2002A Story by Ziggy Jagger SpiderFromMars This is complete middle school drama but it means a lot to me because it happened. This is actually non-fiction so please don't judge me too harshly 2002
was the year. I was attending a
highly competitive and elite private school and I felt like a vandal every day
when I strolled the hallways. I was a social misfit. I proudly wore Chuck
Taylor Hi-Top Converse tennis shoes with my navy blue pleated uniform skirt and
perfectly starched white polo. I adorned my wrists in metal pyramid leather studded
bracelets, wore way too much smoky eyeliner, purple lipstick and every day
would streak my raven colored hair with pink and blue mascara. Yes, this was me
in the eighth grade, the epitome of social distortion (and yes, I do like that
band). But I was not alone. I had my soul
sisters, Lauren and Bri. We had been friends since 2nd grade, tied
at the hip. When I introduced them to Punk Rock, we had no other tasks in mind
but to take down the system. As the Sex Pistols said: “Anarchy in the UK” But
for us it was “Anarchy in Trinity Valley School” We were always in trouble. Mr.
Schofield was our nemesis. He loathed us from the time we had Geography class
with him in sixth grade. Lauren and I had to take Ritalin and
in third grade I taught her how to cheek it so we could act as hyper as we
wanted to. Lauren’s parents hated me. They said if she kept hanging out with me
she would be pregnant by the time she reached sophomore year. Bri’s parents
just did not really give a care. But what is important to know is that we were
the infamous trio. I never thought anything could tear us apart. We would sit in the back corner in
first period Latin class. Answer me this…why in the world did we need a Latin
class? Isn’t that a dead language? Dr. Tennison ran the Latin laugh- fest
and did not really care that we did not do any work, we huffed the whiteout and
we were crazy. And we had fun. We always had so much freaking fun! I remember the school campout in
seventh grade. We stopped at a CiCi’s Pizza and we were having a competition to
see who could shove the most plastic straws in their mouth and then chug
Mountain Dew and go the longest without laughing. I remember that campout so
well because that is when Benton came into the picture. Our trio had never had boyfriends.
That was unheard of. The guys all made fun of us calling us “Gothic Lesbians”
and “Losers” and pretty much every single insult in the book you can think of. We were called every name in
the freaking book. We never really cared about if boys paid us attention. We
had an image to uphold. We were punk rockers (or so we thought). We shopped at
Hot Topic, listened to bands like Rancid, NOFX, The Sex Pistols, The Dead Kennedys
and TSOL. We clipped safety pins to our navy blue uniform skirts and wrote
lyrics with the whiteout we huffed in first period Latin all over our binders
and backpacks. We were living the good life and I seriously pictured the 3 of
us graduating high school and going off to college, the three of us. That is
how it should have been. That is, until Benton joined the mix. Don’t ask me why I was attracted to him. He had Bucky Beaver Teeth, and looked like a chipmunk. He was awkward as could be. He had been in my English class but I’d never really noticed him before. When we stopped at an arcade I was going to play Lauren in air hockey. He just happened to be standing there so I asked him if he would hold the 10 rings I wore on each finger. He looked dazzled by me, and I felt the same pull of attraction towards him. Don’t ask my why or how a rodent-looking 12 year old could be so sexy. But he was. He had me reeled in,hook-line and sinker. I’d remembered him at the beginning of the year cookout and I thought he was such a loser because he was trying to skate on the grass wearing those Heeley shoes that had wheels in them. However, that night at the arcade something was different. The only boyfriend I’d ever had before had been an online relationship with guy who lived on the other side of the country in New Jersey and we never met in person. This was a whole new deal. By the time we reached Fredericksburg, Texas, Benton was part of our crew. He just seemed to fit right in. He needed education of course on true punk bands, none of that Blink-182 or Good Charlotte poppy punk he was listening to. The first night in Fredericksburg, he and I ended up alone by the Coke machine and he asked me to be his girlfriend! This was a big freaking deal. I quickly accepted and was now the girlfriend of Benton Seybold and I could not have been happier. He made me glow like a Tiki torch, he made me shimmer like the sun. He was mine. I was his. The next day in San Antonio we all
went to Joe’s Crab Shack and drank virgin Pina Coladas and just had fun. I had
no idea how bad this would end up being and how things and people could change.
