tidalwaves and hurricanes

and no one thought that this would be me and my everything

When I was on a trip recently, two of my friends asked me why I love Marianas Trench so much and I legitimately could not even put it into words. So this is my attempt. Here we go.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/10/11/amanda-todd-teen-bullying-suicide-youtube_n_1959668.html →

I’m sitting in my campus pub trying to do homework and read some of what I need to read for class, and I just came across this.

I don’t want to just share this story to join the “trend” of people magically supporting the anti-bullying cause all over social media, only once a tragedy occurs. I just need to say my piece. 

A lot of you know that bullying has affected me profoundly. When I was in grade school, I was tormented by my classmates for four years. I was seven years old when it started and when I finally escaped the hell that was my grade school, I was only eleven.

It doesn’t seem like such a huge deal but it has changed and ruined my entire life. I wish I could write exact descriptions of instances that happened to me during those times, but when I look back, I can only conjure up an emotion: a deep rising feeling of absolute terror in the pit of my stomach. Every day I was made to feel lower than the scum of the earth. I was constantly called out in the hallways and in the classroom by the “popular” girls who led the pack. The rest of my class obviously followed. They picked on anything about me that they could. My hair. My clothes. The fact that I was overweight. My eyebrows. Anything. I went home every night crying and wondering what made me so different that I had to stand out so much. I dreaded recesses. I would spend the fifteen minutes (that felt like hours) curled up in a corner with a book, or hiding in corners. I remember one year in particular that I befriended the “special needs” kids and played with them during recess - just because nobody else would play with me. It’s unfortunate that this is true, but it only made a bigger target out of me. When I hit seventh grade and the internet was just starting to become accessible to everyone, I was the target of some minimal cyber bullying as well. I would get death threats over MSN messenger and email (the only form of “social networking” we had at that time). One girl in particular had all of her friends, even from other schools, add me to their contact lists and just berate me.

There was another instance in seventh grade where I received a phone call at home from one of the boys in my class. He told me that he had a crush on me. I remember not knowing what to say. I was elated. My 11 year old readings told me stories of the shy unpopular girls flowering and becoming a beautiful swan when one of the popular boys noticed her. I blushed my way through that entire phone call, then proceeded to call one of my few friends. She told me that I was being an idiot - that he only called me on a dare, and that nobody would like ME over some of the other girls in my class.

The summer after seventh grade, I tried to commit suicide. I took a scarf from my winter clothing and tied it around my neck with an inexperienced knot. I tied the other end to the top of my loft bed and tried to hang until I suffocated. Clearly, the knots of an eleven year old would not function for that purpose, and I did not succeed. I cried and dreaded going out of the house because I was convinced that the death threats from those girls were real. I finally convinced my parents to let me transfer schools before eighth grade. 

I could really go on and on about all of the things I endured, but it’s not important. What’s important is that these kids who ruined my life have absolutely no idea the impact they had on me. I have suffered from major depression since I was ten years old. I’m sure everyone knows that my self-esteem is literally non-existent, and I’ve spent years torturing my body in twisted forms of eating disorders. I started self harming when I was twelve. Due to the various mental disorders that developed, suicide is constantly at the back of my mind.

The voices of those long ago children haunt me every day. My stomach still drops when I see one of them in public, now grown adults. It makes me absolutely sick that eight year olds can ruin another’s entire life. 

The story of Amanda Todd isn’t unique or original. A tragic story of a bullied teen who committed suicide comes out every few months like clockwork. I feel lucky that I was able to escape the bullies before I hit puberty and perhaps was more educated in ways to kill yourself. If the bullying had continued into high school, I have no doubt that my story would have turned out a lot different. The feelings of absolute trappedness that I experienced every day when I was younger, still haunt me.

I have no difficulty understanding how these kids feel as if there is no way out. It’s even worse now that social media is such a huge part of our lives. At least when I was a child and being tormented, I had a brief respite every night when I could go home to my family. Kids these days have no such relief. Everyone has a cell phone. Everyone has a facebook. They get harrassed 24/7 and there’s no way out. It needs to stop.

Even if the kids can get away from the actual act of bullying, the bullies still win. They fucking win. Look at me and where my life is. I’m still struggling with an absolute self hate. I torture my body every day by abusing my diabetes. My patterns of relating to food are beyond fucked up. and despite every ounce of help I’ve received from antidepressants, counselling, my friends and family, nothing can break through to the deeply embedded voices in my head telling me I’m not good enough. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m just going to have to live with this for the rest of my life… and maybe if that little girl I used to be didn’t have to listen to every person in her small world telling her she was worthless for four years, things could be very different.

