I was born in 1996, England, UK, at 3:10am on a Sunday with the umbilical cord around my neck.
Thankfully, everything went smoothly, but it often makes me wonder whether I should have died at birth.
In any case, I was a living, bouncing little baby, and my parents were fairly happy with that. I was their last and youngest child, as they had already had my big brother who, at the time of my birth, was 2 years old.
The universe obviously wasn't happy about that though.
When I was 2 years old, my mother became concerned; I was bruising at the slightest touch, even my own diaper would cause bruising across my back and around my legs. This can't have been nice for my poor mother, the fact that even touching her baby would cause my body damage. So, as any concerned parent would do with a young child of 2, she took me to the doctor.
It took a few tests but, at the age of two years old, I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.
In english, that's cancer of the blood.
So, for the next two years after that, I spent a lot of my life in the hospital. This would have been fine, however between the ages of 2 and 4 are when you, as a child, learn to play and socialise with your peers. It's when you go to Kindergarten or Nursery, you learn to interact with others. The issue was that the cancer gave me a very low immune system. I could watch the other children play from my hospital room window, but I wasn't allowed to join them in case of germs and the like.
When I was finally released, I was 4 years old and my mother put me into the local nursery.
I didn't fit in.
Remember when I said I spent those two years in hospital? Most of my time was spent around grown adults. So, with adults I got on amazingly well! With kids my own age? .... Not so much.
So this whole thing continued, right through my school life. I didn't understand my peers, I didn't know how to interact with them, and so I would get frustrated which, as I hadn't advanced emotionally, would make me cry and have fits and tantrums like a younger child would. However, something I would eventually discover is that, by having a lower emotional age, I could connect incredibly well with people younger than me.
I had serious behavioural issues, all through school, it made me a very difficult child for the teachers and my parents to deal with. And, of course, being the "different" one, I had to withstand years of bullying. Most of this was name-calling, emotional abuse, isolation, alienation etc.... Nobody ever wanted me in their groups, nobody ever wanted to sit next to me... I may as well have been infected with a contagious virus.
Whilst that was going on, I was also a hoarder, so my room was never tidy. Over the years, my mother would empty my room, throw things away, I would scream and cry as if my life was being torn apart from losing my collection of batteries, or clothes size tags, or toys, and all the other junk I had stored. Arguments at home often lead to me being banished to my room without food, sometimes if I made my parents angry early in the day I wouldn't eat for the whole day. My mother hated lying. I remember one time I lied to her about something so she picked up my favourite teddy bear - a small, pink, fluffy one - and tore it in two in front of me. Maybe it was a little harsh, but to this day I find it extremely difficult to lie to people.
Now, as a hoarder, once I started secondary school and design technology, I was surrounded by metals, woods, plastics, and other constructive materials. I would often root through the material drawers and find interesting shapes, which I would take. One of which was a small square of brass metal.
It was the 22nd of May, 2012, in a science lesson. As usual, I wasn't doing any of the work. The teacher was going through the next stage of the lesson, and I was bored. I dug around in my pencil case, coming across the square of metal and, almost without realising, I dragged it quickly across my skin. It left an angry red mark, like a line of crayon on my skin.
That was the first time I self harmed. After that day, I would spend hours in the school bathrooms cutting at my skin with metal, scissors, sharpener blades, compasses..... It became my release. And of course, when my mother found out, she cried.
That was the first major moment of self destruction, the self harming.
Now, you may remember me saying how I was verbally bullied in school. Similar to my brother, the children at school quickly found the one thing that upset me most.
"FAT."
My brother was already saying it jeeringly into my face on an almost daily basis, and even my own father said I was fat and to lose some weight. So, to no surprise, I began skipping meals.
Now, I had always skipped breakfast, and I then started skipping lunch, even writing in my journal at the time that "I skip lunch because I'm worried about my body."
But everything got worse in summer 2012, a few years ago.
My aunt had it. My brother had it. Acid Reflux. It meant that when they ate certain things, usually things like bread, fatty foods, alcohol etc.
And then I started experiencing it. I would eat these kind of things, and every time my body would threaten to throw it up. So, to try and stop this, I went on a diet.
Low to no fat, no gluten, meat and salad only. At this time, I also began taking note of calories, and slowly began to eat less and less, trying to get the number down to a nice, neat 500kcal a day.
"How have you lost so much weight?"
"You've lost a lot of weight!"
"You look completely different, so much slimmer!"
