Day 175 - Part 1 - Confessions.

I know there's some mistakes in there, and I switched around some names for privicy matter, but I just needed to get this out here.

Hello there, my name is Luzzie and I'm 15 years old. I have been bullied, and affected by it, for just over six years, so since I was eight. It all started out real innocent, when this new girl came to my school. I was a new student that year, and this girl came in halfway through my first year. I figured, she's new too, so she must be careful and shy. Since I was the newest kid half a year before, I tried everythng to make the girl feel welcome, because I know I liked the way my class reacted upon my arrival. This girl, Emma, she seemed to be just another girl to me. I liked her a little, not too much and not too few, like I liked all the classmates I had nothing to do with other than being in the same class with. But she seemed to like me as a friend, and I went right along with her.
To be real honest, I'm not fully sure of what happened the last six years. It's like someone blew a hole into my memory to block out my worst nightmares and returns pieces to me so slowly I'm not sure if I'll ever remember everything. The things I do remember are so aweful I sometimes still lay awake at night, thinking of how I lived through all that. I wasn't physically bullied, but in my opinion mental bullying is just as bad. I remember being shut out of games, biting my lips until they bleed so I wouldn't cry, sitting in the corner of the playground smashing my bag into anyone who came too near. And then teachers grabbing me by the arm and dragging me inside, the principal coming down and forcing me upstairs because I'd either go limp or fight the life out of me.
At home, things weren't any better. No one hurted me, physically nor mentally, but I'd start screaming and shouting the moment someone pointed at me, and got send to my room a lot. The emotions I were so afraid to show in school came out doubled, tripled, at home. I screamed at my mom like she ripped off my arm, yelled at my father like he'd thrown me out of some window.
The grown-ups around me couldn't see what was happening. Sure, I told my parents and my teacher how I felt, but they didn't grasp exactly what was going on, or how bad things were. Also, after schooltime, I was great friends with Emma. Looking back, I think that was because I was so desperate for attention, I'd take any available, even if that meant going home with the person that set the whole class against me, for attention was attention, and no one else would play with me.I fought with my friends a lot. I told them I didn't believe they still liked me, told them all they did was acting friendly only to make me feel worse later. I lost all contact with people who actually liked me.
In high school, which I started at eleven (that has to do with the Dutch school system and me spending only one year in kindergarten), I already has 2 shrinks and a load of emotional damage I'm not sure I can ever fix. I was so messed up no one could see who I really was. I acted childish and arrogant, to make sure no one would feel the need to let me in and hurt me like I've been hurted. For the first year, I had exactly one friend, who I was scared to talk to because I was afraid of letting her in. Talking about myself is still a big issue for me, but I'm glad I actually can right now.
Not long after starting high school, I hated myself so much, I didn't want to live anymore. I've never attempted suicide, luckily, because who knows where I would be right now if I had. The only thing stopping me from killing myself was my little sister. She was around six when the idea first dawned upon me, and all I could think was that she was way too young to loose a sister. A little after that, by the time I had worked out that I really didn't want to live and would wait until my sister would be eight or ten, I told two of my best friends, two girls I met on some sort of summercamp. They had the courage to call my mother and tell her everything they knew, and I still owe my life to them. Literally.
My mom and dad spoke to me about it, and told me that, with my permission, they'd find me a psychologist. So they did.
By the time I went to the second grade of high school, they found me one, and I went to her once every two weeks. As far as I can remember, those afternoons were the only ones I allowed myself to feel some sort of happiness. I cycled away from the building with a smile forming on my face every time, and it felt good to be able to talk to someone. After a couple of times, she decided to test me on ADD/ADHD, because my brother was dignosed with ADD short before and my mom thought she had it too. It turned out positive, and things fell into an entirely new perspective to me. Having ADHD ment explaining to myself why I was so hyper in groups and why I didn't emotionally dare to do so many things. It also showed me that it might have been possible that not everything was my fault, something I didn't believe, no matter how many times people told me.
Last year came the final thing for me to start leaving it behind me. I had gotten started on medication for the ADHD, I was still in school and my feeling of wanting to commit suicide had lessened to the point where I started doubting it. The classes were being reformed because so many people had dropped out, and all I could thnk was "there goes all the work I did, now I have to start all over again learning to trust people". Instead, Emi came.
She has been my friend from the very moment we first entered the classroom. I often still wonder how we came to be friends, but there just doesn't seem to be a first step, no logical explanation. She trusted me for some reason and gave me the courage to use my voice. That year, I used the speech we had to do in Dutch classes as opportunity to tell my classmates about myself. I didn't prepare anything for it, and words didn't came easy, but in the end I was able to explain to my classmates why I sometimes acted so hyper and why sometimes I was so sad I'd crawl into a corner and did everything to bite down tears. Because the tears, they still wouldn't come.
Now that I really think about it, I can't remember crying at all in those six years. Maybe sometimes because of physical pain - bumping my head into something, tripping and falling to the floor face-first, someone throwing something that accidentally hit me - but never one of emotional or mental pain. I didn't dare to, thought it made me look weak, an easy target.
Life got easier on me after telling my classmates. Knowing I could tell something and make others listen, seeing the reactions and the recognition on the faces. I was almost back to happy.
Thinking about it, there are and will always be other needed to make me feel fine. My friends telling my mom, Maaike, my only friend in the first few grades of high school (and still a real good friend), Emi, who helped me gather pieces of my shattered emotions, my few other friends, who help my days livable again, and my boyfriend, who makes me smile on days I'd rather jump off a roof and then climb back up to do it again, so the pain can distract my mind. It's still not easy being me, but I'm working on it.
One thing I'm very glad about is that I never cut myself, or inflicted any other kind of physical pain. At the time, this was mostly because I didn't want anyone to see how weak I was for having been bullied (at least, it felt as being weak), and not being able to get over it alone. Now I'm just glad I don't have to explain it to every stranger, don't get stared at walking around in a T-shirt. Looking back, I see it as a way of being strong, real strong, to handle all the pain alone, without cutting or crying or turning to others. I might should have been more relaying on others, for it would have helped me a great deal, but I do see it as a strongness, instead of the weakess I saw in it before.
I still have my bad days, days I'm not sure I'll get through, days I fake a smile to cover up the tears so I won't have to explain. Because explaining the amount, the intensity of the pain inside of me is so much more difficult than faking a smile and pretending to be happy.
No, I'm not happy yet. But after all that happened to me on the way to being right were I am, who I am, I know I'm getting there.