back again

It’s been about a year since I wanted to kill myself.

It was about last November or December, that I really wanted to do it. My mum and my step dad had finally decided to get a divorce, so my mum and I moved in with my aunt, cousin, and grandpa. I was really happy that the divorce was finally happening. My step dad had a horrible addiction to marijuana, which fed his crippling schizophrenia. They finally divorced because my dad wanted to smoke pot all day, which made it hard for my mom to have a life. Not because of the fact that he had abused me mentally, physically, verbally, and sexually for the past 10 years.

I was happy nonetheless, I slept on my mattress in the living room on the floor, and I was allowed to keep a couple posters above it. But after a while I got more and more unhappy, because my aunt had depression, and every day she would come home and yell at me for not doing something or eating too much for dinner. My aunt also lashed out at my mum, who in turn was stressed from all the new things she had to deal with. So I had 2 people yelling and harassing me constantly for silly reasons.

Not only was that going on, but at school my best friend seemed to become more and more mean to me, and distant.

I was always tired. My legs felt like they could give out at any second. I didn’t eat, which made me shaky and cold and dizzy. I would just come home and scarf down any food I could and then sleep all night. I resorted to cutting.

It was simple, just thin cuts down the side of my arm. Just a little boxcutter hidden under my mattress. No one ever found out.

Until mum found a small blade I had in my dresser for the jagged cuts I made above my ankle. She didn’t say much, she just told me to stop, and then she cleaned out my room and hid all the sharp things in the house from me. Thinking back on it, I doubt she took it seriously. That it really registered to her that she made her own child want to kill themself, and that that they were actually going to do it.

That went on for a while. I didn’t try to kill myself, even though I loved the idea of never waking up, or even waking up in a hospital bed. For some reason whenever I pictured waking up in a hospital, everyone cried and apologized for being so terrible to me, and I could just sit in that quiet hospital room and be alone, and peaceful. The little things kept me going. My grandparents that said they would bring me out to the country in the summer, my favorite song that helped me fall asleep on the bus, every friday when I would use all my lunch money from that week to buy candy and soda, then go home and stay up all night watching my favourite videos with my cat, Dexter.

I snapped eventually. I cried hysterically in the bathroom drawing red lines on my arm and washing them off because some dumb website told me it would help. Mum yelled at the door and eventually came in. I cried and cried and yelled at her trying to make her understand how she made me feel. She didn’t understand. She just told me she was right and that I was crazy and she threatened to put me in therapy if I didn’t stop acting like that.

Well, I didn’t stop, so she put me in therapy.

I hated it. I hated how someone made a living listening to me talk about my feelings for an hour. I still hate it.

But, I have to admit, it helped. I liked hearing the exact names and symptoms of my mental health problems. I liked hearing why I had them and the bad little habits I had because of them. I liked that my therapist agreed that all the shit that happened to me is horrible, and that I deserve better than all the horrible things and people in my life. Every time she tells me that, I cry.

“You deserve better.”

Now here I am, in a similar situation.

Sitting on my mattress, cuts on my arm, shaky and dizzy from being underfed. It’s different, too.

Dexter was sent away to a cute little lady in Northern Abbotsford because mum developed an allergy to him. We have our own little one bedroom apartment now. It’s dusty, and the air that comes through my window reeks of garbage and smoke. I can’t go for walks in the rain or sit outside in the car anymore, since our neighborhood is pretty dangerous. I don’t live near any of my friends. Mum has a new boyfriend who lives out in Chilliwack, but he doesn’t have a car, so she doesn’t come home most nights. My therapist still tells me that I deserve better.

I miss things from my old lives.

I miss when we lived with my step dad because he made a lot of money, so I always had the things I needed, and we could often go out for pizza and movie nights. I miss our beautiful apartment where I could sit on the couch and see the mountains, and where I only had to walk a few blocks to school and my friends’ houses. I miss not having to worry about money, and I miss having the opportunity to do whatever I wanted with my room. I really miss just sitting on the couch with Dexter and watching the sun set.

I miss living with my aunt and her 2 little dogs, and eating breakfast with grandpa upstairs. I miss sitting in the car listening to my CDs and watching the windows fog up. I miss sitting on my mattress with Dexter, eating all that junk food, and laughing at dumb movies. I miss laying on the couch with my cousin while we watched little kids movies like The Land Before Time, and telling her about how I watched it at preschool when I was young. I really miss how wonderful the rain sounded on those cold nights, and how wonderful my little mattress felt.

I know my life was worse back in those times, but sometimes I feel like I would’ve been better off. I’m slowly running out of things to live for. Hopefully things will get better.