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Pressures of School and life |
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When it comes to writing my story I don’t know where to begin. There’s nothing terrible in my past that caused this. I am and was just a normal everyday girl who couldn’t keep up with the pace and pressures of life.
When it comes to writing my story I don’t know where to begin. There’s nothing terrible in my past that caused this. I am and was just a normal everyday girl who couldn’t keep up with the pace and pressures of life.
I was just 13 when I started, I can’t recall the exact moment or the cognition that lead to the behaviour. I was being bullied at school not physically just verbally. I remember the feeling of sickness and worry in the morning before school everyday, knowing that at some point I would have to face the bullies. I didn’t tell anyone and so taking a knife to my arm helped me relieve the frustration, anger, hopelessness and punished me for being weak. Just a few cuts every now and then when things got on top of me, no one noticed.
Time went on and although after a year the worst of the bullying stopped, the names they called me had not. I’d sucked them up believing I was every bit as ugly, stupid and worthless as they had said I was. Maybe it was this desperate need to prove myself that lead to what happened next. Maybe I already had it in me, I don’t know. But I began to push myself at school, tried to do my best, I think I believed at that point that if I did well in my GCSE’s I would be worth something as it was the only time my parents seemed to be proud of me.
I put myself under enormous pressure and I don’t deal with it. Before I cut I would feel so frustrated, angry, stressed, but afterwards pure release. I also cut to punish myself, to relieve numbness, to bring myself back to reality. I didn’t cry, I didn’t tell anyone, I just let it build up; I didn’t know how to express how I was feeling in words. Cutting was like a safety valve, letting off steam and stopping me from exploding because I knew of no other better way to do it.
My parents found out and so I was put on antidepressants but nothing more was said on the matter. I was getting increasingly depressed and suicidal, cutting just to get through the day, having panic attacks, sleeping in class because I couldn’t seem to get to sleep at night, I started taking overdoses of my prescription medicines, not enough to kill me or even put me in hospital just enough for me to wake up a bit ill the next morning knowing I had done harm.
I continued pushing myself for good grades at school until one day it got to much and I snapped, suffering some sort of break down. 2 months later I took my exams, my arms a mess suffering, mind blanks and panic attacks. When the results came it meant nothing to me and I was left in the summer reflecting on the mess of the last 4 years, my arms scarred.
The first year of college was difficult, however much I tried to fight self harm and my negative view of myself they kept on coming back but at the end of it there was a change in me. I had a group of friends that cared that accepted me for who I was. And I started talking, finding words for my feelings, looking at life differently; I began to reach out and ask for help, telling my friends about my struggles.
Now a two years on I’m 18 and at university, studying a subject I love (Animal behaviour and welfare), I can’t say I’m a model student, I can’t say I’ve turned my life around, and I definitely can’t say everything is perfect now. But I’m better; I haven’t cut in nearly a year and a half. Sometimes I feel like I am fighting a constant battle, other times I look at the still visible scars and know that I will never do it again. Now I know my weaknesses, but don’t let them rule me. I’ve learnt not to bottle things up now, I’m more open with my feelings and can find words to communicate them, and hopefully things will never go back to how they where before.
Now I've got my life back together I've found God again, something that I thought was inconceivable when I was so blinded by the darkness that I couldn't see him.
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