Kait Mae

I was born to my mom and dad.  They divorced when I was around two.  My dad died when I was ten.  That was the start of the road I have headed down.

I went through sixth grade recovering and trying to get on with my life.  I had watched as my dad deteriorated from who I knew him as to the shell that cancer made him into.  You can’t forget that, no matter how old you are.  It shakes you to the core.  It makes you think “could this happen to me one day?”

That answer came faster than I thought it would.

My mom remarried the summer after I finished sixth grade.  Everything was fine, I seemed like the typical tween.

Then I started high school.  In the beginning of the first semester, everything seemed like it was going to be fun.  Then, a friend betrayed my trust.  She stole from me, spread rumors about me, and told me it was my fault my dad was dead.  Then people started commenting on my weight, calling me anorexic or bulimic, every day.  People I didn’t even know would tell me I was a waste of space, to kill myself, that I wasn’t worth anything.  And I listened to them.

I started growing out my fingernails to scratch at my wrists so nobody would know how often I scratched my wrists.  It was easier than slitting my wrists because I didn’t want to hurt my mom.  I wanted her to be happy.  Little did I know, I was sacrificing all my happiness and my identity to make everyone else happy.

The summer before sophomore year, I started counseling.  It worked for a while, but eventually, it stopped working.

Sophomore year, I took a handful of Advil hoping I wouldn’t wake up the next morning.  I did.  People found the note I had left, and I was rushed to my counselor for a meeting with my mom and step-dad.  We found a new church after I was chased away from the one I had been going to.  Nobody at school ever knew the whole story.  I had more counseling sessions, and I was put on a “mood stabilizer” which was just a code word for antidepressants.

Junior year, I transferred to the school I graduated from.  I had some friends.  I thought everything was going to be fine.  I was taken off my meds, I stopped going to counseling.  Everything was going great until the last month of the school year.

That’s when everything started going downhill.  A guy took an interest in me and would harass me, sexually, verbally, and physically.  His friends eventually joined in.  They never did stop.  They still do when they see me around town.  I leaned on my friends, started dancing and writing more.  It helped a little but eventually, it stopped working.

Senior year rolled around, and it started off right.  I somehow won senior class president, was doing well in my classes, had a great friendship with a group of girls.  Then, one comment from one girl, brought it all down.  She had the audacity to talk about me and spread rumors without speaking to me in a civil manner since I had transferred there.  I worked hard, became more confident in myself and my abilities.  I was as happy as I could be.  And then the sexual comments started up again around Thanksgiving.  I started scratching at my wrists again, started shutting people out more.

Finally, graduation had come.  I could forget about my terrible senior prom experience, the comments that were thrown at me.  I could move on from all that.

And then, I went to Germany for the second time for a mission trip and shared my testimony.  I shared everything, left no stones unturned.  I told them about how my church was always there for me.  How my friends were now family to me since they went through everything with me and never abandoned me.

After all that, I thought I could have a year or two where I wasn’t preoccupied with fighting depression.  I was way off.  My roommate was literally torturing me every day.  And one day, while I was in the shower, I overheard her and her best friend talking about how much I was a waste of space and they wished I wasn’t there.  I broke down in the shower, but I refused to go back to scratching at my wrists.  I finally moved out during finals, getting away from the negativity that was plaguing my life.

That summer, I got a job.  I got healthier, but I also wasn’t eating well.  I lost 30 pounds my first week of working there.  My entire hormonal balance was thrown off.  I couldn’t keep food down for a week every month.  I was miserable.  I kept thinking maybe if I didn’t eat anything, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.  The darkness in my head was getting to me again.

I got through the summer in a different headspace than I had started it with.  During my third semester of college, I got a boyfriend.  I was happy, I thought I was in love with him.  I was wrong.  Dating him hurt me more than I realized, and I realized it too late.  I had been hurt over and over by his toxic behavior.  I broke up with him over the winter break and moved on fairly quickly.  I focused on myself and bettering myself for the first week of classes.  I spent more time out of my room and I’ve made really good friends with a ton of new people.

But, despite that, that little voice in my head is constantly trying to get to me.  The more time I spend with them, the less I pay attention to it.  I’ve started getting closer to people who uplift me and encourage me to follow my dreams.  I don’t know where my relationships, or even myself, are going from here, but I want to finish with one last statement.

If you’re hurting right now, please don’t kill yourself.  It doesn’t stop the pain, it will just pass it on to your loved ones.  And it does get  better.  I know from personal experience.