I thought I was living out my glory days a bit early but that was fine because
I had Lauren, I had Bri and I had Benton. Immediately on the trip the popular
people were making up lies that Benton and I had been doing more than holding
hands and started calling me a w***e and a s**t, which made no sense to me. I
shrugged it off. Punk was not dead, and our theory was to ignore the taunts of
the others. We lived by a motto “We are not here to judge.” Nevertheless, I was
falling for Benton. Even though the awkward middle school pressures were
weighing in on us, everything felt so right. Summer 2002 was our Summer of Love. Benton and I spent almost every other day together, growing closer both physically, emotionally and intimately, which we were still pretty young
to be doing. He was 12 and I was 13. Our first kiss happened at the Summer
Dance to “Stairway To Heaven” by Led Zeppelin. Love is such a magical jewel. I
could not believe I was falling in love. I remember Robert Plant’s voice so
beautifully billowing out the words: “And a new day will dawn, for those who
stand long and the forest will echo with laughter.” The more Robert Plant sang
the closer Benton and I held each other. I did not want to be anywhere else in
the world but in the arms of Benton. We were both in unfamiliar territory being
that I had never had a boyfriend and he had never had a girlfriend. Right when
Robert Plant sang the final line: “And she is buying a stairway to Heaven”
Benton kissed me. A full on, tongue action, sloppy kiss, that at the time was
nothing but sheer bliss. And it was the Summer of Love. Things were perfect. For Benton’s birthday
the two of us went to Six Flags and it was a dismal cloudy and drizzly day and
as we rode rides like The Texas Giant I suddenly realized that I didn’t care if
my hair was drooping and my eyeliner was running and that I probably looked
like crap because I had him, I had my Benton. We went to the top of the Six
Flags tower and just stood up there, not caring that rain was pelting us, not
caring that the weather was balmy and the humidity was making us even hotter in
the hot August Texas summer heat. We had each other and that is all that really
mattered. That was all we even wanted. I had completely neglected my best friends that summer. Lauren and Bri both went to Christian summer camps for a month or so during the summers but it really bothered me when they got back because they both told me they were praying for me because they knew I was headed down the wrong path per say. Okay. I’ve been a Christian all of my life, why were they suddenly so concerned? If only I could have been open minded and focused on what my soul sisters were saying. I was harboring a dark past that I was trying to leave behind. But sometimes the things we try and mask and runaway from end up haunting us in the long run. In sixth grade I had to be
hospitalized for self-mutilation. Cutting had always been the easy way to deal
with my emotions. It had softened in 2002 because I had gotten on medications
for my diagnosis of Bipolar I Disorder and I had Lauren, Bri and now Benton to
distract me. But the day that I went up to Trinity Valley before 8th
grade started to decorate my locker with pictures I had printed out of bands
and such, I got a terrible feeling when I saw the class schedules. I had no
classes with Lauren, Bri or even Benton. The thought made me sick to my stomach
and I had a feeling that 8th grade was going to be worse than 6th
grade and my intuition couldn’t have been more correct. The Summer of Love couldn’t have
ended more peacefully. Benton had made me a promise that once we graduated high
school he was going to take me to California to watch the sunrise on the beach
and ask for my hand in marriage. I know we were young but God, I loved him with
as much fever the heart of a 13-year-old could love. And I never thought it
would ever end. I never thought we would
end. But people change. My first week of 8th grade taught me that in
a heartbeat. The first morning I could hear people whispering about Benton and I. For some reason, the rumor on the street was that we’d had sex over the summer because we’d stayed together. It’s funny that middle school children equated a foundation built on love and devotion to sex. However, because of all this foolishness, Benton changed. He became Mr. Popularity and became someone I hardly knew anymore. He started talking to the popular guys about me and the
things we had done. It felt like my mind was being raped. He started becoming
arrogant and he was no longer the Benton I had spent my first summer of romance
with. I know it was puppy love and everything but for some reason when I hear someone
talk about the year 2002, it conjures up all these memories for me of this
special yet chaotic time in my life. The more my mood swings resurfaced,
the more my Lithium was increased. I was feeling pretty low; especially when
Benton started breaking up with me, and then asking me back out several times
in a single day! My Bipolar disorder was being triggered again because of his
cruel games. And who did I have to fall back on? My sisters, Lauren and Bri.
