I’m Exhausted

I’m simply existing.

I have been for all of the nineteen pathetic years of my life.

I’m numb to everything due to exhaustion. Exhaustion from fighting, caring.

All my life, I’ve been a shadow, a second choice, an afterthought.

I truly love my parents. I really do. But all they care about is my much older brother. They paid for his college, they encouraged him in everything he did, and they’re proud of him. They don’t want to pay for my college, they don’t care what I do, and they see me as a burden. He was the good-looking, athletic kid in high school and I was the below-average-looking, awkward choir girl. My brother disowned us back in August because I apparently ruined his life and my parents didn’t have enough money to pay for his wedding. He’s thirteen years older than me. What did I do to ruin his life? Exist? My parents have been putting their grief on me for the past eight months when I should be focusing on college instead of trying to salvage their relationship with my brother and between both of themselves. I’ve been drowning in depression (again) for a while and not once did they ask if I was okay or talked to me about it. I’m the one who has tried to save their marriage. I’m the one who didn’t walk out on them several times. I’m the one who sees them every weekend. Why can’t they love me the way they love him? Not once have they called me beautiful. Not once have they said they loved me. Not once have they said they were proud of me. I’m only a responsibility, a burden. They would only benefit if I was gone.

In sophomore year of high school, I started to have friends in my life. A few, but I was content.

Before all of this, I didn’t have anyone. I was bullied from elementary school through middle school– left to be beaten during recess and gossiped about in the halls. I attended a small, Podunk school in the middle of nowhere. I still remember the smell of cow shit lingering in the air during recess. I wasn’t like everyone else: I wasn’t in 4-H, I didn’t wear cowgirl boots, I didn’t listen to that god-awful country music, I didn’t grow up on a farm and help Pappa feed the cows– I was a geek. I was an outcast and no one liked it; they didn’t like it from the very beginning of kindergarten to the very last day of sixth grade. I was pushed, thrown around, punched, kicked, and scratched for seven years straight and my parents saw no problem with it. Yeah, sure. It shouldn’t matter now. But I don’t trust people to this day because no matter how many times they all said they were my friend, they didn’t mean it and kept shoving me around.

The scant amount of friends I have now are terrific. They’re great. I’m fortunate to have them. I have one that I could call up and she would always answer. If I was crying, she would be there in a heartbeat. I have another one whom I met on this site about a year and a half ago. She’s six hours ahead of me and she’s not in the best of health, but she still makes an effort to talk to me. She has no idea how special that makes me feel. Effort. Pure fucking effort. That’s all that matters.

But I’m an idiot and I mess everything up. They have lives of their own. They don’t need me to bring them down.

I’ve made mistakes. I’m human.

I keyed this girl’s car in high school because she kept telling everyone these nasty rumors about me and told me I should kill myself. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I was already depressed from family issues, had five suicide attempts under my belt, and cuts on my forearms and thighs. I lost so many friends because of her who in turn turned their backs on me. I was alone and I had no one to turn to. No matter how much I asked my parents to let me get help, they didn’t listen. So I drug my key across her hood. Her pickup was so scratched up and beaten, she never noticed. I was never caught.

When I was seventeen, one of my friends was best friends with this guy in his mid-to-late twenties. I try to be nice to everyone. If someone talks to me, I’m going to talk to them back. I’m not going to assume anything of anyone I don’t know. He and I started talking. Not talking-talking, but just asking how the other one was doing and complaining about our jobs. I never flirted with him. I kept my messages short and brief. We became distant friends and he gave me alcohol sometimes. Alcohol evolved into the only reason why I talked to him, instead of making my friend happy by associating with her friends. But somehow, some reason, he started to develop feelings for me. He started messaging me about how much he wanted to be married to me and have kids with me and started elaborating on how age is only a number. I rejected him. Because I only talked to him for alcohol. Granted, the age thing and the creepiness were definite reasons why I rejected him; but he never knew I used our friendship for alcohol. This was the only time I used someone, and I still feel bad.

My depression started to hit me head on again about a month ago. I lost the guy who I loved the most. (Totally different guy from the last paragraph. Don’t be confused with that. Eww. Yuck. No.) Yeah, sure. It’s only a guy. But he understood me. He made me happy. He made me smile. I trusted him. I was constantly stressed out because of the situation with my family, paying for college myself, and finding another job. It consumed me, but he helped me forget. I fucking loved him. I blew up on him because I was a fucking stressed out idiot. He claimed he hurt me when he never hurt me in the first place and that’s why he needed to leave. I begged him to stay, but he didn’t listen. But he claimed he still loved me and cared about me. But do you really do this to someone you love? Do you ignore them from days on end when they’re fucking suffering? But I was the one who screwed up. I was the one who apparently blocked him out because I wanted to give him space and wait for him to come back. I was the one who messed up. And whenever I tried to telling him how I was feeling, he said I was guilt-tripping him. “You’ll probably won’t ever understand how I feel.” Well, yeah. Because you haven’t told me shit. I was stupid enough to show him I was getting back with an ex to make him try to understand he was actually losing me, but I soon realized I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t be with a misogynist guy who treated me like shit when I knew my stupid-ass heart isn’t going to budge from someone I love, no matter how much I tell it to move on. How can I be friends with someone I love? How can I be friends with someone I love who’s going to find someone better and I have to watch every single fucking day in pain? I screwed up and I will never be able to fix this.

After the breakup, I wasn’t able to breathe for three weeks. My heart rate was so high, I had to go to the hospital because my physician didn’t know what was wrong with me. I blacked out several times. My white blood cell count was so elevated, my physician thought I had leukemia. I know this is stress, I know it. But my physician still insists I go to a cardiologist and a hematologist.

I wanted to get out of the pain, so I tried again. I reached for the bottle of pills several times more. It didn’t work. I wanted to get all the bad memories out my head.

Of my uncle nearly molesting me.

Of my mom cornering me and threatening to beat me when I went to visit my grandparents when I was little.

Of my parents screeching at the top of their lungs for a divorce.

Of crying all night long.

Of everything.

I’m exhausted. So I’m going to bed.