My Story

tarpit

This is my story.

I was born into a newly-wed couple, with a family history of depression and anxiety. I was a normal child until it came time for me to go into first grade at a new school. I didn't know anyone there and I was fairly shy. That year I was constantly bullied for the way I was, not to mention I made very few friends. After that year, it got better but I never fully recovered deep down, and while I was moderately outgoing, I started to develop self-image issues by the time I was in fourth grade, and in fifth grade I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Ever since then, my life has been steadily going downhill.

Grade Six - I started off Grade Six optimistically. It was my last year at the school and I had a number of friends who I was in the same class with. Everyday seemed to be the same, I would wake up depressed, go to school, act outgoing and happy for 8 hours and then go home and be sad again. This took a huge emotional toll on myself. Soon enough I was in a psychiatrist's office once a week, where I would spill out my plethora of varying problems. As the year progressed, I became attracted a girl in the other class. Like many guys at that age, I felt like she didn't know who I was. I never had the confidence to talk to her and this caused a lot of personal anguish, as I believed that she was too pretty for me. This only added to my existing problems. Close to the end of the year, I got in a lot of trouble at school and got sent to the principal's office. In the car ride home, I told everyone that I would kill myself that night. Subsequently everyone freaked out, but later I found myself at home by myself. I scribbled a quick one-line note and grabbed a knife. Being in Grade Six, I was not able to properly slit my wrists and I was not able to harm myself in any visible way. So thing continued on as they did previously.

Grade Seven - Grade Seven was a good year for me in comparison to the others with the exception of one major chain of events. I started at a new school and was doing well. In December, my parents were entertaining so house guests so I was upstairs sitting around doing nothing. In my boredom, I snuck into my parents room and got my mom's phone so I could play a game on it. What I saw when I was about to enter the password devastated me. Lying in front of my eyes were texts messages from another guy, talking about their relationship and how much he loved her. I was shocked beyond belief. I had seen no problems in my parent's marriage, and I could not have foreseen this. Four months later, when my parents finally sat my sister and I down and told us, I was not surprised. I accepted it, having already been sad about the issue previously (I did not suffer through a bout of depression in this circumstance). And life went on, albeit quite differently.

Grade Eight - Grade Eight started off without any major issues. I still had bad anxiety and I was beginning to deal with worsening self-image problems. In early February, I was on a social media site when I saw that I kid in my grade had said something about me. "lol. he's a gross faggot". For the first time I did not feel depressed, but instead I felt hatred, not only to this kid but to society in general, for allowing something this hurtful to go unnoticed. Instantly I fell into a deep depression, now directly due to my now-horrible self-image issues. Thankfully he left the school following the year, and I had a good number of friends so I was extremely optimistic going forward.

