Dear, whoever reads this,
As a child, I grew up with divorced parents.
While my relationship with my mum was one of the best I could have asked for, the same could not have been said about my dad. Through my childhood years I was reminded whatever I did, was never good enough for him, until it got to a point I would subconsciously itch my own hands until they would bleed as I was so nervous to go see him. My mum and her new husband moved around a lot but always provided a safe loving home to come home to. Somehow this was never enough to quiet the negative self-talk that he had caused to swirl round my head.
By the time I was in my last year of high school, the father-daughter relationship between us had gone from rocky, to almost inexistent. I used his gloating remarks that were constantly repeated in my head, to motivate myself and for my last year of high school I focused on two polar opposite things with the same goal. To get his voice out of my head.
My weekends were either spent driving round in friend’s cars without licenses and drinking too much cheap vodka or holed up in a public library for hours on end. The self-destructive side of me wanted to do what any teenager that’s been ignored by someone they love does, dumb things that get them into trouble in the hope they’ll finally get noticed. Maybe if he realized all the mistakes I was making, in some bittersweet way I could prove he was right about me all along.
The other side of me, the perfectionist side, thought if I could study long and hard enough and get grades above a certain amount, all the things he’d done to hurt me in the past would somehow not validate my self worth anymore.
Between the constant up and downs of my last year of school, the thoughts of ending my own life started swirling in my head and fresh cuts and scars constantly patterned my arms. The thoughts suppressed down by the self-made bricks I had built on top of them. A wall of study and motivation built in my effort to prove my father wrong.
The day I graduated should have been a great day for me, as it was for my friends around me. Instead it was a reminder that everything I had worked for was now over and I was once again going to have to move on to a new place.
Knowing me from what you’ve read so far, you can probably imagine my only urge was to fight this somewhat necessary change. Younger me was self-destructive, but she was nothing if not consistent.
It’s for that reason I decided against my parent’s wishes, and my former plans, to attend university in my home state. I spent the summer grasping onto connections with high school friends, both in Europe and from my graduating class, trying to build a tight enough network to hold me up.
Then three weeks before university started, I was assaulted. I had been dating a friend of a friend from high school for a few weeks, probably for all the wrong reasons. I was one of the only girls in my friendship circle and while I love the attention that brought, I was always slightly on the outside. It was subtle, but it was there. And as most of the girls I knew had realized, dating one of them was an easy assurance you would be included. At the time, there were two guys interested in me and as someone who had yet to fall in love, I didn’t realize you cannot simply choose who to have feelings for. So I chose what seemed like the easy option, the one that was least likely to hurt me. How wrong I was.
As you can probably tell, I had somewhat of a reputation as the girl who drinks more than she should. After attending a friend’s 18th birthday party, I asked my then-boyfriend to pick me up and let me stay at his house so my parents wouldn’t know I’d been drinking. I had forgotten to eat that day, as was not unusual for me growing up, and was on the verge of passing out by the time we were in his car. As we arrived at his house, I informed him I was too drunk to do anything but sleep but quickly found out that wasn’t an option.
Fast forward to the morning after and I was at a loss as of what to do. I had a sinking feeling in my chest no-one would believe me and was unready to give up my tight circle of friends I had worked so hard to make.
I had never been hurt in this way, but I’d been hurt emotionally before and had learnt that brushing things under the rug is sometimes the easiest way to deal with something. My two best friends encouraged this at the time when I told them the next morning, citing this was unlike him and it must have been a one-off event.
Three weeks later, the night before University started I decided enough was enough. I had gone the last three weeks trying to forget that one night could have an effect on my whole life but had become a prisoner to anxiety, nightmares and panic attacks. I broke off the relationship and hoped with that, it would be the end of this nightmare that had become my life.
In my first week of University I met a boy. Typical me, thinking a boy could change my life or save me spent the next week getting to know him. He was the safety blanket I so drastically needed. The first few months of our relationship involved heavy drinking and a lot of fun. Blowing off steam was something we both knew how to do well. It wasn’t until semester was well underway that I could see how much of a toll his own family was taking on him. I longed to save him but I was already clinging on to him in an effort not to drown in my own troubles.
During the winter break, I went back home to visit childhood friends as normal though this time he came with me. What should have been a dream-like trip ended up being composed of my head in a bucket and insomnia due to anxiety. It was from here our relationship, and my mental health, took its steep decline.
When Semester two rolled around and he went back to partying and living his life, my mental health had deteriorated quickly.
I frequently missed parties and events; my chest feeling like it was imploding from a lack of air and the constant war on my emotions leading to a constant need to sleep. There were nights where I would wake up gasping for breath from panic attacks, or not being able to sleep for the constant fear someone would break in. I started to miss classes and my grades began to drop. Some days I would only get out of bed because he dressed me and brought my breakfast.
Don’t get me wrong, I was my usual rollercoaster of emotions self. There were still events that I got too drunk at, nights I partied too hard and don’t remember. But I was a shadow of the old me, taped together by a boy that loved me. In the final months of that year it was becoming evident that love, though I wished it were, was not enough to save me.
The end of our relationship was not a smooth one to say the least and I became the worst version of myself yet to date. Self-destruction became my go-to and the drinking and partying took a whole new place in my life. Yearning for something to numb the pain and make me forget for the night, ended up meaning being intoxicated for days on end. It was then that I met another boy. One that promised to be my best friend and help me through this dark stage I was in.
Little did I know, this would come at a price.
Between nights of drinking, drugs and sex he gave me what I had long been looking for; a way to forget the assault. During this time, he established feelings for me and made sure I knew about them. We were both the definition of self-destruction and along with this fun and partying, came nights of arguing and self-harm. I battled with myself time and time again between letting him go as a friend and fighting my biggest fear of being abandoned.
It was only at the peak of my mental illness, when I ended up in hospital for an attempt on my life this year that I realized things couldn’t keep going the same way. It was only then that I realized I was worth more than the constant snide remarks my dad made or a night that had been haunting me for a year.
There were a lot of hard times through my recovery; therapy sessions that left me feeling raw on the inside, losing friends I never thought I would, being honest with my parents about what had been happening to me, none of these were easy.
But there were also moments where I could look at my new friends and whole-heartedly say I know they would never hurt me on purpose. That doesn’t sound like much but after my last best friend, it was a constant surprise.
I’ve been writing this for over an hour now and realized, I had no plan on how to end this. There is no happy ending or ending at all for that matter. This story could have ended abruptly a couple of times if it wasn’t for the support I had around me both in the healthcare system, my friends and my family, but instead I am here writing it. While the boys who hurt me, and my father are no longer part of my life, and I have lost countless friends along the way – I can finally say, I don’t need any one of them to save me.
There’s no ending because I’m still here and my story’s still going.
So here’s to them because as much as you hurt me and I nearly broke, I wouldn’t be the person I am today if none of this happened. And here’s to everyone in my life now, because I can honestly say I’m surrounded my loving selfless people.
And here’s to everyone who actually managed to read this all.
