Some truth about 2015 that I wanted to vent about on a social media platform my parents don’t have me on.
This is more for me than anyone else, after everything I’ve endured and all the people I’ve protected for no good reason I wanted to write everything out for myself. I rarely think back to this period of my life three years ago but I don’t want to get my memories messed up and blame myself wholeheartedly in the future. Also, I feel like my side of the story should be heard, regardless of whatever bullshit is brought up later.
I went to college in 2015. A week in my best friend in the whole world who I had talked about growing old with and was closer with than anyone else in my life, sent me a text message asking to talk. She told me she hated me (I remember that part work for word, the word hate is not an exaggeration). She also told me that every time I spoke on our group chat she wanted to kill herself because of how happy I was now that I had moved away from home (and honestly I was truly happy for the first time in my life). I understood her pain so I stopped talking on the group chat. I lied to people and protected her by saying I just got busy but I cut myself out of the friend group because I was scared to death I might hurt her. I’m not trying to be dramatic, I remember crying my eyes out and being terrified I would wake up one day and she would be gone. It’s been a long time but I remember how much I cared about her. I did get busy, and this made things easier, but there was no way I would ever drop my best friends for some stupid reason. I told myself I was that kind of person when they told me I was over messages but I am not.
Honestly, school was busy and the group chat was as active as ever so I’m sure we all got on with our lives and told ourselves whatever simple thing made us feel the least bad. I told myself I was helping her and that made it easier to stay off the chat, and from what I can tell they told themselves I ‘dropped’ them. Honestly, no one messaged me either and it was way too easy to stop being considered their friend so be both fucked up.
A few months later I tried talking on the group chat again. Half the people ignored me. In the messages I’ve been sent people keep telling me I dropped everyone but no one reached out to me when I stopped talking on the group chat. No messages or calls, and when I tried to return I got second to nothing. A few people talked to me but the group chat was toxic and full of cliques and I quickly got pushed out. I didn’t struggle much and by the time 2015 was up I just stopped all together. I honestly thought we had all just kind of given up on the whole thing, no one ever directly told me their feelings, I got to learn them through second hand accounts and text messages.
By 2015 I had picked up cutting as a regular habit. I had become suicidal and my anxiety had gotten so bad I could barely sleep most night and I had long panic attacks multiple times a week. My weight hovered just above 100 pounds. When people talk about these things a lot of people think they want sympathy, I just want to provide context. I am a private person and I am in a different stage of my life dealing with these problems differently. A few sentances cannot decribe the hell I went through that year and honestly I shouldn’t have to go into it to defend myself.
These had little to do with my old friends but would get worse every time I was on social media and saw a picture of one of them or them together. It’s social media, literally the place where people post these kinds of photos so no harm on their part, but it hurt like hell. It was a reminder of things I had lost and it was a reinforcement of all the awful things I was telling myself. It hurts to see people who hurt you (inadvertently or not) living a life together you were once part of, I can’t do the description justice without using the word triggered despite all its stigma.
In February I deleted my snapchat. I deleted all my friends off Instagram and Facebook and I removed myself from their WhatsApp group. Before I deleted it I saw messages of them talking shit about me. This reinforced my decision. I stopped cutting in February and wouldn’t pick it up again until the summer. I stand by this decision; it was one of the healthiest decisions I’ve ever made.
In the summer someone reached out to me. I was at the lowest point in my life, my relationship had turned border-line abusive and by this point I had had four suicide attempts. I was trapped physically in a place I felt unsafe in and I became my worst enemy. The things I did to myself and told myself were awful. This was the first time that year someone had reached out to me and asked me why.
I cried the entire night and apologised over and over again to them, re-reading my messages I can really see how broken I was, how much I blamed myself and how bad things had really gotten on my side.
The reason I was messaged was because someone had screenshotted a text message of someone berating me and in the messages it talked about how they thought they should send it to me. I sent a response defending myself, I honestly don’t remember exactly what I sent but I know I said nothing negative about them in the message. I stand by the fact that I never made a direct attempt to hurt any of them or say anything hurtful to any of them. I sent the message because I couldn’t stop shaking for four days, I was such a mess over such a stupid message. I tried to express my vulnerability in my response in a way that didn’t evoke sympathy, I didn’t want sympathy from them.
I’ve made two attempts at reconnections, one went farther than the other but the exploding end to my nearly two-year long relationship killed that one. I’ve survived, and I’ve become a much better person to myself. 2018 is coming to an end and I truly love myself and everyone around me. I thought I would die back then, and I tried to, but I’m so glad I persevered.