They were still there for me after all of that! They would bring me notes that
they had found of Benton discussing physical situations involving him and I
that he had been writing with other guys. Sadly, I took it all like a champ. I
let Benton walk all over my fragile mind and brittle heart. The class schedules
was truly a foreshadow of what was to come. The darkness that I would ascend
into due to the cruelty of Benton Seybold and a school that had no clue how to
handle someone with a mental disorder. I started cutting again and I started
breaking to pieces again. Looking back, the fighting seemed like a soap opera on daytime television. One day he broke up with me, ten seconds later screamed at me: “I can’t talk to you, Ally! I just freaking can’t!” And I asked him “Why?” and he started crying and sulked away and turned around and said: “Because I am in love with you!” A lot of it never really made sense to me. One minute I was a “Bipolar lunatic” the next I was the love of his life. But as the fights kept happening, I continued to crumble. I was skipping tons of classes to cut and either Lauren or Bri would always find me underneath the stairwell or in the bathroom and clean me up and help me get myself
together. I was becoming more and more infatuated with suicide and thinking
more and more that it was going to be my only answer because I felt so numb. It
was no longer about Punk Rock and not giving a damn what anybody said. It was
about despair and bleak disaster near upon arrival. I was unwinding down a
spiral that nobody could seem to pull me out of. I knew that my end was going
to justify my means as Slipknot said in one of their songs.
I awoke the next morning. It was Tuesday, October 8, 2002. It was a
cloudy, rainy day…suicide weather. I knew I was ready for this pain to finally
stop for good. I knew I wasn’t going to do it at home, even though my parents
and I fought a lot, I was their daughter: Their precious 14-year-old daughter.
How could I do that to them? They hadn’t brought me pain. Trinity Valley School
was the place of doom, not my bedroom. The morning classes went on. I had
almost come to the point of talking myself out of it because I was scared. But
at lunch everything changed.
I was just spinning my thumb ring on the table in a daze. And then Benton
looked at me and he said: “Smile Ally Cat, you are so beautiful.” And I went
numb then. How could he keep trying to butter me up after all that? He’d broken
my heart. I feel like he had almost become a sociopath of some sort. He had no feelings, he never felt guilty, and
he never showed compassion to me anymore. He wasn’t like this six months ago,
yet I didn’t even know him anymore. He was the nice guy who had cut my throat.
And I couldn’t take it anymore. I burst into tears and I said: “You should know I have nothing to smile about.” And with that, I got up from the table and slumped my way to the locker room. Nobody even got up. They just stared after me as I walked “my old jangly walk” as Billy Corgan sang on The Smashing Pumpkins song Thirty-Three. I pulled a large safety pin off my backpack. My heart was throbbing with pain. I was so sure this was the only answer to my problems. I went into the girls’ bathroom and went into the handicapped stall so I could just sit on the floor and slice myself open. I proceeded to cut like usual only this time there were no questions. I wasn’t going to stop. I started on the top side of my arm and dug and dug, then I moved to my wrist and started cutting along the vein. I kept going. I left reality; I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. I spun into another world. That’s all I remember until everything went black………
The next thing I knew I awoke to a blood bath. I had huge, deep
lacerations on my arm. They were split wide open. I remember realizing it must
not have been my time to go. And then the panic hit me and I wondered, what the
heck is going to happen to me and what am I going to do? I knew something
drastic was going to happen to me, I just didn’t know what. First I had to
clean this up and change shirts. After I’d cleaned all the blood off the floor
and everything I walked out. I looked at the clock; I’d been in the bathroom
nearly 3 hours! Everyone was going to be back from 7th period within
minutes.
