Alone

[IrishCreme]

Sorry ahead of time, this will be a very very long post. I feel as though I have to get this off my chest. My life feels like a series of set-ups for disappointment, starting with my childhood. I didn't realize it at the time but I was physically and emotionally abused. When my father was drunk, he would throw me down the stairs, slam my head against the wall until I bled, throw bottles at me, punch me in the stomach or the face. He used to spank me and sometimes would use the belt on me. One time, he threatened me with his gun when I didn't get him his drink fast enough. He also would mock me for everything I did, and for my weight, looks, and smarts. He used to call me an ugly pig and told me that he wished he hadn't had a daughter who was so disappointing. He still does sometimes, but I think he's realized that I am sixteen and old enough to fight back now. My mother turned a blind eye then and she still does even though he's deflecting his anger onto our dog now. She also will threaten suicide at the drop of a hat. She told me when I was seven about her plan to take tons of prescription pills so she wouldn't have to live anymore. The memory still haunts me. I internalized at a young age that I was the caretaker of this family, which made me try to protect my brother and my sister from my father. I comforted them and took care of them and I think this sort of childhood left me with a constant feeling of shame and uneasiness. I started having awful panic attacks when I was nine or ten. But on top of being abused at home, I was bullied at school. I had a few friends but they never cared enough to stand up for me. One time, I was swimming in the pool and they were there. They pulled me underwater and held me there until I kicked and screamed for air. Nobody noticed, and if they did, they didn't care enough to scold the boys. I walked home crying, at eight years old wishing desperately that I could kill myself. As I hit middle school, I joined sports, started studying hard, lost weight, stopped being bullied, and got some friends. I was never anyone's best friend, I was always the back-up friend or the friend that tagged along. In eighth grade though, I started getting stalked by two different guys. (In hindsight, probably because I am a people pleaser with boundary issues.) One of them threatened to rape me and the other found out my address and would put creepy letters on my doorstep. I was having multiple panic attacks a day at that point and started to not care about school or friends. My mom decided to enroll me in a different school because my GPA had dropped. Over the summer, I got closer to a guy who lived close to me and who I had known for about a year or so. His sister had just died and his parents had gotten divorced and I wanted to help him through the tough time he was having. We started dating shortly after and I fell head-over-heels in love with him. He was hilarious and the first person who I could trust. We talked about everything. But the problem was, he was insanely jealous. Another guy could walk through my line of sight and that would warrant a ten minute conversation. When school started, I made some friends very quickly. The problem was, some of them were boys, which my boyfriend saw as a problem. He started to try and limit which guys I could talk to. Until recently, I didn't see that as a problem. I just thought that was what boyfriends did. But I became especially good friends with two guys who had been friends before they met me. It was all peachy until Valentine's Day, when one of them asked me out. I rejected him and reminded him that I was in a relationship, a fact I'd been very clear about. He seemed bummed but nothing too bad, I wasn't worried about it. Then at 10 PM, I receive a text from him. He said that I was the love of his life and that if I didn't want to be with him then there was no point in living. He said he was going to shoot himself. I started sobbing and texted my boyfriend to call the police because I was too hysterical to do it myself. The police came to my house to look at the messages and then left. I didn't know what had happened to my friend until his mom texted me that he'd been put in the hospital. I was distraught. My other guy friend found out what had happened too and was really angry about it, especially when I started receiving texts from the hospitalized one about how angry he was but how he still loved me. He also sent me ----- videos, explicit fantasies he'd had about me, and other generally scary stuff. When I sent screenshots of these texts to the other guy, he showed them to the principal of our school and got him expelled for harassment. He told me that I didn't deserve to be treated like that and that although it hurt him to get his friend in trouble, it was worth it. The other guy was eventually sent to some camp in Utah for disturbed people. His mom still sends me pictures of the letters he writes to me in his journal sometimes. My boyfriend was sympathetic at first, but then turned accusatory because I "must've led him on". I ran downstairs and started crying and he eventually came down and apologized. I forgave him, of course, and let it go but it still hurts to think about. I think that was the turning point in our relationship because I never felt the same about him afterwards. I still treated him the same because he was my best friend, the one closest to me. I couldn't bear breaking up with him because then I'd have absolutely nobody. So I continued like everything was normal. We had had (protected) sex a couple times before then but we started having it more, probably because I thought it might bring the spark back or something. But it only brought the straw that broke the camel's back, because about a month ago I started having awful cramps and a lot of blood. Since my birth control pills stopped my period, I was immediately concerned. I stayed in the bathroom almost the whole school day in a lot of pain. Eventually the pain and bleeding subside and I look into the carnage only to see what must be a miscarried fetus. I was in shock. I didn't know I was pregnant. I was horrified. I was also deeply sad. I told my boyfriend two days later and he said he was just relieved that I didn't have to have an abortion. I told some of my friends later and they didn't seem to care much either. I could barely eat or sleep. That was when I realized that I really did have nobody who cared about me. I hope this is rock bottom because I don't think I could handle going any lower. I don't know what of my life could possibly be salvageable.

[CrackedButNotBroken]

I can understand how you feel. I have similar issues trying to find some, any value from my life.
You are important. You have value. I may not know you, but I deeply care about you as a human being. I don't believe it's possible for a person to be useless. In other words, there's nothing to salvage because you're whole. I know how the struggle can be and how it can make you feel broken or missing something, but you're not.
I don't have personal experience with physical abuse, but I know this, it's not your fault.
Again.
It's not your fault.
I'm no professional, and I sometimes say the wrong things, but if you need someone to listen, feel free to PM me.

[Tired toad]

Damn that’s rough. I am sorry about your trauma, nobody should have to go through that. Just remember that no matter what, you matter and have a purpose in life. It may seem like everything has gone to shit, but maybe something good will come out of it. If you ever need to talk, pm me and I can do my best to listen. Nob matter what anybody says, you matter.

[IrishCreme]

Thank you Tired toad and CrackedButNotBroken,

I took a day to reflect on everything and I realized that both of you are right. I also realized that the deep chasm in my chest is not because I hate the world but because I love it and the people in it, even though it doesn't love me back. And I've decided that, even if I'm feeling especially shitty, I am not going stop caring for my brother and sister nor am I going to tell them about how depressed I feel. My mother did that, and it has always weighed heavily on me. A dream of mine is to save up enough money to rent an apartment where my siblings and I could stay, as well as hopefully be able to afford therapy. I know it will be very hard but I am hoping it works out. The last thing I figured out was that depression is something you have, it's not who you are. It sounds obvious but you have reminded me of that, that I'm not broken just because I have a mental illness. So thank you a lot. I hope that you two find a little more happiness in your lives each day.