I struggled quite a bit in my old school. And by struggle, I mean that I’m kind of surprised I am here writing this. For the two years I went there in high school, I suffered from severe depression. It actually started before that when I went to the middle school of this school district. That was when I started self harming. When I moved to the other school, I was hoping that it would get better.
It didn’t.
Freshman year finally started, and I couldn’t have been any more excited. I’m finally a high schooler! Wooo! But that didn’t last long. What with gossiping girls, distant teachers, major cliques, and fake friends, my low self esteem somehow got even smaller. Throughout freshman year, the longest I went without self harming was about 48 hours, and that happened very rarely. I withdrew from my friends and life in general. My grades started showing signs of abuse, but I kept a lid on it pretty well.
Sophomore year. I’m not the underdog anymore!
Except I was.
I continued to self harm. I was able to mostly hold off during the summer, but once school started, all the hope went down the drain. It was back to day in and day out suffering. Days were spent tugging on my sleeves, looking at the floor as I walked through the hallways, and saying, “Oh, I’m just cold,” at least twice a day. Then one day a guy I liked asked me to homecoming. My only issue was covering everything. Fortunately, it worked. We went, had fun, started dating, blah blah blah. After about a month of dating, I figured I could trust him enough to tell him my secret. I said the three little words that I had said to maybe three of my friends.
“I self harm,” I said quietly as he held both of my hands. He continued holding my hands in his, but his words shattered me. He told me that we should ‘take a break’ so that I could ‘figure things out.’ However, he never texted or called or even talked to me again. This, of course, led to even more self harming. But not because he broke up with me. Because he confirmed my greatest fear - something was seriously wrong with me.
And I hated myself for it.
Time passed. It got colder. I was able to wear long sleeves without having to explain why. My sister came home on leave, and I felt even smaller than usual. All the attention was on my sister and her fiance. I felt unimportant, useless, and totally worthless. I can’t think of another time when my depression was that severe. It was like drowning, but watching everyone else breathe. And finally, I had had enough. One of my closest friends once said that sometimes, you have to hit rock bottom in order to bounce back up. I had hit rock bottom. Only I wasn’t bouncing back.
I wrote letters in the back of my school notebook. Well, I addressed all of them, but only actually wrote a couple. I planned it all out. I accepted my fate. I was ready. I knew I wasn’t going to go back to school ever again. I was going to do it during break. I was going to take my life.
But for some reason, I decided to give it one last try. One last try to feel like I was worth something. I had a strange idea pop into my head as if someone else had put it there. Thinking I had nothing to lose, I decided to go for it. I went online, went to Google, and searched “Online Depression and Suicidal Chat Rooms.” The third one I clicked on, I met a ton of people who later became my closest friends. Russo, Navy, Nick, Marshmallow, Seth, Zed, Dead, Close, Ob, and so many others. But there was one, one guy, who really stood out. His name was ShatteredGlass (or David as I later found out) but he went by SG. We would stay up into the late hours of the night, night after night, on video chat, talking about our lives and the weather and anything and everything. He treated me like an equal. Made me feel like I was worth talking to. He didn’t look down on me or pity me or feel sorry for me or anything. He offered me one thing: hope. I soon forgot about the letters. He helped me forget. School started up again, and I went back as if nothing had happened over break. And that’s just it - nothing happened.
Although I haven’t talked to SG or any of my other friends from Chatzy in such a long time, I will never forget any of them. The truth is, they all played a hand in helping me overcome my depression, but the prize goes to ShatteredGlass. He saved me, one day at a time. <3