i'm a suicide survivor :)

i think the title speaks for itself.

WARNING. DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T THINK YOU CAN HANDLE WHAT FOLLOWS.

i am a suicide survivor.

i think the first time i contemplated ending my own life, i was in the 5th grade. 5TH GRADE! what would that have made me, 10 years old... TEN FREAKIN YEARS OLD!!!! that's how ridiculed i was. that's how terrible kids made me feel. i remember going home, looking in my mirror and saying to myself, you're fat, you're ugly, nobody likes you, you have no friends, everybody hates you, go kill yourself.  TEN YEARS OLD! what on earth... lardy velardi they called me. wait, YOU called me that. YOU did that. do you remember? i don't know if YOU specifically did that, because i don't know if my readers are my previous bullies, but i also remember my bullies also telling me to go kill myself. and i would tell myself that i was better off dead... at TEN YEARS OLD!! and i thought about it. i'd look at my deck, i'd walk out on it. climb the rungs, and contemplate jumping off and just ending it all. why not? what did i have to lose? no one would miss me. i had no friends. no one cared about me. i was fat. i was ugly. i was constantly getting picked on. i wasn't a popular kid by any means. i was the tallest girl in the class, every year. i had stains on my teeth. i believed in God. i listened to country music. i stood firm in my beliefs. i didn't have the same friends that everyone else did. i was awkward. the ridicule didn't start in 5th grade, it started, i think, in 3rd or 4th, but was the worst in 5th. that's when i heard, why don't you go kill yourself.
we had a gun safety course in 5th grade. we learned about guns. i learned about guns. i knew we had guns. i remember asking my dad where they were. where he kept them. i also remember asking where he kept the bullets. i told him that in class i learned that to promote gun safety the bullets and guns should be kept in different places and that there should never be a loaded gun in the house. he, trusting his baby girl, showed me where everything was, and taught me that we did not keep loaded guns in the house. i wasn't just asking him these questions because of what i learned in class, i was asking because well... they trusted me and sometimes i was home alone and well... do i have to spell it out for you? who was really going to care? right?
well, somehow i managed to become cared about. my dear friend mana cared about me. she laughed at my taste in music, but loved me no matter what. her mom always welcomed me into their home. she played with me on the playground, and she was picked on, too. i don't know the extent of it, but, she loved me. she still does. she's one of the best people i know and some days i don't know how i survive without her. she's a big part of how i survived back then.
i also have an amazing family who loves me. that's also a reason that i'm still here. a reason that i didn't find my way to my daddy's guns. i didn't swallow pills because i couldn't swallow pills at that time and, well, i was ten years old, it would get better, wouldn't it?
in 6th grade i was thrown into a new school, with new people and was away from the people who ripped me apart. i was still awkward, but i was around new people and people weren't so mean.
in 7th grade i found my niche. i found a group of people as awkward and weird as i were and we became attached. it was lovely. we laughed. we we were in band. we had similar disinterests. we got made fun of, but were made fun of together, and that made it all ok. i met my soulsister. we looked pretty identical. we were both amazons and could share clothing. she was all misery and darkness and i was all peaches and sunshine. we were the perfect pair. we are the perfect pair. she completes me and gets me through my days. she knows when i'm sad without speaking to me and is an incredible part of my family and i don't know what i'd do without her. i lost her for a few years, but she's back and it's wonderful. but yes, in 7th grade it was great.
so it had seemed my sadness had ended. i was going to be alright.
and then... high school happened. and it all fell apart. i joined marching band. where i became a disgrace. too tall. too fat. too slow. too awkward. too unbalanced. too unpretty. no one liked me. i wasn't good enough. i didn't fit in with the freshman. i didn't fit in with the upperclassmen. i was a joke. everyone made fun of me. it was 5th grade all over again. i was ten years old, all over again. and no one seemed to care. my band director made my life hell, and making me cry, made him smile. i'd go back to my mirror and yell at myself. i became withdrawn. who in their right mind would want to spend time with me? i tried to be happy. to get lost in my writing. to continue some friendships. and i guess i put on a good act. but... i was dying inside. i climbed that deck again. i held a knife to my wrists more than once, i was too much of a scairdy cat to cut, though. but boy... was i tempted. i watched girls get boyfriends, and thought hmm... maybe that's what i need to be accepted. why the hell i thought that, who knows. i had never thought that way before, never really cared but... i had friends who felt that way and i had friends who talked shit behind my back, friends who talked down to me, and friends who made me feel like garbage. good friends, right? bring on the inner darkness...
10th grade i found amazing awkward people. people who wanted to save me. people who saw my inner struggle, the struggle i refused to talk about, but they saw it in my eyes. they held me without touching me and made me feel like i was worth something. we laughed. we cried. we were awkward together. i wrote, they drew. jenni and sarah were like my rocks. ROCKS. sarah caught me trying to end my life IN school. there was a stairwell in the middle of the building and as i was getting ready to climb the ledge, she stopped me. it was just the two of us and i believe God had sent her there to be my angel and stop me. i collapsed into her embrace. my wonderful boyfriend at the time, told me he wouldn't have cared if i lived or died so really... if that's what 'true love' was all about, then i wanted nothing to do with it... but sarah... she caught me, literally, in the nick of time. and i'll never forget that. jenni came to see me when i was in the hospital. she brought me a bunny from her and sarah, i call him jefferson rabbit and i sleep with him every night. everyone else sent a teddy bear but... the rabbit? he's perfect. unique and special, just like us. they helped save me.
