Though there was no truth in the accusations the idea itself destroyed any chance of reconciliation, people who had been my friends ignored me in the corridoor, bullying changed from senseless to hatred. When you spend your whole life trying to remain inconspicuous being branded a rapist doesn't help much. But what hurt me the most, was the fact that she, my friend, believed that I had done this to her. And that shook me and frightened me. It seemed my bridges were burning and I didn't have the strength to build new ones. So I withdrew even more, taking myself away from where I could be hurt, I was safe yes. But I was still hurting, and I was still lonely.
Self Harm to me always seemed ridiculous, for one, my pain threshold was an all time low, I'd cry and cry over a twisted ankle or grazed knee. It seemed silly to hurt myself when I could barely sit through a blood test without fainting.. and yet? Perhaps one thing I need to say is that I am and always have always been rather overdramatic, I overreact about a lot of things and don't react enough to others. One day, I had an argument with my parents, it became a slanging match and both sides managed some pretty good insults. I stormed off in a classic teenage manner, grabbed a kitchen knife and hacked at my arm. The frightening thing was it didn't hurt. It was as though hurting my body, released my mind. But once you start down that road, it's hard to find a turn off and you keep going down it faster.
Another and more productive coping mechanism was poetry, through a friend I found out about a poetry website, where you could simply write poems and have them commented on, and of course comment on other peoples works as well. My writing began in a classic teenage way, I stuck to simple techniques and easy rhymes, but with encouragement my writing grew and so did I, I had found something I was good at and that gave me some light and some real hope. The cliche's I wrote about seemed to be shared by many others, yet I found friendships in more unexpected writers, the Adults who guided me and helped improve my work, their writing had matured and grown already and they passed their wisdom down to me. And so I wrote, and my emotions were raw and real on page after page of writing. But where this part of me grew, the rest of me was falling apart.
By now I was in year 9, 14 and weighing 17 stone. At 5'11 I could carry the weight better, but only to the point of looking fat, not obese. My mood got on top of me, I would be lethargic and listless, couldn't concentrate and my temper was raging.
I could go from calm to furious in seconds, furious to rock bottom, and rock bottom to manic. From feeling on top of the world to feeling suicidal is always a bad way to go, and the depression always got to me the most. Sitting in the doctor's surgery with "pain" carved on my hand and chemical burns bulging underneath it perhaps I should have take notice. But I was 14, I thought I knew better, these people couldn't and wouldn't understand. I was referred to therapy, and sitting in the waiting room that stank of bleach and stale piss, I wished I hadn't come. It's amazing how being in therapy automatically labels you. The moment my assessors clapped their eyes on me, I worked out that this wasn't going to be 2 sessions now and then, looked like I was in it for the long haul. The meetings got longer, and more frequent, the therapists changed to more experienced ones and the trainee doctors turned to consultants. It seemed everything had been put into motion and although I could not see it coming; my life had been set out for me.
*I\'m wondering if I\'ll make it to Part 100! maybe by next year!
