The Things That Hurt

I wrote this late at night and within the span of maybe less than an hour so I tweaked it so it isn't a huge mess.

I’ve always believed that no one can fully understand anything. There’s always something that we miss when we begin to understand something that creates hardship and makes it impossible for us to fully grasp what exactly we are trying to understand. For most people, it’s the bigger picture; Life, existence, consciousness, and everything that blends us together. Everyone thinks that they understand the simpler things to the point where they are masters at it, but what about those who can’t even do those things? I’m not just talking about people who are disabled, but people who just can’t fully grasp why these simpler things are so simple to others when they are so challenging to them. The reason why I question this a lot is because people tend to say that certain things are easy and everyone knows how to do them, when another person is trying to imagine what it must be like for others to be able to do it.

They don’t know how hard it is for people to just talk nowadays, do they? When I was little, I could barely even speak english. I struggled and pushed myself to get better at it and now I’m fluent and my accent is almost completely gone. In order to get to a place where you feel as though you’ve accomplished something that will improve your life or the lives of others, you must first struggle. I’ve been harrassed and I know that people suck sometimes, so imagine what it would be like if you were a little girl who could only speak a foreign language in a country that only speaks english. I didn’t realize it at the time, but people judged me. I don’t care about that though, it was just the way they did it. The other kids didn’t understand just yet that sometimes people can’t do some of the things that they think is simple. Sure, everyone was learning how to talk around that age, but imagine having to learn two languages at once that you barely know and have no other language to fall back on.

Sounds like hell doesn’t it? It wasn’t exactly, but you get the picture. By the time I was in second grade, I was learning faster than ever and I was climbing my way towards being fluent. I even started writing stories in english in a little journal, though my spelling was almost completely off most of the time. The next year, I reunited with an old friend that I met in preschool. He was older and his sister went to preschool with me. She had died the previous year and he told me that it was nice to talk to someone who knew her. I was saddened at first upon hearing the news, but I soon learned to adapt to the idea that not everyone in my life is going to live alongside me in the future. My aunt had died a few years prior along with my cat, so I knew about death and it was still a difficult concept for me to grasp at the time, but after losing Emma, it was becoming clearer to me. Though I didn’t know her incredibly well, I saw the impact it had on him. He seemed lost in everything as though he didn’t know who he was anymore.

It wasn’t apparent at first, but I figured it out later on. I talked to him online for three years since he lived in a different state and I couldn’t go visit him, but just talking online was nice. He and I shared a lot of interests and he got me into video games. This was around the time that I started to have problems with a girl at my school which altered my relationships with a lot of people. She had started harassing me and over the years, I got sick of it. I did something that I regretted later on, but I’m glad that I did it now because she wouldn’t have left me alone if it weren’t for it. It didn’t exactly make me look very good though and I got into a lot of trouble with the school and the local police. Since I was a minor, I was given a juvenile jurisdiction which is basically a free pass out of jail for people below the age of eighteen, but only for minor crimes and it only works once. I couldn’t believe it. I was upset and over a short amount of time, a lot of my friends suddenly began to ignore me and some even went far enough as to spread rumors about me.

Around this time, I began to wear a lot of black and considered myself a little bit goth, but only because I wore black and dyed my hair. The other kids didn’t really take it as well as some though and began using it to make fun of me. I was seeing a therapist and the counselors almost regularly to help relieve the loneliness and to fend off the suicidal tendencies, but they weren’t much help when middle school came around. For a year, the girl I was having problems with and I were under a contract that acted like a restraining order, but for minors. The contract ended and we were now free to communicate with one another. She began speaking to me and I decided to give her a chance at first, but I soon realized that she was no different from how she was before. In fact, I began to think that she might have gotten worse. I was proven right when she cut up her face and snipped off her hair later that year. Although it may just have been due to an emotional breakdown, she drew upside-down crosses on her face and a smile.

It was almost disturbing, but I’ve seen a lot worse. She got suspended for bringing a knife to school. I got a juvenile jurisdiction, months of therapy, numerous days where I had to stay inside away from the other kids to write up explanations for why I did what I did,  and watched my mother cry thinking that I was going to go to court or something, and everyone treating me like I was about to attack them. All she got was a temporary suspension. I got hell and this was how they punished the devil that put me here? She tried countless times to be my friend as though I was going to forgive her for everything that she caused me to feel and do, but I could never bring myself to be her friend. I exchanged conversation with her from time to time and I still do to this day, but I’ve never once seen her as a friend since. In fact, just holding up a conversation is a lot for me.

After everyone left me and my mother began treating me like a monster, I became suicidal and attempted to end my life. I spoke to a counselor and she was present as she listened to me talk about it and she gave me a look that made me feel as though she truly couldn’t care less. It was a fake, almost pretend surprised look that made me want to shout at her to leave. The tendencies continued and I became a cutter. The scars are completely gone now since I never dared to cut very deep, but they’re certainly there, just not on my body. My close friends began coming back that year and one of them found out about what I was doing in the bathroom at home and told the nurse, who helped me stop doing it. I’m grateful that he did because if he hadn’t, I probably would’ve continued. I was pretty stupid about it too and didn’t know what I was doing at all. I hated everything about myself to the point where for years I could barely even look in the mirror.

On thanksgiving of sixth grade, my friend whose little sister passed away committed suicide. Everything completely messed up after that. I was a crying mess and I couldn’t stop myself from sobbing every time I talked about it. I went back to therapy and counseling and although it didn’t do a whole lot, it certainly helped me deal with the hardest part, separation. I learned to accept the fact that he was gone and that I was never getting him back even though that’s what hurt the most about it all. All that I could do was think about how peaceful he must be now that he doesn’t have to worry about living anymore or really anything at all. He doesn’t have to feel anything or satisfy any obligations. I didn’t want to talk much about it at first and became shy about myself.