junior and senior year were eh... junior year was rough, just not as bad. i wasn't in marching band so i only had a bad boyfriend. abusive. but hey. whatevs. it happened. you'd think i'd learn. but no.
senior year i joined the colorguard, where, i sucked. i fractured my ankle and busted my kneecap, was ridiculed for my firm belief in God but... i was a SENIOR so it was kinda like FUCK everyone else. and then i got kicked out of the youth group, where i held a leadership position because the cuntwhore NEW pastors daughter was making out with MY boyfriend and then i was told that because i chose to do my graduation project, ya know, so i could GRADUATE, i was putting the world before the Lord that I was no longer welcome. are you serious?! whatever. when the new pastor took over, it had slowly turned cultish, and i'm not even kidding. just about everyone left so... i'm not missing out. i actually like the way i worship now, a whole lot better. i think i thought about suicide once or twice my senior year...
let's bring on college, shall we? that was a bitch. freshman year i made a name for myself. i was involved in everything and i mean EVERYTHING. christian fellowship, student activities, i was chosen to be a part of the presidential advisory board, i worked in the office, worked another job, attended school functions, my picture was hung up around the office, did interviews, had a full-time boyfriend, worked at a summer camp... i was little miss go-getter. things were looking up for me. i mean, unless you include the stalker i had... yeah. i ended up learning how to use a knife. no. i didn't have to use it, but jason taught me how to use one and had me carry one because someone was following me and threatening and i read conversations where he had talked about wanting to rape me. i actually had someone walking to me to my car, and then the security guard was walking me to and from my classes. AND I WAS GOING TO A COMMUNITY COLLEGE!
and then there was the abortion. that was a rough one. yes. i had an abortion. it was hard to deal with. i know that i made the right decision. i don't regret it and you can say whatever you want. you can hate me for it, you can judge me for it, call me a babykiller, that's fine. you're entitled to your opinion. at that time, i struggled with it. did i want to kill myself for it? strangely enough, no. did i want to kill the guy... yes. a few months afterward i did struggle with it and hated myself for it. i just had a hard time with it. but, i'm prochoice and feel that unless you've been in that situation you can't say what you would do. so, you can either stop reading and hate me, or keep reading and don't judge me.
college was really rough for me. the abortion happened. then a bunch of my friends killed themselves... within weeks of each other... during my birthday month. i had a boyfriend who brought me into his rollercoaster of a family- he was abused as a child, his brother came home and beat the shit out of his girlfriends... i became a borderline alcoholic/sex addict...
 then i had a boyfriend who consistently beat the shit out of me but i was too afraid to leave because i was afraid he would kill me. or himself. or both of us and i didn't know what the right thing to do would be. and while dating him, i fell in love with someone else. and i mean, love love. like the real deal. like the one i wanted to be with for the rest of my life. and he felt the same way but i was stuck... and then... he died. he DIED. my soulmate. i would have left that relationship for him. i should have left. he DIED. two days before my birthday. gone. he's gone. GONE. are you reading this. THE LOVE OF MY LIFE DIED. what reason would i have now to keep going? i might as well stay with douchebag.  *sidenote, i know he's my guardian and he walks with me and protects me daily, so that's something to smile about ;)*
*insert that i met my OTHER soulmate, the female soulmate of mine (wifey) while in college, at ESU. she keeps me breathing. i hate that we live so far apart now. i miss her so much. a hug from her can cure any illness. she seems to know what i need just when i need it. during school, we fell in platonic love during one of our courses while putting together an event for school on domestic violence. 'silence the violence, increase the peace' she held my hand as i told my then boyfriends story about his abuse from his father. she's amazing and i'm so blessed to have her in my life. she keeps me afloat. and the days when i'm drowning, she surprises me and makes random trips to my state to see me*
and stay with douchebag i did. i started defending myself. i'd fight back. one time i hit him so hard i thought i broke his nose. the amount of blood that was on my living room floor... holy hannah banana! he'd hit me, i'd hit him back. one time, he called me a whore... well, he called me a whore one too many times that day, so, i scared him. i ripped my clothes off, took out his wallet and said. pay me motherfucker. yeah... really healthy right? i tried to drown myself that day. while living with him i tried mixing tylenol with tequila, drowning myself, i tried sitting in a running car, i tried driving my car off the road... nothing ever seemed to work. eventually... i just stopped coming home. i felt bad for him... you'd think i'd care more about me. but no. i'd had too many people tell me that i was so worthless and unimportant that... i still thought his life was more important than mine. so him throwing me across the room, throwing a cd player at me, having a coffee table land on me, having him try and snap my ankle or trying to crash my car with both of us in it because if he 'can't have me than no one can'.. i still felt sorry for him because no one wanted him around. so i had to save him, right? at my wifeys graduation party, someone noticed the bruises... at work my boss knew something was going on. he would stay late with me and find things for me to do. another supervisor knew that things were getting bad and would help me find reasons to work late. they helped me leave my relationship. i ended up getting my head together and moving back home. and i'm home. and i'm safe.
after that i hadn't battled with suicide. even with the shitbrick boyfriends i had. they never made me want to end my life. i hadn't struggled with suicide until i got here. until the cushing's. the depression gets so bad that i wonder how more of us haven't ended our own lives. i'll sink so deep into the darkness that sometimes i'll think, why am i still here? what is my purpose? i have no reason to wake up, to get out of bed. blah blah blah.
that's how sad i get. that's how bad the pain gets. some days i can't get out of bed, it's not that i don't want to, i physically can't do it.