Grade Nine - The summer between Grade Eight & Nine was amazing. I changed my haircut, got different glasses and clothes before I went to camp, as a way to reinvent myself. I finally felt confident like I never had before. After camp, this girl began talking more and more to me. Finally, one day she asked over the phone to hook up. Having never done this before, I was excited and agreed, even though I did not like in that fashion. I would try to talk to her at least once a day, and desperately tried to find a time in which we could hang out, but she always came up with a lame excuse. I wrote it off as nothing, until she stopped responding to me. I gave up, and began to talk to another girl more. I had talked to consistently since camp ended, mainly off of her effort, as I would never start a conversation with her. We hung out twice, before she pressured me into asking her out. I was overjoyed, she was beautiful, smart, kind and talented. I told everyone I knew, and before long the word got out. We went out twice over the course of three weeks, before she started to only respond when she knew I would not be able to text her back. This went on for about a week before she called me and told me we were breaking up. Although I was not surprised, I was devastated. I sat in silence for 40 minutes before I threw my phone across the room into the wall. I cried myself to sleep, wondering what I was going to do. I was depressed and embarrassed. I refused to go to school the next day and I successfully forced my parent's hand, allowing me to wallow in my sadness. It was horrible. She didn't give me a reason over the phone, and when she texted me a week later, it was unforgiving, saying that I should move past my bullshit and get on to being friends. I didn't respond. The next day, she gave me a reason, mostly made up of generic-sounding excuses, i.e. "I didn't want a boyfriend, I was too busy with school, I did't want the commitment, etc..." I didn't respond for a week before I responded telling her how I was depressed and that I needed a little space before we could be friends. That was the last I heard from her for good eight months. In the meantime I got a new girlfriend but it was horrible. I never truly liked her, and did it more as a way to mask my sadness, which was getting progressively worse. She broke up with me after three months, but the worst thing was that I didn't really care. I realized that I had been subconsciously using her. I felt horrible, pushing me into deeper depression. After about a month and a half, I came to the unsettling realization that I still still liked the girl who I had broken up earlier in the year. I texted her, laying my heart out on the line, in a long text message, saying that I was sorry I overreacted and that we should go back to being good friends. She didn't respond. When I asked her later about the reason she didn't respond, she said she saw no point. I hated her. I contemplated calling her out as a bitch, even asking a friend of mine for advice in how to do so. I never did, mainly due to my heightening depression, now spurred on by a weed habit I had picked up as a sort of medication. Eventually, the year winded down. I had lost many of my former friends and was now left with only a small handful, many of whom were bad influences on me. A few days after school ended, I got caught by my dad with weed in my bag. My parents threatened to call the police, and I immediately began to spiral uncontrollably into the worst depression of my life. I spend the three weeks before camp locked in my room, brooding, and preparing to see the girl I still loved/hated at camp.

Camp Between Grade Nine and Ten - Two of the girls I had been involved with during the year also went to my camp (those being the first two). I was nervous, but simultaneously excited, as it meant that I would get to see the girl liked everyday for two months straight. I dedicated myself winning her over and I was doing a good. She had opened up to me, something she told me she had scarcely done before. One the second-to-last night before the second month began, there was a dance. The first girl (the one who had ignored me) asked me during the dance if we could move pass our beef (it was no secret that I despised her). I replied impulsively, asking two hyper-passive-agressive questions in response which caused her to run out of the building crying. I had not mean for this to happen. The girl I liked ran out after her. When she came back in, she was enraged, being much physically bigger and stronger than me, she punched me twice in the torso and began to yell at me. I freaked out and immediately fell back into depression. The second month of camp was spent mainly ignoring her, with small spurts where I wouldn't. When she asked me if I hated her, I lied, telling her that I was just busy, and trying to privately fix my depression. Towards the end of camp, I arranged for us to have a nice long conversation. I told her (truthfully this time) that I felt as though she didn't respect me, but I couldn't tell her that I still liked her. A few days later, she got sick and missed out on a canoe trip she had been training for (the trip never ended up going). Before she found out whether she could go or not, I told her to find me whatever the result. When she found me, she was crying. I took her to a private storage and I comforted her for twenty minutes, the last five minutes was spent with me just holding her, both of us silent. It was the happiest I had been in a long while. After someone came to kick us out, everything seemed to change. She began to go back to ignoring me (or, at the very least, talking to me only out of necessity).

Grade Ten - Since camp I have been in the worst bout of depression of my life. One day before school started, my sadness was too much and I cut myself near my elbow. This somehow made me less depressed only for my best friend to text me asking if I saw the picture of the girl I like and another "friend of mine". Of course he had not sent it too me, and I became inconsolably bitter. I told my friend I hated her, but two days later I asked her to hang out, only to find out she was "busy". Since then we talked once, a choppy disjointed conversation. I have stopped talking to my parents or anyone for that matter. I have stopped playing sports or doing anything except for listening to music. I love this girl but I hate her. She is ruining my life. But I love her. I am losing all hope and I seriously think that suicide is on the horizon. I don't know what to do anymore.