I’ve changed a lot since. I lost my dog later that year and I began to really fall back apart, but I didn’t try to kill myself again which was an improvement. I was really trying to piece myself together in a way and I eventually became more stable and was able to talk about it. I still miss that dog. I look in the corner of my room sometimes and miss her a lot. Sometimes, I almost cry. I used to cry every night about it since I was so used to seeing her sleeping there in the corner and feeling safe and secure and now it was like a big part of me was ripped out, but it became less and less frequent over the years. I still can’t look at a golden retriever without thinking of her, but that’s only natural. We are reminded of our lost loved ones the moment we see anything that we can closely connect to them.

I look at the corner of my room and think of my dog, I look at belts and think of my friend that I lost, I look at chocolate cake and think of my aunt that died of cancer, I look at cats with brown fur and think of my cat that died when I was little, and I look at sundresses in shop windows and think of my friend’s little sister. It feels like I’ve lost a lot but I’ve also gained so much. November, December, and January of my sophomore year of high school were absolutely atrocious. November 25th was my friend’s memorial, so I was very depressed that day. Less than a month later on December 18th, a singer that I really liked committed suicide and everyone was sad over it. It depressed the hell out of me especially after seeing the other members of the group he was in crying at his funeral because I unfortunately know what they were going through. The rest of the month was a blur of misfortune and loneliness. For a little while, I was sitting alone at lunch and cried myself to sleep every night.

I nearly wanted to cry sometimes by the end of the day because I felt as though I didn’t even belong in school at all. January was nearly the same, only it was getting worse. I was a tired mess and I cried so hard that I couldn’t breathe and my eyes were so red and swollen that even as I tried to sleep, they were burning. The tears just kept flowing. I didn’t know how to deal with the loneliness and suicidal thoughts. All I could think about was killing myself but what drove me nuts was that I just couldn’t do it. I knew that it wouldn’t be fair to other people and I wasn’t really giving myself a chance, but chances are limited and I was running out. Things finally began to get better when I started talking to people more and being a little more social, but I still feel this familiar emptiness when I’m sitting in Chamber Choir that makes it hard to smile. When other people joke around, sometimes I get so lost in dark thought or emptiness that I won’t even understand.

Sometimes, when the teacher is talking, my mind will wander towards the other people in the room and how pathetic my life seems compared to theirs. I know that my life isn’t pathetic, but people are amazing. People can do some really great stuff, so seeing people like that made me think that maybe I just wasn’t good enough. It makes me feel like I just don’t even want to sing at all sometimes because I would feel so damn depressed, but I don’t want others to feel bothered by the fact that I’m not showing signs of good contribution, so I do it and end up going with the flow.

Don’t get me wrong, I love singing and I love choir, but man does that class depress me sometimes. Today, my friend was going through some tough stuff and said that she wanted to kill herself. She started crying in the bathroom and for a solid hour, I was crossing my fingers and hoping that she didn’t hurt herself. I realized today just how bad my fear of losing people to suicide really is. I’m a little scared of losing people to death in general actually, but it got really bad today. I was in Chamber, singing and trying to focus on the music, but I couldn’t focus at all. My mind was racing with panic and it became so unbearable that I was about to burst into tears, so I tried to exit the room, but I pushed the door the wrong way and ended up making a rude exit which I now somewhat regret, but I made it out into the hall and went into one of the bathrooms to calm myself down. My heart was racing and I was on the verge of tears and I was shaking and it felt almost like I couldn't breathe. I was having a panic attack over nothing and it was so stupid but so real.

I took a moment to compose myself and then thought about how I couldn’t just leave the class like this. I slowly went back to class and sat down and though I got a few people asking me if I was okay, I lied and said that I was. I really wasn’t. I was scared to death. I wanted to cry and panic because I was so afraid of my best friend killing herself or ending up in the hospital in a coma due to overdose and having it be my fault, but I didn’t tell anyone that. Never. Not even my therapists or counselors. Sometimes, the things that hurt us are better off as staying secret, but I felt the panic of those secrets today. I don’t think anyone in that room understood what was going on with me and I’m glad. If they did, they would probably pity me or show me towards the nearest counselor. I don’t want any more of that. I’m sick of that. I can’t take that kind of stuff anymore. It drives me nuts, so I avoid it sometimes. I’m still trying to regain myself, but it’s all coming back together now.

I’m starting to figure out what I want and what I don’t want and exactly just what it means to understand what other people are going through because I’ve gone through the same thing. I can relate to people who are suicidal. I can relate to people who have lost someone close to them. I know what it’s like to be all alone, but I also know that I will never be able to fully understand any of it. And you know what? That’s fine by me.

I don’t need to know everything, just the small necessary things that will stop me from crying at night, cutting up my body, holding my head under the bath water until I pass out, and thinking that death is more suitable for me than the life that I’m living. No matter how understanding  you are, you will never know what it’s like to bleed the blood of someone else because you can never fully understand the things that hurt.

Author's Note

Everything said in this story is a true experience of my own.

Reviews

[alanwgraham]

First of all I admire you for sharing this honest account of all the ups and downs of your life. it is also very well written! Sometimes you feel like you're in a pit that seems impossible to escape from. From my own experience I know that being on your own is not a great idea but also if you are feeling low socialising is difficult. I think it helps when you realise that there are lots of other feeling the same as you.
I hope that you found writing this was therapeutic for you. I have found that many of my stories end up being about myself! (my story Egg was a bit like that.) have you thought about joining a writing group. In my own group I think we have all had some life challenges and sharing them has been great)
All the best,
Alan