but you know what? that's ok. i'm ok. i'm a survivor. one of the things that i've learned in therapy is that, it's ok to give into the darkness. let it take over you. it's not going to last forever.

and you know what? it's not. it hasn't. i've been blessed. maybe i'm here to uplift people. maybe i'm here to keep other people going.

i went out saturday night, and it was wonderful. i spent the night laughing and jumping around and being goofy and pretty with my twin. i think she needed it as much as i did. and she loved me being happy and i loved her being happy.

i make people happy. i bring light wherever i go. it's a part of me. i can't help it. :) i like letting my light shine. so you should let your light shine.

i'm a suicide survivor. and i'm going to keep on surviving. no matter how dark or how sad i get. it will always get better.

i hope you're surviving, too. or that maybe this saves you. because it will get better for you. no matter how old you are. i started surviving a little too early, if you ask me. bullying sucks.

i've also noticed that i'm alot happier now that i don't have negativity and pointless drama in my life. i've forgive those who've hurt me, i just don't have a place for them in my life anymore. and you don't have to let someone back into your life just because they've said that they're sorry. it's like giving them the bullets for that gun that they've already shot you with and honestly? i don't feel like bandaging that wound again...

anyway... in the dark is where the stars shine their brightest
the sun will come out tomorrow
and you are beautiful
so smile
and before you go to sleep
and every morning when you wake up
tell yourself: i am worthy of love. i am worth it. i am awesome. i am amazing. i deserve to love myself. i love myself. i am great!
because you are.