting by myself at lunch, I thought about the bullying long and hard.  Then something just snapped.  “I’m going to kill myself,” I thought.  I grew up with shows like Family Guy and Robot Chicken because of my dad.  Knowing what suicide was wasn’t a surprise.  But for anyone to consider suicide, even a child that was seven, it was just sad.

As the days went by, the thought just became more realistic.  My parents yelled at me and the kids hated me.  It made complete sense to do it, right?

At recess, I always drew pictures of whatever came to mind.  One day, I drew pictures of me in a coffin, me hanging from a tree, and other things I can’t remember.  I was stupid and brought them home.  My parents found them and told me to come in their room.  My dad held the pictures out and asked them what they were.  The atmosphere was thick, so I told them what they were to get out of there.  Once I finished explaining, they looked at each other and asked me if I wanted to kill myself.  Being honest, I said yes.  They looked at each other again and left the room.  When they came back, they told me they hid the pictures and told me not to tell anyone.  Even to this day, I haven’t found the pictures, if they even are still in my house.

That moment they told me they hid them, I felt complete emptiness.  My parents hid evidence of my suicidal thoughts.  After that, they forgot about it.  No one hugged me, or told me not to kill myself, or even say it’d be okay.  They just brushed it off.  In that moment, suicide was my only option.

Later in the week, I went downstairs to play and watch TV by myself.  “Now’s the perfect time,” I thought.  After a few minutes of serious thinking, I took the largest knife from behind the bar that was in the room.  Next to the bar was a mirror.  I stood in front of it and held the knife up to my neck.  Right before I was about to slit my throat, a voice within me yelled,”Don’t do it!  There’s more to life than this! You’re only seven, it’ll get better!  Just give life a chance!”  I don’t know how I thought of that, but it made me reconsider and put the knife down.  Ever once in a while, I picked it back up, only to put it back down.

In second grade, things weren’t much better.  The bullying quieted down a bit, but that wasn’t what bothered me.  In my neighborhood, an 11 year old boy raped the other 12 year old boys, at least that’s what I was told.  Since I was the only girl in the neighborhood, I was questioned.  Nothing happened to me, but even so.  A social worker came to my school and talked to me for 2 three hour sessions.  It was simply questions about the boy, but I was still scared.  I told my mom when I came home.  She started getting made and said that social worker would make her look like a bad mom and ruin her reputation.  At first, I didn’t care about that.  But when I thought back about it when I was older, I realized my mom cared more about her reputation more than she did me.  I’m not trying to sound conceited, but isn’t common sense?

As years went by, the bullying seemed to stop,but the memories remained clear in my mind.  They haunt me everyday.  My mom and I fight like cats and dogs.  Lately she’s been saying that I only act depressed and that I should kill myself.  When I bring up she said that, she yells about how she didn’t and that I’m lying.  I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut to avoid her lectures.  Her family isn’t any better and when I have to visit them, I have to be extra careful about what I say so I can stop looking like the bad guy.

My family doesn’t understand me, how I feel about what they say about me.  Every time I see them, I always wonder, “Will this be the day that I snap and tell them how I feel or will I stay silent forever?”  Will I ever stop hurting and thinking about it?

I’m fourteen now and they still have no clue.  I’m fourteen now, eight years after my original suicidal attempts, and I still think about it every day.