arachnie

So this is something I've been tossing up over whether or not to blog about for a long time.

1. I don't post that much personal stuff here. I have nothing against it and I'm a very open person. But I feel this block when I try to write something, and I think a lot of that is that you guys don't know my past in general.

2. Even though I'm elsewhere all over the internet, I'm still scared of judgement, to a degree. I can say I don't care all I like but at least a small part of me still does.

The thing that kind of tipped me over to finally posting about this was another beautiful woman who posted recently in the SGAU community about how she has come a long way in terms of being happy with herself and learning self love in spite of mental illness and that the SG community is a part of this transformation [you know who you are, gorgeous.]

A few of you already know this - I'm super close to a couple of you guys, and I think a few of you have watched my YouTube videos, where I go into a lot of detail about mental health.

SuicideGirls is the first time I have had close friends, besides my partner. Ever. I did not have friends in school. I tried to make friends in university but I didn't know how to socialize and my relationships in university were almost entirely false.

This is because I am a sufferer of moderate mental illness, which was severe for a very long time.

I spent the entirety of primary school being very, very confused. I wasn't really bullied much in primary school, but people generally stayed away from me. I saw things that I couldn't explain. I had friends who were very real to me but not real to those around me. I couldn't figure out quite what I was: I told other people that I was a witch, a vampire and an alien on varying occasions. I just knew I wasn't human, and I went with whatever label seemed right to me at the time. Whatever I'd read and clicked with. I had a feeling that something wasn't right - when other people talked about things they were feeling it never made sense to me. I couldn't make friends at school and I didn't know why. My friends weren't in school, and I couldn't share them with anyone, and that made me incredibly sad. I spent a lot of time crying. I'm my parents' eldest child and they're pretty old fashioned. I'm entirely sure they knew something was up [they've let me know that since then] but they were somewhat in denial and chose to believe that it was just me being over-imaginative and attention-seeking. I started self-injuring when I was eight or nine years old. I can't really remember why.

High school was pretty much the same stuff, added to... well, high school. I still had my friends who no-one else could see. I became strongly fixated on the belief that I was an alien. I believed that the video game Final Fantasy X was created as a device to get my attention so I could become the bride of one of the characters and finally be carried off this earth. He appeared to me every day, and he was my life. I slept with him. I dreamed of him. He filled every part of my brain. The self injury got worse. And high school is high school. Strange people without friends attract bullies. I had a small group of friends for an amount of time. I confessed to one that I was an alien and she told me that I have Satan inside me and asked me never to come near her again. I made friends for short periods of time through high school but it never stuck.

Mostly people just didn't want to be around me because of the other people who didn't want to be around me. I was slapped. Pinched. Spat on. Punched. My property was destroyed on many occasions. My water bottle was urinated in. A group of girls signed a 'petition' to have me kicked out of the female restrooms. Blah etc.

When I was thirteen I was suspended from school. The principal told me that I had threatened a girl [a bully] with a knife and told her that I planned to kill her and eat her. I can't remember any of this. The knife was definitely mine. But I still don't actually know if I did anything and then blacked out or if she was trying to set me up.

I tried to tell my parents that I was confused and that I was struggling with self injury. They took away some of my television privileges.

And it continued that way, basically. I kept my head down for the most part. The bullying lessened a little over time as people matured. I tried to make friends occasionally but I usually stuck to myself. At some point my imaginary friends left me. I would've been fifteen or sixteen. I don't know why they left. I went through a pretty huge period of grieving and I continued to talk to them, even though I could no longer see them. Sometimes I still DO talk to them, one in particular. I really miss him. He was a good friend to me for a long time, whether or not he was visible to others. My self injury got worse over time. I spent as much time crying as I ever had. High school was FULL of monsters. I saw them in the walls, mainly in certain buildings. Grey and crowded up and watching me. I became a lot more scared, as opposed to just confused. I felt like people could read my thoughts. I began wondering if I could read theirs if I tried hard enough.

University's kind of where the shit really hit the fan, I guess. Anyone reading this who has experienced abuse or knows someone who has knows that abusers are very good at finding victims. I was vulnerable, and I was targeted by someone who I thought was a potential friend. I don't want to go into much detail here because I don't really think anyone wants to read it. But he is an incredibly sadistic man who hurt me and forced me to hurt myself. Eventually I ended up in hospital after he punched me and caused injury to my spleen, which was already vulnerable due to the fact that I was already sick at the time.

I didn't tell anyone in hospital what had happened. I hadn't really fully absorbed it myself at the time, and weirdly enough I remember thinking that I was scared I'd be in trouble with my parents if I told them I was raped. I don't know why, but I was SO scared of that.

I tried to go back to university after that, but it didn't last long. I lost a lot of weight in hospital and that started an eating disorder - a way to control SOMETHING. I dropped to around 85lbs. After another failed attempt at a friendship I had a breakdown at the university and attempted suicide. A lecturer called paramedics and I was hospitalised and sent to a psychiatric ward.

Which I guess is where the road to help started. They sent me back to my GP eventually, with instruction to refer me to a psychiatrist I could reach easily. I saw quite a few before finding one I could get along with at all. And after quite a lot of sessions, I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizoid Behavioural Disorder [which he sometimes referred to as schizotypal. I'm pretty sure they're two different things, but I display symptoms of each.]

I can't really say it was like a magic switch and things became better, but it helped. I was able to be treated in a way that suited what was actually wrong with me. I KNEW what was wrong all of a sudden and I was so much happier knowing that what was wrong with me had a name, and there was some explanation to everything.

Recovery has been really hard. REALLY hard. I've relapsed more than once. There was another suicide attempt. My weight's been up and down. I've spent a lot of time fighting SO hard to find the real me underneath everything. I'm still not even sure if 'me' existed before - Looking back I feel like I was a combination of my delusions and the mask I created to help cover those delusions.

But next month it will have been five years since I was raped. Almost three years since I last self-injured. I have been a healthy weight for almost two years now. And I am in an amazing relationship with my wonderful partner. I live in the house he owns and we have two beautiful dogs. I don't have a job right now but I know it's a possibility. I'm actually even going back to university next year!


SuicideGirls is kind of seeming like the last puzzle piece, at this point. Which is such a strange thing to type. But that's how I feel. I have friends. For the first time in my life I have these amazing people around me who are loving and accepting and want nothing more than for each other to be happy and succeed and it makes me so happy every time I think about it. I have FRIENDS. It is SO surreal to me. I never imagined I would have friends and maybe that seems silly but I feel so, so blessed every single day to be alive and to be living a life like I am right now.


I think that's kind of it. Obviously I've left out a lot. Twenty-something years is a little too much to cover in a blog. But I just wanted to share. I'm not really sure what else to say now. Haha.