Just a note: If you are struggling with self harm, bereavement and feeling similar to Naomi, please check out the resources section if you need some extra support. Take care when reading this, especially if you feel vulnerable right now xxx Rachel

My So Called Life

Bizarrely, the thing that has made me write this is my looming birthday. Tomorrow I will be eighteen. Eighteen, I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to mean something. I’m supposed to have accomplished so much by now. This milestone is supposed to mean freedom. But I feel anything but free. I feel trapped, caged in, locked inside these walls that I can’t pull down.

I’ve felt like this from as far back as I can remember. I was your usual unhappy child. Loved too much by mummy, not loved enough by daddy. It confused me. One minute I’d be getting love, the next my father would be dishing out the hate. I never showed him my tears, but it tore me apart that I was never good enough for him to love.

Looking back on it now, I think I was partly to blame aswell. I hid so much from him, so much from everyone, that he never really got a chance to know the real me. Maybe if I had been open with him sooner, our relationship might have stood a better chance.

You see from the age of nine to fourteen I pretended to be somebody else. I knew I was gay, but I was terrified of anybody else knowing that. I let it eat me up, tear away at me, and I see now that I shouldn’t have. You can’t change who you are, it’s what makes you, you.

I told my family when I was fourteen, and to my surprise my dad handled it the best. We became close, I started to feel like all those years could be forgotten. But then he died. He got taken from me, and now all I’m left with is pain, and anger. I get a few good months with him, and that’s it?

Since he died nothing has gotten better. I’m cutting more, I’m hating more, I’m crying more. To be honest I’m jealous of him. I hate being alive. I wish that I could be wherever he is now. I wish that I could be away from all this pain, and suffering. Everybody has changed, and it’s starting to feel like he never really existed.

My mum has changed the most. She’s moved on, met somebody else. She leaves me, she leaves my sisters. She cares more about this new man than she could ever care about me. I think that I hate her. She’s turned into a drunk. She’s turned into this neglectful person, that I don’t even know anymore. Sometimes I wish she had died, instead of my dad.

And all I can do to stop this pain is write, or cut. My body is covered with scars, and I’m frightened to death that I’ll feel like this forever. Tablets, drugs, nothing works. But I’m still hanging on, still praying that maybe these feelings will subside, and I’ll be able to live. Really live. But I have a feeling I’ll be waiting for the sun to shine until I’m dead.

Naomi