"Don't marry me, I'm useless."
The words my six year old cousin has scratched above the picture of me he has drawn. The last word echoes over and over again in my head. Useless. Now he doesn't even know what the word means, he just thinks he is going to get a good laugh out of me. And laugh is what I do. Because I'm not about to scare the naive young thing by breaking the dam holding back a wave of emotions that he just took a hammer to.
Last year I wanted to die. A year ago from next week I was going to kill myself. I hate saying that. Usually I can't say it. I'm cringing as I force myself to write those words. They scream selfishness and embarrassment as they glare back at me from the page. I'd much rather say "I was going away" or "I didn't want to be here anymore," but those phrases are vague and avoid the real truth. It has taken me almost a year to admit to myself. That I was ready to end not only my pain, but everything that was me, Caroline. It didn't just hit me all of a sudden. It was a process that gradually began to eat away at my inner being until there wasn't anything left. I slowly retreated into the shell that I was becoming, like a dead body that decays until all that is left is a carcass.
Then there was Danny. He was a real shit. I wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows myself though. I clung to him with every piece I had left, subconsciously believing that maybe, just maybe, he could fix my pain. If our relationship was a house, we took every flammable material we could find then covered it with gasoline and threw matches at each other, all inside this house. How we both made it out alive, I don't know. He was definitely closer to the door than I was. We made it out with burns and injuries, but there was nothing left of that house but ashes. Nothing to be salvaged. It was my last straw. The end of Danny was the end of me holding myself together. It wasn't that I couldn't live without him. It was that the one thing I still had hope in was over. The only thing that knew the pain I was in was gone and I took it as a sign. This monster living inside me, killing me, was going to scare away anyone that knew about it.
The pain that took over me at that point is indescribable. When I think of that night I envision acid and the devil surging through every vein in my body, torturing me. My insides begging to come out of the body-fortress holding them in, with no chance. Because it wasn't actually happening. It was all in my head.
I stopped eating for a month. I couldn't eat for a month. Anything I tried to eat would just come back up. So I decided I didn't want, nor need, to eat. I dropped twenty pounds. My pelvic bones jutted through my skin and my hands and wrists were nothing but skeletons. My skin grew grey and gaunt. I thought maybe if I just starved myself long enough I would disappear. Evaporate into thin air. When everything else was out of control, I felt in control of something.
I got help. Recently in a talk with the school counselor, she asked me how I did it. To tell you the truth, I have no freaking idea. When I look back at last year, all I remember is hell. Each day, each hour, each minute was a challenge. But somehow I did it. There are no tricks to overcoming depression. I still struggle with it every single day. There are times when I look in the mirror and I see that girl from last year. Empty. Ugly. Useless. But then there are days, most days, when I don't. I look in the mirror and I see a strong, determined, confident, beautiful girl staring back at me.
It scares me. Knowing that I'm entering the months of seasonal depression. Knowing that the only vitamin D I will be getting will be in the form of the pills my mother shoves down my throat daily. It scares me because all I want is to be happy. This time around I know I'm going to be okay. But I want to be more than okay, I want to be happy. This is the time where I must remember all my blessings. I have more help than I could ever imagine. I have the most beautiful and loving family and friends that are ready to stay by my side and hold me tight in every tumble I take. I'm succeeding in school, and I have learned to accept my abilities for what they are instead of pushing myself to be more than I could possibly achieve. And I laugh again. I laugh and I smile and I no longer have to be the friend that is always dependent on others. I can now be the friend that knows exactly what to say when someone else is hurt. I can be the one who holds it together when someone else is falling apart. I get to be the funny girl with the weird jokes and the obnoxious laugh and not the girl who sits in the back of class, silent, singing softly to herself so she doesn't begin to cry.
Yesterday morning, as I leaned over my backpack, holding my water bottle between my legs, and wiped the leftover tears from my eyes, Max Hanson looked up at me and said "Your vagina............ is wet." I instantly choked on a laugh in my shock at his completely outrageous, hilarious, violating comment. I don't know why, but in that moment as I laughed with Max, I knew, no more tears today. How could I be upset when Max was sitting next to me cracking inappropriate jokes that really, should not be coming out of anyone's mouth?
I'm still to scared to say some of this out loud. Some of this I have never told anyone. I don't want to. These words are every raw wound I have in my body. Some have healed up over time, forming scars where there was previously blood. I'm writing this because I don't want anyone to feel alone. I don't want anyone to feel how I did, like no one else in the world understood or knew what I was going through. I held everything in for so long, and it destroyed me. And it was almost impossible to put myself back together again. Call me Humpty Dumpty if you will. I did it though. I have something to live for. I have so many things to live for. I wouldn't change one second of it. I know who I am because of it. I found my true self. And I am a better person for it.
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