These were the comments that greeted me after the summer holidays, when school began again. It felt wonderful. To be called slim and to be complimented on weight loss after years of having the word "fat" called out around me, it was truly wonderful. So of course, I kept doing it.
My step dad became very angry at one point, as I left the living room one evening. I listened for a little while as he told my mother that I was starving myself. He said I looked "like a stick." The top I wore that day has been my favourite top ever since.
Outside of school, I began learning archery and there I met a boy, who would be my first lover. Our first kiss, I will never forget. He was round my house, sat on my bed as I talked and talked excitedly, showing him unfinished stories I'd written. I then stopped and apologised for talking about it so much. I don't know how it happened, but our foreheads leant against each other and, in that moment, we lifted our heads at the same time and... Bam.
I was shocked. So shocked I cried. And after he left I felt suicidal. How could someone love me?
But in any case, I dated him. I explained that I was Asexual, that I do not like physical intimacy, and he respected that.
At least... He did... Until our Boxing Day sleepover...
We exchanged christmas presents. It was sweet. We spent the evening together, ate dinner (calorie counted, of course), and as the night progressed, we went to bed.
Of course I couldn't sleep. This was my test. I wanted to know that he wouldn't take advantage of me whilst I was unconscious, so I simply pretended to be asleep. Years of being a child with insomnia and being told I had to be asleep had taught me how to fake it well.
He.. Slipped his hand underneath my pants and... Well, let's just say he failed the test. He fell asleep afterwards and, not able to bear being close to him anymore, I left the bed and spent the majority of the night sat on his floor, in the dark. I didn't want to call my parents, I had always been shouted at if I woke them up.
After that, I became distant from him, before confessing in January that I hadn't been asleep. We broke up, and I made 46 cuts in my right arm.
A while later, I dated a beautiful girl with her own problems. We had connected well, as we both struggled with self harm and body image, and eventually I asked her out over a candlelit dinner one valentine's day. We were wonderful together, her kisses were soft and passionate. She was the first to manage to strip me down to my underwear without me caring, and her breasts were so small and sensitive that I could make her moan with delight just by running my hand across them. For the first time, I felt comfortable being more intimate. Girls were so much easier to be with, to get along with. I was always an emotional person, not a physical one, so I found it easy to open up and connect with females. And she was amazing.
We both had our issues however. For the first few months I was so positive and happy. I thought I had finally escaped the depression that had haunted me all my life. Then, I began to feel numb. I began to feel unhappy. And I began to plan my suicide.
I called her and broke up with her on the night. I didn't want her to feel like she was to blame, and I felt that being my girlfriend would give her more reason to blame herself.
I then overdosed.
Halfway through I snapped out of the haze that I was in, and called a friend, telling them what I'd done and that I was scared. They calmed me down and I fell asleep.
It wasn't lethal, so I woke the next day and went to school as normal, however I began to feel uncomfortable and sick. Scared that it was a delayed effect, I quickly told the school nurse what I'd done. I told her not to tell my mother but, as a school nurse, she had to... Mother was of course very upset.
However, it seemed that after finding out about my self harm, everything wasn't as serious. Eventually she came to the realisation that if I wanted to die, she couldn't stop me, and since then she simply sighs with disappointment at these things...
Anyway, I then dated my now ex-girlfriend's ex. I had gradually gotten close to him, so close we were often asked if we were dating, but I'd always said no. It was the best relationship, I loved it, but again I had to call it off because of my issues. In fact, we're slowly approaching the current year. January 2015 was when we broke up. I told him it was because I thought I liked girls more, but my mental state had taken a turn for the worse at that time, and that was why. I began breaking down at school. Nothing felt real. I skipped all my classes, and slept all day. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. Eventually, I began feeling like I was going mad, stuck in the confines of the school. I'd had enough, I wanted out! In fact, I just started leaving school and walking. Nowhere in particular, just walking. Non-stop, for miles, until I grew tired or got too lost. On one of these outings, I ended up sat in a car park, having another breakdown. I texted my oldest friend, the only one who stuck with me after nursery, and she came and picked me up, driving me to her boyfriend's house, where we had a long chat.
After that conversation with my friend, I opened up to my mother, we then went to the doctors office, and he signed me off schools. I didn't finish my last exams, I quit school in March, and was diagnosed with Aspergers. There was so much going on, so much fog in my head, that calories fell right to the back as I tried to get myself back into mental stability.
"Mental Stability"....
