Its easier behind a screen..

[Alexandria2008]

The story so far:

 

I didn't have an easy time growing up. My mum and dad's relationship had always been falling apart, I couldn't remember a time when it was good. My dad started getting drunk all the time, coming in and urinating on the furniture, and even worse, hitting my mother. They got divorced when I was relatively young, of about the age of 9. It affected my older brother more than it did me who was 12/13.

 

My mum had a hard life herself growing up, her father was an alcoholic and then she had to put up with the same treatment from my dad. Her mother, my nanna, is a distant and cold woman, with never much affection for anyone but the favourite child - this wasnt my mum. So I never hated her for the way she treat us. She used to shout and hit us both to the extent my aunty tried to call the NSPCC. I Knew, and I still do know, that she loves us very much. And underneath the tantrums she threw, she was hurt and felt lonely.

 

But all this behaviour started to affect my brother. He started getting cuts on his arms, lying to us, telling us he caught his arm on a fence. It became more and more apparent that he was self harming. I had little knowledge of this, I didnt understand it, but I was so very scared that I'd lose him. He went to a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with depression, and he fought it and got better with the love of his newly found girlfriend.

 

Things started to go downhill for me. I couldnt understand why. I felt starved of attention at home and like I could never do anything right, as I was frequently told. At the age of 14 on holiday I lost my virginity to rape by an 18 year old that i'd seen in passing a few times. I blanked this memory, I didnt tell anyone. I was ashamed, and I had been out of the caravan where we were staying after hours when I was meant to be asleep because I'd lost my mobile phone and wanted to find it. I knew that telling would only cause more problems. So I kept this to myself.

 

I started become more critical of myself and my image. I believed I could do no right to please my family or my friends. I started drinking a half a litre of vodka every week from the age of 15. This still happens to the present day. I stopped eating more than a tin of soup a day as I got an obsession with becoming thin. I did all sorts of diets, exercises, and starting to make myself sick if I ever overindulged. Next I started to self harm. Pitiful chicken scratches with razors that faded to nothing. It started to not be enough and I stepped up to using shattered glass until my arms, hips, thighs, calves, feet and neck were criss crossed with scars. My family couldnt help notice at this point. I was taken to a psychologist but I felt they were looking down on me, so I didn't go back

 

Eventually, the one thing I found pride in, my love and talent in science, paid off and I started uni doing a degree in medical sciences. Not long after this I also started dating someone I adored who was 3 years older and in his last year at university. We planned spending our lives together, and part of me eventually felt alive again. I loved this guy more than anything. But I couldnt keep from him the person I was, I still drank excessively and being in a relationship put more strain on me to perfect my body. I'd get out of control drunk and so would he, we would argue. Things began to turn violent, first from his side, and then from mine. I'd attack him and myself, him doing the same. Things got too hard and he let me go. This is something I couldnt blame him for, for I had plenty of problems and I knew it, I was just too scared to seek help. When I lost him, I fell back to how I felt before. But even worse. I tried simply everything to get him back. He told me he still loved me and cared about me. He would still have sex with me but he would be cold the next day. I realise I was being used but I couldnt stop, all I wanted was one day for him to say to me, I love lying here with you, please lets try again. But that didn't happen. I got abuse from his family and friends for the arguments I had caused when we were together and I was drunk. He started to criticise me and called me vain for being obsessed with my body. It all became to much. This all occured in april this year.

 

In June, I took an overdose. I started vomiting everywhere and my brother called an ambulance. I spent 2 days in hospital recovering. I hated what I'd done for it was so selfish to the people around me who did love and care about me. I vowed to get better. My brother told my ex to stay away from me. I tried to improve things by finding a new relationship, but I just ended up thinking about my ex and breaking things off.

 

Meanwhile, the doctor diagnosed me with depression and offered me anti depressants, I declined as I can't imagine how awful you would feel when the feeling wears off. The doctor said he would arrange for me to see a psychiatrist. They said they didnt know how long it would take. This was 6 months ago and still I've heard nothing and have had no other contact from someone of a medical profession, other than a heart scan to check I hadn't done any lasting damage. I felt forgotten about.

 

Time moved on, now I'm with a lovely guy. I've told him some of my insecurities and it's eased my chest, and he's stayed with me despite the awful things I've done to him. I'm hoping with all my might that this is when the change will occur, that I'll be a new, more beautiful, and better person. At the same time I'm terrified that it'll never change. What if i always feel this low? And what if these suicidal thoughts never go away. I don;t want to hurt anyone in my family by doing anything stupid.

 

This isn't a plea for sympathy, it's a plea for advice. I don't know what to do anymore, I can't talk to anyone in my family because they don't understand, and if i admitted to them the things that have happened in my past, thats what they'd think about everytime they see me. I feel tainted already, I don't want to look into their eyes and see the same thing. I'm scared to go to a doctor because everything I've said sounds whiney even to me. This is why Im writing it out here. I need a release, and it's so much easier when you are behind a computer screen. Please, if someone else has been through anything similar, can they tell me what they did and how they coped.

 

Thankyou so much for listening.

[Geishawhelk]

Please don't be scared to go to a Doctor. Or contact a help-line on the net and make an appointment to see a counsellor.

Doctors are there to help, but if facing one really is too much of an ordeal, one of the best things you could do is to ask your BF to help you find counselling or therapy, because there;' no reason why either of you could - or should - keep dealing with this on your own.

You're not emotionally equipped to be making these decisions, and it's unfair on both of you for you to not get help.

 

There are avenues open to you.

Plenty.

There are tonnes of helplines and organisations that can help you out of this hole, or certainly point you in the right direction.

 

Good luck, and blessings to you.