Survivor # 3: Ashley's Story

"These years are very vague now, but I am trying my hardest to remember.
From grades 5-8 I was tormented by my peers everyday, horribly and brutally. During this time, my home life wasn't much better. I never felt the sense of love that every child should feel. I grew up in a small, very rich town. I was surrounded by people who loved their stuff more than they loved each other. Before middle school, I was weird, or something that the others didn't like. I always had the new toy, just like they did. But something about me wasn't good enough for them, and I still don't know what that was. I thought I befriended a girl, who was a lot like me. She was like me, a little different from everyone else. She didn't seem like she cared about what I had, more of who I was. We would talk all the time at lunch, and would play together during recess. I remember her exact words: "you know we're not friends, right?" Those words must have had an impact on me, because to this day I remember them.

When I was young, I don't remember the age, I was sexually abused by 3 of my neighbors, they were in high school at the time. I don't remember much of it. Grammar school seemed to be the start of my brothers hate, and later abuse toward me. One day, he brought a knife into school, and ran off a hitlist to me and others at my bus stop. It consisted of me and another student. You would think that parents would be proud of me for preventing a murder, but they both yelled at me for a long while. In middle school, I became one of those rich snobs that I didn't like. I did it to hide my pain, and to hide my past. I became friends with a nice girl, and we got along well, and I thought I had a best friend. I used to come home crying everyday because of what other kids said, but I hadn't lost all hope because I had a friend.

I must have been a bitch that year, because my mom and I fought daily, my school life was becoming my home life. My mom had enough, so she decided it would be a good idea to start abusing me. Ever since that horrible experience, I have always flinched when she walks by me. I was grocery shopping with her years later, and she turned around and I had a flashback of her punching me. I was so scared I almost started crying in the middle of Costco. My brother and I started fighting a lot, and he started punching me out of no where. This didn't end until 8th grade. I still am scared around him, and have had nightmares about him.

The next year, My "best friend" started hating me, and I don't know why. That's when everything went downhill from there. Everyone started getting meaner, especially her. I was depressed beyond what I believed possible. I then found a new outlet for my pain: cutting. It started off as just when I was depressed, but later on it became an addiction. If anything got me stressed, angry or depressed I NEEDED to cut. It wasn't a choice anymore, cutting pretty much took over my life. Later that year, the school nurse had to check my blood pressure for some reason. She discovered the self-inflicted wounds up and down my arms. Someone discovering what I did, was my worst nightmare. My mom already didn't like me, and if she found out I would be dead.

I don't remember much else of that year.

Later, I was getting more and more hurt my everyone, and I was cutting, again. Then cutting became less of an outlet, but more of a suicide attempt. Every time I cut, I wished it would be my last breath. I wanted to die, but I never realized I was already dead. That year I met a girl, and I fell in love with her. She later on tried to kill herself, and I was forced me to tell my parents about our relationship. That's when my mom not only hated me, but had no trust in me. I couldn't deal with that pain, and the pain at school, so I almost tried overdosing, enough to die. My best friend (and still is) called me right before, and he made me smile, which probably saved my life. No one found out about that. They were oblivious because I put on a mask, so they thought I was alright although I clearly wasn't.

I stopped cutting for good.

In high school, I found a group of friends, and I wasn't depressed. I wasn't cutting. I later on became friends with the wrong people, ones who hurt me. I almost thought about using the drugs that I was offered. It wasn't until later on that I realized what I was doing, wasn't going to help me. I was hurting myself and ones who loved me more than I realized was possible. I realized that I was loved, and people did care about me. I realized that I was worth so much more than I though I was, and some people didn't make the cut.

Ashley plans on becoming a psychologist to help people like her who suffer from depression. "I want to be the light that they feel that they will never see" she states. Ashley believes psychology was her calling by God, as she says "He wants me to be the love that everyone asks Him for."

Ashley is another brave survivor.

Update

This blog is very new, so it doesn't have many followers. Just 2 as of right now in fact lol but I'm hoping to get more support in the future. All I want is to make a difference somehow. I hope these stories can inspire someone and get them out of the ditches so they can finally realize that life IS beautiful and there IS hope. Recovery IS possible. I know life might be crappy right now but as my friend Eva once said to me, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. :) [Im not sure I quoted that right but I think that's how it goes] I really hope that maybe somehow I can save a life, and maybe by reading this blog there will be less ignorance amongst my friends. I made a Facebook page where people can discuss anything they want to talk about. I have enabled comments from people who are NOT part of blogger, just so I can get more response from people, and they may choose to go anonymous if they please. I just hope this way people can become more open about their feelings and feel more comfortable sharing their problems with people. As they always say, it's better to talk about it than keep it inside. Because honestly, it will only hurt more the longer you hold onto something. So be free and let go of your fears. We're all here to help each other take a stand against the pain =) God bless all of you.

