- 26th January
2012 - 26
- 23rd January
2012 - 23
**Trigger warning for self-harm, abuse, and just self-loathing in general**
I’ve never been considered, by myself or anyone else, “conventionally pretty.” I’m not super thin and I have child bearing hips and I’ve just never been really confident in myself.
On top of that, I’ve never had a very good home life. