Ten years of things that led to me SI coming up.... *SI/SU*

[PokemonGeek]

This past week it was ten years since a car accident a popular football player had which started my decline into SI. It will also be ten years since I left the hell known as high school. I don't think I talk about these things and what they did to me as much as I should. I still struggle with a lot of past events. I have guilt over things I probably SHOULDN'T feel bad about as they are not my fault. The accident is the first thing I can pinpoint exactly as one of the things that made me extremely suicidal and hurt myself. The kid was extremely popular and well liked. I was very fragile and bullied. Basically we were opposite polars of each other. People never seemed to care about my well being that they told me EVERY time I tried to say something, "Shut up! No one cares." This happened every day for the previous two school years and so I felt no one would miss me if I killed myself. So when students started to hold fundraiser to help pay for the football player's recovery, something just snapped silently inside me. I kind of felt like it was being rubbed in the face no one cared about me. I felt jealous of the attention I never got and then I'd feel horrible because I would remind myself how the kid almost died and was in intensive care. Then my stepsister was ALL the others that showed interest in talking to me wanted to talk about. Life at ho,e was even worse considering the special treatment my step mom gave my stepsister. She was allowed to watch TV all day if she wanted to but I could only have one lousy hour within 24 hours. I couldn't even watch a VHS movie because I was "watching it on TV." I then started to SI occasionally because I literally had no one to talk to. As I SI, I became worse. I kept thinking how I felt made me this horrible person that if I EVER told anyone my deep dark secret, they'd be so disgusted with me and either hate me or, if they all ready hated me, give them another reason to hate me. Then that person would not want to have anything to do with me. I was so disturbed by this thought I'd actually cry myself to sleep because I was afraid to tell anyone. I DIDN'T tell anyone this for four and a half years which is a long time to keep something so painful quiet. To shut this thought out of my mind I began to SI regularly over time. Then when I had a cry for help in class no one noticed and I almost went through with it. I need to go now but I have more to say.

[TheRockingHorse]

I'm not sure what you're looking for in this post, but I wanted to let you know that I'm reading and caring.

[Spidey]

Reading and listening. Take care.

[PokemonGeek]

Continuing my story, what made things worse is that my main bully literally got away with the stuff he did to me. I mean he physically assaulted me before by constantly throwing things at me like food and a FULL unopened iced tea carton which hit my head and HURT! The corner hit the back of my head and I stormed out angry and went to the principal's office to complain. He never was even punished for his action and then there was the time he touched me inappropriately. That REALLY traumatized me and I don't like talking about it. I was actually afraid of gym because of him. He led at least one other person to do it and I think I know who it was but I could never prove it. And what happened there? He got away with it. Now I'm disgusted with this guy and I honestly hope something horrible will happen to him as a result of karma building up against him and I often wonder if I'm a bad person for wanting someone else to suffer severely for their actions. I mean I want karma to hit him blindsided like a Greyhound bus followed by the space station falling from the sky in its entirety followed by the moon followed by Jupiter. He mainly got away with it because his dad was a former NFL player for the Pittsburgh Steelers and everyone around my area a rabbid fans. Why do 17 year olds who have sex get arrested and convicted of statutory rape even when it was consensual all the time but someone like THIS scumbag get away with it?! I mean a kid who says he wants to blow up a school is arrested immediately but this kid commits assault in a room full of people and HE doesn't get punished. I don't care what excuses people make for this jerk. Assault is assault and such an act should NEVER be acceptable or allowed to go on no matter what when it is clearly seen. Getting over what this kid did to me is harder to deal with than my mom's death which is a bit sad since she DID give birth to me.

[PokemonGeek]

Found a link so everyone here can learn about the accident that made me start to SI. I know it was never my fault but in a way during that year I felt maybe I somehow caused it. Like I subconsciously made him crash because I wished for it without realizing it.

http://triblive.com/sports/communityspo ... ormer-kick (Note: The article has the wrong year of the accident. It happened in 2003 and I know this because it was our senior year and we were juniors in August 2002.)

The hurt I hid still haunts me to this day although not as nearly bad as before. It may have brought the rest of the school together but at the same time I was made more isolated and alone. I was terrified at the thoughts I was constantly having and I was paranoid if I ever told anyone these thoughts no one would EVER like me again including my family. I also kept thinking if I was in Garrett's place no one would even care and everyone probably throw a party to celebrate me gone. Yeah. That's how bad these thoughts were. What I don't understand is why no one noticed my ever increasing moodiness, cries for help, and signs that I was considering to kill myself and WANTED to die. Is it normal for a kid to always sit in a corner and refuse to talk to people all year long? Or the fact I answered extremely vague fashion I was fine IF someone asked me how I was? The one incident I came close to ending it all gives me the most grief and guilt as I feel awful that I was staging it at first because I REALLY needed someone to listen to ME for once and how much pain I was holding inside and then was considering to do it when no one noticed I was holding and staring at a knife.

[PokemonGeek]

I still don't understand why I'm having such a difficult time dealing with this considering it was 10 years ago. I even have difficulty talking about it.

[treasure]

I think it's to be expected that these events would still be difficult to talk about and deal with. It's like there's many layers of trauma and recovery and after time and support/therapy you can start to deal with ever more difficult/deeper stuff.

I also feel let down and surprised that no one really noticed the extreme lows I had as a kid. I attempted su, unsuccessfully, aged 12, and no one had any idea I was depressed until I was 17/18/19 (school ppl at 17, parents at 19). I think the main reason for that is that outside ppl trusted my parents to help if anything was really problematic, while my parents were screwed up from their own childhoods and were blinded by their own stuff. I don't count that as an excuse though, I'm certainly still angry about being alone and helpless for so long.

I think talking, either on bus or IRL, is going to help you process things from the past. Facing and explaining such deep and raw emotions helps them settle into being part of you and part of the past rather than a continual pain that you hold on to. Not that I'm really sure, since my path through the past is still a bit stuck.

I'm sorry for what you suffered.

[PokemonGeek]

Thanks treasure. I think what is bothering me the most is how I really had no one to talk to as my sister (who is one of my biggest source of support) had just graduated from college and living and having an internship in NYC. So it was difficult to contact her very often and O was also overshadowed by her accomplishments from high school as she was valedictorian of her graduating class and the fact she went to Harvard. Then my stepsister overshadowed me even more even though she's three years younger than me because she was literally ALL people wanted me to talk about. Even my special ed teacher. No one ever asked me how I was doing. So it's really no wonder I started to SI. I also want to make it clear that I do not blame Garrett for what happened to me as his accident was beyond my control to begin with and before all this, he was never mean to me once. I understand that I was the one who made the decision to SI and it wasn't from anything he ever did to me.

[PokemonGeek]

I think the seeing the first fundraiser the student counsel held for Garrett's recovery started to make me come undone rapidly. I had to see these signs every day for about a month and new ones kept being put up. It sort of was like the other students were rubbing in my face how much they never cared for me. I honestly would SI just to punish myself because I truly believed I deserved it and didn't deserve to be happy or have anything good happen to me because I was such a horrible person for having the thoughts I kept getting. I just felt that I definitely did not deserve anything good because I felt jealous of the concern Garrett kept getting. I also thought doing so would shut these thoughts up for good. I also didn't understand what I kept doing was a form of SI. In the group home I was in I was doing it regularly in secret and we watched that movie that dealt with the subject and it still didn't click. It wasn't until a year and a half later when I read a newspaper article about famous men who have SI did it finally click. I then realized the reason I kept on doing it but still too afraid for ANOTHER year before I ever told anyone. I just kept thinking that if ANYONE ever found out about what I was dealing with then they'd see me as this horrible monster that deserved no sympathy and I'd never have any friends ever again because I was such a horrible person that would make people sick to their stomachs by simply looking at me. I actually saw Garrett going to rehab once a year after I graduated and I literally ran and hid myself until he was gone because I honestly believed if he saw me he'd somehow read my mind and see my thoughts about his accident and he'd hate me because I was a monster. I really kept using the term "monster" to describe myself for these feelings. I occasionally bring up during therapy but sometimes I think the damage too deep for me to let go and move on with my life. Is it a form of PTSD I have even though I wasn't anywhere near the accident when it occurred? I do feel anxious when I talk about all this but I've been seeing my therapist for three years now and she never mentioned the possibility of having it. I also do not wish to change therapist as I trust her and she basically helped me escape from the abusive relationship I had with the crazy lady.

[treasure]

It was likely a traumatic time for you but it doesn't sound like ptsd, at least in my opinion.
I'm glad the therapist is helping you talk about important events and feelings, and 3 years is not that long, considering how long you've gone without talking about it.

[PokemonGeek]

You may be right, treasure, in that I might not have PTSD but a lot of what I've been going through fits the symptoms perfectly. I try and avoid talking about my feelings about the accident and the effect it had on me. In fact I've only told one person who went to the same high school as Garrett and me about what I went through during the 2003-04 school year and all the way until February 2008. I haven't come in contact with many kids that went to school with me and I KNOW the 10 year reunion is coming up and I don't want to go. I never gave my contact info for these things and I also feel like I never accomplished a meaningful thing that others can see and appreciate. I basically feel like a failure sometimes and it sickens me that some jerk (the kid that bullied me) never worked hard at academics and yet he gets a full scholarship to Dartmouth and I had to go to community college which I dropped out of and my dad refers to disdainfully as a "no name school." I tried so hard to learn things and never felt I was good enough for anything due to no one ever really telling me back then that I was worth something and that people cared about me. All I have to show is a pathetic unemployed person living off of welfare that no one wants to talk to for more than three weeks before they abandon the person and will most likely die alone never having a relationship. THAT'S how I feel. I'm at the point I'm pretty sure no guy would even PAY to spend an hour with me.

[PokemonGeek]

I saww my therapist today and told her what I've been feeling lately and she said it was perseverance I was dealing with. She also said because my mom left my dad when I was really young, I want a relationship because I was basically feeling abandoned by her. She also said I have a need to be wanted and she is right.