Ironically, the only shirt I had in my backpack said: “ANTISOCIAL” on
it. Wonderful. I went back in the bathroom and changed shirts and then I got a
wet paper towel and wrapped it around my seeping arm. It was still gushing blood.
I needed a sweatshirt. I came back out of the bathroom again and then I heard
the stampede of my classmates coming down the hall. I was going to have to face
them after all. I thought quickly and ran outside under the stairwell. Maybe I could still get out of this without humiliation. And then 2 guys came out and said: “There’s a homeless guy under the stairs! Oh wait, it’s just the Goth girl.” Then they saw it. There was no escaping. They opened the door and yelled: “Ally cut herself!” I was holding back the tears and then they encircled me as soon as I walked back into the locker room. I was so upset I can’t remember what they were saying exactly but it doesn’t matter. I felt like I was being stampeded by cruelty and hurt.
The only thing I have a clear memory of was the look on Benton’s face.
He looked horrified. He couldn’t believe what I had just done, and frankly,
neither could I. Every time I looked at
my right arm I was in complete shock. All that damage done to my body was done
by none other than: MYSELF. That is a terrifying feeling. Once I was out of the
mood swing I realized I had just nearly taken my life over…what? Teenage drama?
A rollercoaster- relationship? My life should have been worth more to me than
that. I wished I could take the whole thing back. I didn’t want to die; I
didn’t want to have hurt myself that bad. And what scared me more than anything
was the consequence to my actions. I got expelled from Trinity Valley School that day, for “being a danger to myself and others” and sent to a residential treatment center in Cedar City, Utah where I remained until I was 18 years old. I have not spoken to Bri, Lauren or Benton since October 8, 2002. Like I said 2002 was the year. Oh yes, a year full of surprises and betrayals and things I never imagined would occur in my life. I am the survivor of an attempted suicide and I am not ashamed to share this because it has made me stronger and made me into a better person. I have sunk so low and come out on top that I am proud to say I endured a few years of teenage heartache and angst. Do I think things would have been different if I had not gotten involved with Benton? Not really. There would have been another guy, another causation factor to retrigger my bipolar disorder. I am not going to sit here and wonder
what life would have been like without Benton in 2002 because that would be a
senseless thing to do. I have a chemical imbalance in my brain and nothing can
change that. The only thing I can’t help but wonder is how Lauren and Bri are
doing. The only time I talked to Lauren was through a single letter while I was
in treatment. She’d written a simple poem that went something like this: “True pain is when your best friend calls
you, not to tell you how the date went or the kiss goodnight. True pain is when
she calls to tell you that she wants to be another tragic teenage suicide
statistic. That is where the pain chisels deepest. I have experienced true
pain. True pain is when your best friend calls you, not to tell you what dress
she is wearing to prom or what colleges she has been accepted to. True pain is
when she vanishes without a trace and you have witnessed her soul crush like
ice chips. That is where the true pain lies.”
For some reason I cannot let all of this go. It still haunts me like a
plague because I wish things could have been different, and I will be the first
to admit, I have caused true pain to my 2 dearest friends that I have no idea
whatever happened to them and probably never will know for sure. I don’t use
Facebook or Myspace or Twitter, I don’t go to social events where they would
most likely be so my guess is I will never see them again. I can’t imagine how
shattered they must have felt that dismal Tuesday in October. Lauren is right.
She has experienced true pain. I know that if I were on the other side of this
mess and this happened to one of them. Sure, 2002 was the year of laughs in Latin class, Mountain Dew and plastic straws,
punk rock, and an infamous trio that turned so sour because I was so fragile. I
was in a relationship that was way over my head and I would give anything if
that year could have continued on the positive road it was chugging along on,
instead of getting completely and 100% crushed by so many factors.
© 2013 Ziggy Jagger SpiderFromMarsAuthor's Note
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