Doesn't exist for me *relapses*
Thankfully, everything went smoothly, but it often makes me wonder whether I should have died at birth.
In any case, I was a living, bouncing little baby, and my parents were fairly happy with that. I was their last and youngest child, as they had already had my big brother who, at the time of my birth, was 2 years old.
The universe obviously wasn't happy about that though.
When I was 2 years old, my mother became concerned; I was bruising at the slightest touch, even my own diaper would cause bruising across my back and around my legs. This can't have been nice for my poor mother, the fact that even touching her baby would cause my body damage. So, as any concerned parent would do with a young child of 2, she took me to the doctor.
It took a few tests but, at the age of two years old, I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.
In english, that's cancer of the blood.
So, for the next two years after that, I spent a lot of my life in the hospital. This would have been fine, however between the ages of 2 and 4 are when you, as a child, learn to play and socialise with your peers. It's when you go to Kindergarten or Nursery, you learn to interact with others. The issue was that the cancer gave me a very low immune system. I could watch the other children play from my hospital room window, but I wasn't allowed to join them in case of germs and the like.
When I was finally released, I was 4 years old and my mother put me into the local nursery.
I didn't fit in.
Remember when I said I spent those two years in hospital? Most of my time was spent around grown adults. So, with adults I got on amazingly well! With kids my own age? .... Not so much.
So this whole thing continued, right through my school life. I didn't understand my peers, I didn't know how to interact with them, and so I would get frustrated which, as I hadn't advanced emotionally, would make me cry and have fits and tantrums like a younger child would. However, something I would eventually discover is that, by having a lower emotional age, I could connect incredibly well with people younger than me.
I had serious behavioural issues, all through school, it made me a very difficult child for the teachers and my parents to deal with. And, of course, being the "different" one, I had to withstand years of bullying. Most of this was name-calling, emotional abuse, isolation, alienation etc.... Nobody ever wanted me in their groups, nobody ever wanted to sit next to me... I may as well have been infected with a contagious virus.
Whilst that was going on, I was also a hoarder, so my room was never tidy. Over the years, my mother would empty my room, throw things away, I would scream and cry as if my life was being torn apart from losing my collection of batteries, or clothes size tags, or toys, and all the other junk I had stored. Arguments at home often lead to me being banished to my room without food, sometimes if I made my parents angry early in the day I wouldn't eat for the whole day. My mother hated lying. I remember one time I lied to her about something so she picked up my favourite teddy bear - a small, pink, fluffy one - and tore it in two in front of me. Maybe it was a little harsh, but to this day I find it extremely difficult to lie to people.
Now, as a hoarder, once I started secondary school and design technology, I was surrounded by metals, woods, plastics, and other constructive materials. I would often root through the material drawers and find interesting shapes, which I would take. One of which was a small square of brass metal.
It was the 22nd of May, 2012, in a science lesson. As usual, I wasn't doing any of the work. The teacher was going through the next stage of the lesson, and I was bored. I dug around in my pencil case, coming across the square of metal and, almost without realising, I dragged it quickly across my skin. It left an angry red mark, like a line of crayon on my skin.
That was the first time I self harmed. After that day, I would spend hours in the school bathrooms cutting at my skin with metal, scissors, sharpener blades, compasses..... It became my release. And of course, when my mother found out, she cried.
That was the first major moment of self destruction, the self harming.
Now, you may remember me saying how I was verbally bullied in school. Similar to my brother, the children at school quickly found the one thing that upset me most.
"FAT."
My brother was already saying it jeeringly into my face on an almost daily basis, and even my own father said I was fat and to lose some weight. So, to no surprise, I began skipping meals.
Now, I had always skipped breakfast, and I then started skipping lunch, even writing in my journal at the time that "I skip lunch because I'm worried about my body."
But everything got worse in summer 2012, a few years ago.
My aunt had it. My brother had it. Acid Reflux. It meant that when they ate certain things, usually things like bread, fatty foods, alcohol etc.
And then I started experiencing it. I would eat these kind of things, and every time my body would threaten to throw it up. So, to try and stop this, I went on a diet.
Low to no fat, no gluten, meat and salad only. At this time, I also began taking note of calories, and slowly began to eat less and less, trying to get the number down to a nice, neat 500kcal a day.
"How have you lost so much weight?"
"You've lost a lot of weight!"
"You look completely different, so much slimmer!"
