Story #15

I was never diagnosed as "clinically depressed," or with "borderline personality disorder," but I know that I have had or have both. If I had gone to see someone years ago, I would have been diagnosed as "clinically depressed," and if I went to go see someone now, I would be diagnosed with "borderline personality disorder." 

I’m not sure when I just started to lose hope in everything, it just kinda built upon each other. It wasn’t like on major event changed my life. It was somewhat gradual.  

Elementary school children can be cruel. I learned that the hard way. As a child, I was a little over weight. It wasn’t that I didn’t have any friends, it was that I never felt like I belonged, except with one. Of course, being an over weight child, I was teased constantly. Looking back on it, I know that the names they called me sound corny and unimportant but they had a huge impact. 

I see myself now, as "fat," although people say that I’m not. I can’t believe them, though. I don’t know if I will. As I child, I was taught that I was fat and that image has stayed with me. 

My mother was also an issue. Even though she tried to be helpful, I always felt like she was setting my goals beyond my reach. She raised her voice when I didn’t get the grade that she deemed appropriate, which was fairly often. It wasn’t that I was completely stupid, I just wasn’t as smart as she wanted me to be. I always felt a lot of resentment to my sister, who was 4 ½ years younger than me. She always got the better grades and was always "mommy’s little girl," where I was not. I was always afraid of getting poor or even fairly good grades, for fear of seeing that look of disappointment on her face.  

Junior High was not so bad in the beginning. I made a new friend and a first, we were extremely close. We had the same interests and the same likes and dislikes. However, at the end of 6th grade, she told me that she was "sick of me and couldn’t stand being around me." So yeah, that hurt. I really didn’t know what to do or say at that point. I ended up just trying to forget about it. Unfortunately, we had the same group of friends. In this group, however, everyone had a "best friend," but me. I felt like I was on the outside, looking in, like I was always running to catch up. 7th grade was when most everything started. In the beginning/middle of 7th grade, I became extremely depressed. Everything was always "eh," or "just ok," never "great," or "good," not even "pretty good." I started to think about death a lot. I thought about what it would be like to no longer have anything to deal with. I got to the point of pressing the scissors to my wrist a couple times, but whenever I pulled them back, I never found the courage to press down hard enough. Since I could never find the courage to go through with it, I turned to self mutilation. I saw it to be the only way out. It helped me to deal with the feelings of isolation and disappointment, rejection and failure. I always felt better when I was able to take a little piece of skin off of my hand or arm. 

If you look at me now, I have scars running up and down my arms and onto my hands. It never used to bother me. By the middle of 8th grade, I was more content, not as depressed, for one reason or another. I don’t really know what happened, how or why I changed.  

High school was interesting. As a freshman, I became involved with a guy who was a year older than me. I told him everything and we were so close. He was my confident. During our relationship, I found no reason for the scissors, so they stayed away. Unfortunately, all things must come to an end, as did our relationship and our friendship. Because we were no longer talking, I had no one to talk to and tell my problems to. I closed off, convinced that I would never trust any one again. 

The scissors came back out and eventually changed to nail clippers, which were stronger and could do more damage. Later into my freshman year, around the end, I was again involved with another guy. I told him about my problem right off to give him a fair chance out if he wanted it, which I expected him to take. He surprised me though, and didn’t take it. I was so glad to have the feeling of being wanted and loved again, that our relationship went fairly far, physically. I didn’t open up to him much, because I didn’t want to be put into the same spot that I had been put in earlier that year, alone and with no one to talk to. Eventually, we split up, but we still remained friends. I began to trust him and I opened up to him. I trusted him, and still do. He is a very special person to me. However, during all this time, I never did stop with the cutting. At one point, I cut myself so deeply, that now I have a horrible looking scar on my hand. It pains me to look at it and is difficult for me to now live with. It’s the worst one that I have and I cover it up so that I do not have to face it. It’s what has stopped me from doing much more.

My friend, my second ex, gave me a writing assignment that a friend had to do on "borderline personality disorder." It’s fits me, which scares me. I never thought that I could or would end up like this, but I have.  

As I write this, I am only 15 years old, soon to be 16. Because of what I’ve been through, I mask myself. I put on the persona of being care free and happy when in reality, I have much more on my mind. I turn attention away from myself so that I don’t have to face who I am or what I’ve become. What a lot of people don’t know, is that I can relate to so many different problems on one level or another. I try to take care of others first because I don’t want them to turn into what I’ve become, because what I’ve become scares me, but I don’t want to sit on a couch and babble incoherently to some complete stranger about my life. 

Since 7th grade, I’ve become a lot better. I try to look for the good things in life and usually, things are "pretty good." I slip back into my depression at times and I still think about taking to the scissors or nail clippers but I know that I need to find another way. So far I’ve been better and more controlled but it is still a difficult path to take, one that I wish upon no one.