This is my first official post, I suppose. I'm sitting at the Spyhouse Coffee house/internet cafe, it's easier for me to study away from the house. You'll know why later.
So here I am, blogging and studying, soon to be sipping something caramel and vanilla. The atmosphere is super modern, upbeat, it's a really happy place. I love places that are so upbeat when I can just mind my own business, it's something I really like.
I don't know where to start, in terms of why I haven't shown up much, why I might have been acting different, where I went when I dropped off the face of the planet for a week. Maybe you haven't even noticed, no worries then. This might come as a surprise though.
I have been struggling with depression, self image, OCD, and things of the like for quite some time.
I didn't even know it for a while, but then all of a sudden I could feel myself being different. The things that used to make me overjoyed didn't anymore. I would cry myself to sleep IF I slept, just about every night for reasons unknown to me then. Sometimes I would stay up staring at the ceiling until four in the morning. I would cry in the shower to hide it from my family and my friends.
I put on a fake face and acted like nothing was wrong, because I didn't know what was wrong with me, I hate to say it but I'm good at lying and deceiving, it's terrible, I know. It's true though. I pretended like nothing was wrong, I pretended that I had everything together, when In reality it was shattered and scattered all over the floor.
I had suicidal thoughts.
The slip of a blade running over my wrists.
The feeling of having the life choked out of me.
One clean run across my neck.
I began to feel exhausted all the time. Like the feeling you get when you've walked all over the fair all day long in the sun and you're on your way back to the car, you can see your car but it looks so far away still, you're tired but you just keep walking. You have to.
That is how I felt everyday, every moment. I felt like I couldn't take the stresses in my life any longer. I wanted to sleep, to sleep forever. I wanted my problems to go away, to be non existent. I wanted to take the "easy" way out, and just end things. I wasn't exactly sure how or when but I knew I was going to do it and I knew I was going to do it soon.
One day I was talking with my parents about school, one of my major stresses. I make it stressful though, I want to go either go to Princeton Law or Stanford Law. I have high goals in life for myself, I am self driven. This year I got incredibly far behind in my school work, I couldn't handle being responsible to do my own work. I didn't like taking the time to write everything out. The only class I was keeping up with was my Latin class at the high school, where it was structured. Everything else was piling up, my grades have always been A's, they still are, only when I motivate myself to do my work.
That day was terrible, I felt horrendous. I felt like I couldn't keep on doing what I was doing. I tried to change but I didn't try hard enough, I never DID anything. I only TRIED.
I wanted to drop out of high school all together despite my aspirations for my future.
I decided this is when I would do it.
I ran up the stairs in tears, searching for anything to end my precious life given to me.
I rummaged through the knife drawer in the kitchen, my head was spinning. Then the thought of blood came to my mind, I hate blood, I could never inflict damage on myself that would cause me to bleed. I was desperate, but still, no blood. Besides, it would be messy and I didn't want my sister to see me like that. I moved on to the bathroom locking the door behind me, I searched through the cabinets for some kind of pills to end it quickly. No blood. I came up empty handed, we had nothing that would take away a life so easily. My parents got the door open and I slide down the wall sobbing, my dad had called 911 and was speaking to the operator. The cops and a bus was on their way.
I didn't take any pills. I never cut my body.
I was taken into the bus and asked many questions, mainly getting at do I have sex all the time, am I pregnant, and am I abused by anybody. They asked me if I had even been touched inappropriately, my first response to that was a definite "No." the second that word came rolling off my tongue a voice inside my head screamed yes, I had been touched in a way that was not pleasing to me.
My friend had touched me.
My heart was racing, I was choking on tears and saliva. My head was spinning with questions. I knew I hadn't wanted to be touched, talked to, anything by this person. I had told him to stop, over and over again. Every time he whispered into my ear a shudder ran down my spine, disgusted with what he had to say. When he would move towards me I'd flinch and move away. I told him to let go of me. He wouldn't stop. I confronted him about everything he had done. He made excuses, he didn't understand how I felt. My other friend went to him, over and over. She told him to stop, to leave me alone. She told him I didn't like it. Still, he didn't understand. The words were going in one ear and coming out the other. We both went to him, both of us clearly and firmly stating our opinion without attacking him, we wanted to help him, we loved him.
After this and speaking with my parents we decided it was best to go to our youth group Pastor, unsure of what would happen we told him what had occurred. We told him how we felt, how over the course of two years, I had grown tired of his touch and his poisonous words.
We were told not to remain friends with this friend whom we loved and held dear to us. We ended our "friendship". It was time to move on.
I felt betrayed, used, tossed aside like an old child's toy. I was hurt. If this friend loved me so much, why would he have done such things? Why? How could he? How could he wake up every morning and not feel guilty? How could he not be sorry? I didn't understand.
The paramedic asked me who had touched me and I told her. She asked if he had raped me. He didn't, thank God. I was scared that he was going to, he would ask me what I would do if he came and raped me. At times I wished he did rape me, then I would have an excuse for feeling how I did.
I got to the hospital and waited for hours in a small room, they gave me food and juice. I was so tired. I wanted to sleep. I was admitted into the Child and Adolescent mental heath care unit(Station 37) on the hospital, a place where I could talk about why I was there. How I got there. They taught me how to cope with the events that had happened, I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, severe without psychotic features, a severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and sleep insomnia/anxiety. I was put on 50 milligrams of a sleep aid and began 20 milligrams of an Anti-Depressant with an OCD aid. I began to sleep through the night, versus waking up between four and ten times during the few hours I was asleep. My room mate on Station 37 was awesome, I was afraid of what it would be like and I was afraid of being that "one kid" who sits in the corner. Right away my room mate and I got along, we were two peas in a pod. Life on Station 37 was so structured, so stress free. I felt like I fit in for the first time in my life. Everybody here was just like me. Maybe we still didn't look the same but we were all here for the same reason. We were all struggling. I stayed in Station 37 for one week. I got phone calls and visitors daily though. I had three missed calls from Josh, one from Bri, and one from home. The others I answered. My parents would visit me all the way down town every day for as long as they could during visiting hours. Bri, Christina, and Josh all came to the hospital to visit me.
Once I got out of the hospital and went back home I had monthly check in's with my Psychiatrist from the unit that I had chosen to continue seeing. The medication for my depression and my OCD increased to 40 on my first check up, it went to 60 on my third, and remained at 60 on my fourth.
I am making progress on this journey, slowly but surely. I am growing as a person, I am growing Spiritually, and I finding myself.
That's all for now.
~Sarah-Mae
I want to be open. I want to let people in. I want my friends to know the real me.
Comment, message me on Facebook, whatever. I want to talk.
