I’ve come to realize something

Destruction of the Self

I’ve come to realize something. And what I’ve realized changes things completely. Over the past several months I have changed into someone I can’t even recognize. I get into arguments more than I ever have and I am highly defensive over practically everything. This person I’ve become isn’t me.

What happened to that girl who loved life? A smile was almost constantly on her face and she laughed and joked and didn’t let anything really bother her. She was there for her friends and was always willing to help out when needed. The girl I once was couldn’t stand to see her friends unhappy and would do everything she could to make them laugh.

She was strong of mind, strong of heart, and strong of will. Studious, hard-working, and a participant in many activities around school.

But somewhere down the line she changed. She became me.

Sometimes happy, most of the time cold and unfeeling. Someone whose temper flares for no reason whatsoever, someone whose friends stay far away as they can’t bear to be around who I’ve become. Where months ago I would have spent most of my time with my friends, hanging out and enjoying it all, now I find myself spending far too much time locked up in my room, escaping into the fantasy world that doesn’t judge me.

In books, short stories, poetry, movies, music…there I can escape, there I can allow myself to feel something. I get more emotional over things happening in fictitious worlds than I do over things happening around me.

How did it come to this?

I know how. The girl who loved life, who laughed and joked, she stopped fighting, she stopped letting the hurtful words others said wash off her. Instead they began to trickle into her mind and overtake her, turning what used to be happy into something not.

“You’re lazy.”

“You’re fat.”

“You’re never going to get anywhere in life.”

“If you keep it up, you’ll spend the rest of your life flipping burgers at McDonalds.”

“You’re a bitch.”

“Talk back one more time and you won’t have a home to come back to.”

“Don’t talk to your parents like that, you lazy unappreciative bitch.”

Those words, they used to roll off, meaning nothing, but now they sting right into my core. The way I act around my friends and the way they act around me…it only helps to confirm what my mother has been saying for the past seven years, what my dad has been saying for the past two years.

I can’t do anything right in their eyes. Hard work, good grades, being a full time student and having two jobs…it’s still not enough for them. Even having the promise of a job as a teacher means nothing to them. My dream of becoming an author feels like it’s fading with the constant words of “You’re never going to get anywhere in life” ringing through my mind.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m not going to get anywhere. Maybe it would be best to just end it all. If only I could. I have thought about it…Oh, how I have thought about it. There’s a bottle of pills sitting on the desk; I could OD easily. Then the thoughts of no, too many pills to swallow.

What about the stairwell? I live on the third floor; it wouldn’t be that hard to throw myself down the stairwell…or I could do like the ghost story everyone tells of the dorm; I could take my belt, or a bed sheet and tie it around the railing and then my neck and hang myself in the stairwell.

At home I could get into my dad’s gun cabinet. Surely a bullet to the brain would work…or better yet, the place in my chest where my heart used to be.

I could plug up the tailpipe of my car and lock myself in it; carbon monoxide poison could take me. Or I could get in my car and run myself off the road into a tree, a pole, or a river.

So many different options and yet…what good would it do? Sure I’d be gone but what then? I’d never be able to accomplish anything. I would definitely prove my family right if I never went anywhere in life.

I just want it all to end. I want to feel again, to go back to that girl who was happy and carefree. I’m tired of this coldhearted bitch who has taken her place. God, I need help but one thing that has never changed about me is that I refuse to ask for help. I would rather jump from a cliff than admit that I can’t handle something. I’ve always wanted to be seen as strong, someone who can handle anything.

Now this. I thought I was getting over the want to end it all, to just go out and do something drastic. I thought I had stepped away from the ledge. But no…I’ve just been pushed back there again.

My roommate, my best friend since moving up to higher education (college for Americans, University for the people across the ocean) she has started to avoid me even more than usual. She hides out in the house for the incredibly intelligent people, the ones who have a 3.5 GPA or above, the house that the average students can’t get into. I barely see her, maybe during mealtimes if I’m lucky…or during the two classes we have together.

Today we were practicing in Latin Dance class. Things seemed to be going well but she misread the leads. I guess I could have been mixing her signals up but I mentioned it to her and she got all tense; we got into an argument. Then I told her that her movements were stiff and awkward and it was messing me up as well; I’m supposed to be the leader and getting messed up isn’t one of the things I’m supposed to do. After I told her this, she moved to be a wall flower and I went to my other partner as I have two partners for that dance.

She rushed out of the room. I thought maybe she had gone to the bathroom and would be back in a few minutes but as the minutes went by she still hadn’t come back. So I went looking for her, only to find her curled up in a ball sitting in a corner of a study room.

She wouldn’t talk to me then and she hasn’t spoken to me since then. When we’re in the same room together it makes me feel like I’ve moved to Antarctica; it’s a biting cold feeling.

This has brought back the feeling that my parents are right, that I’m not going to get anywhere in life. And that just reinforces the belief that I don’t deserve to be here. That I should just end it now and get it over with. I don’t want to be here where I feel abandoned, alone, worthless. I hate this. I want it to end.

But I’m a chicken, a coward. I can’t bring myself to do it.

Except on paper.

In the fictional world I so love, the one where anything is possible, where those who seem like the underdog can actually succeed, where magick exists. There is where I can do anything I want.

Maybe that’s the only way I can do this.

I look around; the traffic has picked up. The after-work rush, I think. It’s now or never. I step out into the crosswalk, giving the driver very little time to react.

Things will be better now, maybe.

The driver slams on the brakes; I can tell that I’ve surprised them.

For a moment I think about what I’m doing and I want to take it back.

But it’s too late.

I’m gone.