-The Healing

Survivor # 2: Kasey's Story

"It all began when I was about 13. I realized that I am bisexual. I fell into a depression because I was so afraid that my family would never accept me and I started cutting myself. As time went on the cutting got more and more frequent. I also fell in and out of other disorders such as anorexia and bulemia. I hated myself because I couldn't understand how I could do that to my parents. I thought it was my fault and my worst fear was them being disapointed in me. About a year later (and by this time I was cutting almost any chance I got and barely eating anythng) I was a freshman in highschool. My parents found a note from one of my friends asking me not to kill myself. When my mom confronted me one morning before school, I tried to brush it off as nothing serious. That I was just joking. She wouldn't believe me. That day was the worst day of my life. I eventually broke down and told her about my bisexuality and the look of disgust on her face was unbearable. Dad came home later that day and we all sat down for a little 'talk'. Mainly it was just them talking and me sitting there feeling hurt. They told me how gay people are promiscuous perverted freaks and that they all go to hell. They said that if that was the life I 'chose' I would no longer be their daughter. They told me that if I were to kill myself I was just being selfish and they wouldn't even come to my funeral. They threatened to throw me out or send me to a military academy far away. They banned me from listening to music, which was everything to me. Then they decided they could 'fix' me and that it was just peer pressure making me think those things. That day I had my first panic attack. They pulled me out of school and wouldn't let me speak to any of my friends again. Mom called my best friend who told her about my cutting. She started checking me to make sure I didn't cut anymore, but that only made me find new places to cut. I soon gave up on God. At first I hated him, but eventually I just denied his existence altogether.

Over the next four years I convinced my parents that everything was fine and they were right, it had just been peer pressure. I was living a lie. The pressure to be who they wanted me to be was killing me. My cutting got worse and worse until eventually it didn't do anything for me so I turned to other, more harmful things such as burning myself and beating myself up. Panic attacks became a frequent thing. My mental state was falling apart and I was on the verge of insanity if not already insane.

Kasey is now in college, and is now in a healthy relationship with a man she believes God put in her life. She states, "[He] helped me find God again, he helped me see how beautiful and amazing I really am" She is now closer to God, and has been for five months now. "Now when I think of the past I don't shove away the memories and the pain and pretend like it never happened. I confront it and deal with it. My wounds, physical and emotional, are not completely healed yet, but will soon be that way."

Kasey, too, is a survivor.

Survivor # 1: Kayla's Story

" From the earliest I can remember my father was physically abusive. My first childhood memory is of him banging my head against the frame of my bedpost while I begged him to stop. As I grew older he grew more violent, and when he wasn't violent he was distant and it affected me very much. I started cutting myself at the age of 13, thinking that it would get someone to notice, to see how much pain i was in. It was a cry for help that turned into a full blown disease. I cut myself for 6 years. I felt like I had no one who understood me or what I was going through and I just got sicker and sicker. I spent my entire adolescence in and out of psychiatric hospitals; eventually ending up in SAFE alternatives (the only self injury rehabilitation center in the country) more than 5 times trying to get ahold of this monster that controlled my life. High school was miserable and unbearable. Eventually my whole school found out and I was tortured day in and day out. People would come up to me in the hallways and pretend to hang themselves, draw cuts on their arms with markers to taunt me, and fill my locker with hate notes telling me to kill myself and get it over with already. All of these things made it worse for me; and eventually in the winter of 2008 I tried to kill myself. I swallowed 180 trazadone and 50 ativan and waited to die. I don't remember anything afterwards, but i was told when I woke out of a coma 7 days later that my heart had stopped 3 times. I had problems with my short term memory and was kept in intensive care for a week and a half afterwards. I was lucky to be alive; the doctors told me that no one with that much medication in their system at any point in time should be alive; but god gave me a second chance. It woke me up out of my haze and i realized while laying in that hospital bed, watching my family and their grief; that I could never do that to them again. My parents transferred my school and I got the chance to start over. I flourished; I made friends, I started ballet and dance again; I captianed the cheerleading team, joined clubs and volunteered. I realized God gave me this gift of a second chance of life for a reason; and that reason is to help others. "

Kayla is currently a second year social work major at the University of Saint Francis on a $80,000 dollar academic scholarship with a 3.78 gpa. She states, "[I] plan to use my experience with self injury to give back the gift of life to others who were struggling as i was."

Kayla is not a victim. She is a survivor.