These were the comments that greeted me after the summer holidays, when school began again. It felt wonderful. To be called slim and to be complimented on weight loss after years of having the word "fat" called out around me, it was truly wonderful. So of course, I kept doing it.
My step dad became very angry at one point, as I left the living room one evening. I listened for a little while as he told my mother that I was starving myself. He said I looked "like a stick." The top I wore that day has been my favourite top ever since.
Outside of school, I began learning archery and there I met a boy, who would be my first lover. Our first kiss, I will never forget. He was round my house, sat on my bed as I talked and talked excitedly, showing him unfinished stories I'd written. I then stopped and apologised for talking about it so much. I don't know how it happened, but our foreheads leant against each other and, in that moment, we lifted our heads at the same time and... Bam.
I was shocked. So shocked I cried. And after he left I felt suicidal. How could someone love me?
But in any case, I dated him. I explained that I was Asexual, that I do not like physical intimacy, and he respected that.
At least... He did... Until our Boxing Day sleepover...
We exchanged christmas presents. It was sweet. We spent the evening together, ate dinner (calorie counted, of course), and as the night progressed, we went to bed.
Of course I couldn't sleep. This was my test. I wanted to know that he wouldn't take advantage of me whilst I was unconscious, so I simply pretended to be asleep. Years of being a child with insomnia and being told I had to be asleep had taught me how to fake it well.
He.. Slipped his hand underneath my pants and... Well, let's just say he failed the test. He fell asleep afterwards and, not able to bear being close to him anymore, I left the bed and spent the majority of the night sat on his floor, in the dark. I didn't want to call my parents, I had always been shouted at if I woke them up.
After that, I became distant from him, before confessing in January that I hadn't been asleep. We broke up, and I made 46 cuts in my right arm.
A while later, I dated a beautiful girl with her own problems. We had connected well, as we both struggled with self harm and body image, and eventually I asked her out over a candlelit dinner one valentine's day. We were wonderful together, her kisses were soft and passionate. She was the first to manage to strip me down to my underwear without me caring, and her breasts were so small and sensitive that I could make her moan with delight just by running my hand across them. For the first time, I felt comfortable being more intimate. Girls were so much easier to be with, to get along with. I was always an emotional person, not a physical one, so I found it easy to open up and connect with females. And she was amazing.
We both had our issues however. For the first few months I was so positive and happy. I thought I had finally escaped the depression that had haunted me all my life. Then, I began to feel numb. I began to feel unhappy. And I began to plan my suicide.
I called her and broke up with her on the night. I didn't want her to feel like she was to blame, and I felt that being my girlfriend would give her more reason to blame herself.
I then overdosed.
Halfway through I snapped out of the haze that I was in, and called a friend, telling them what I'd done and that I was scared. They calmed me down and I fell asleep.
It wasn't lethal, so I woke the next day and went to school as normal, however I began to feel uncomfortable and sick. Scared that it was a delayed effect, I quickly told the school nurse what I'd done. I told her not to tell my mother but, as a school nurse, she had to... Mother was of course very upset.
However, it seemed that after finding out about my self harm, everything wasn't as serious. Eventually she came to the realisation that if I wanted to die, she couldn't stop me, and since then she simply sighs with disappointment at these things...
Anyway, I then dated my now ex-girlfriend's ex. I had gradually gotten close to him, so close we were often asked if we were dating, but I'd always said no. It was the best relationship, I loved it, but again I had to call it off because of my issues. In fact, we're slowly approaching the current year. January 2015 was when we broke up. I told him it was because I thought I liked girls more, but my mental state had taken a turn for the worse at that time, and that was why. I began breaking down at school. Nothing felt real. I skipped all my classes, and slept all day. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. Eventually, I began feeling like I was going mad, stuck in the confines of the school. I'd had enough, I wanted out! In fact, I just started leaving school and walking. Nowhere in particular, just walking. Non-stop, for miles, until I grew tired or got too lost. On one of these outings, I ended up sat in a car park, having another breakdown. I texted my oldest friend, the only one who stuck with me after nursery, and she came and picked me up, driving me to her boyfriend's house, where we had a long chat.
After that conversation with my friend, I opened up to my mother, we then went to the doctors office, and he signed me off schools. I didn't finish my last exams, I quit school in March, and was diagnosed with Aspergers. There was so much going on, so much fog in my head, that calories fell right to the back as I tried to get myself back into mental stability.
"Mental Stability"....
Doesn't exist for me *relapses*
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