RIP Amanda. I’m so sorry that you couldn’t escape. :( 

turned off anon messaging. it’s not that i can’t handle your shit, it’s that i shouldn’t have to. now if you want to send me hate mail, you’re going to have to show your pathetic faces :)

i’ve always been the passive-aggressive girl. the one who expects her friends to read her mind when she’s upset, and to know magically exactly what to do to make things better. of course i know that this is one of my biggest problems. i’m not going to deny it.

this past year or two, i’ve really been working on trying to deal with problems in healthier ways. i know that the way i deal with my feelings about being hurt is not helpful in any way, shape, or form. i realize i can’t expect people to just understand what it is that i need, then proceed to get mad when they don’t do it. it’s not fair to them, and it’s not fair to me. 

but when i actually do open up to people, honestly and without any anger or pretense, and i get ignored? it hurts. especially when that kind of action took a lot of self-soothing and courage and WORK to not speak out of pure anger. i really wanted to try and talk things out, so to avoid some of the drama that seems to follow me around in my life. but i just get told that it’s easier to ignore me than it is to talk to me. because i guess i just cause fights.

it seems that no matter what i do, i can’t win. i act out of my emotions and i lose. i try and solve things in a healthier way, and i still lose. this is why i have nobody in my life that i can trust or share things with, because really, nobody ever wants to hear it. i get shot down or ignored or told to stop being dramatic. 

and people wonder why i’m so upset all the time.

an open letter to you

i want to be able to help you. i don’t want you to be stuck in this and it is literally killing me. KILLING ME. i just don’t know what to do anymore, for you, or myself. i think i need to stop posting and talking about what i’m going through because i feel like all i do is trigger you into getting worse, or doing more self destructive things. you weren’t at all like this before i started being open about my own shit… and that makes me want to curl up into a ball and take it all back. i would suffer in silence forever if it could take away an ounce of your pain.

that being said, i’m not being naive enough to believe that you’re copying me or got these ideas FROM me, but i still feel like if i was a happier, better or less selfish friend, if i didn’t parade all my issues around, some of what you’re going through maybe wouldn’t even have crossed your mind as an option. fuck.

please just get some help. this is an indirect letter, if you will, because i know you would never listen to me if i said this to your face. you’d clam up and refuse to talk about these things, because that’s how you’ve always been. but please. i love you. and i wish you would let the people who love you HELP you. i want you to believe just how loved you are, and how many people would do anything for you. i want you to believe that you are a beautiful individual and i want you to believe that you are worth it. you are worth everything. i would probably die without you. please remember this.

ugh this is why i hate when people ask me what type of diabetes i have. so much unnecessary drama. why does it even matter? i’m not a type one so i’m aware i’m lucky. i would have died by now, or been at deaths door many times over. eventually i’ll end up there, with a completely dead pancreas, but for now i realize i’m living on borrowed time.

regardless of type, diabetes is a horrible medical condition and i have no clue why people outside of myself and my friends/family are so concerned with MY diabetes. if lifestyle changes and diet would have made a difference to my blood sugars and insulin levels, things would be different by now. if type two medication EVER made a difference to my a1c and blood sugars, who knows? maybe i wouldn’t be trapped in this eating disorder. the only thing that’s ever fixed my body was insulin. plain and simple. there are hundreds of other reasons why i don’t believe i’m a type two diabetic, but i don’t need to justify anything to anybody besides my doctor. 

in the meantime, this is what i know. i suffer from an eating disorder. i have diabetes. i refuse to call it “diabulimia” because it’s not. everyone who has diabetes and an eating disorder has ed’s that function in different ways, so one blanket media-coined term is rarely relevant. my blood sugars are slowly ruining my body and i’ve been trapped in my ed for so long that i’m really starting to wonder how i’m going to get out of this. everything else is extra and not something that random anons need to concern themselves with.

on a side note, if these same people came to me off of anonymous, and had a civilized conversation with me about the same things? it wouldn’t be so annoying, not at all. i don’t mind talking about my diabetes with people who have a legit curiosity or concern for me and my life. coming to my page and leaving me messages telling me i “look” like a type two, trying to piss me off by saying things such as “he’ll probably just dismiss you as a mental case with a death wish” or “you’re ignorant” - really accomplishes nothing, and you completely negate your claims that you’re just trying to help. yeah okay.

and with that, i’m done.

blah blah blah blah irrelevant and useless

i had such a wonderful day today with two of my best friends 

but why isn’t that stopping me from sitting here, and feeling more and more inadequate? this is proof of my absolute self centeredness.

why can’t i revel in the fun and laughter i had today with two amazing friends? instead i’m wallowing in the fact that i don’t know what to do about my toxic friendship. i shouldn’t even have to worry about it. i promise myself over and over again that i’m DONE with that particular relationship because all we do is bring each other down. we’re so fucking codependent in the worst way and it’s just all around bad. but i hate this, i hate this so much.

but on a more positive note: i’m so happy that i have my brent and and my alyssa in my life. they are amazing and wonderful and beautiful people and way more than enough. i wish we spent more time together, because they make me happy. they make me laugh and forget about things for the time being - that’s what a friendship should be, and i need to remember this :)

Tumblr Accent Challenge

- Your name and username.

- Where you’re from.

- Pronounce the following words: Aunt, Roof, Route, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Pajamas, Caught, Naturally, Aluminium, GIF, Tumblr, Crackerjack, Doorknob, Envelope, GPOY.

- What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?

- What is a bubbly carbonated drink called?

- What do you call gym shoes?

- What do you call your grandparents?

- What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?

- What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

- Choose a book and read a passage from it.

- Do you think you have an accent?

- Be a wizard or a vampire?

- Do you know anyone on Tumblr in real life?

- End audio post by saying any THREE words you want

trigger warning: eating disorders, calories

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