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.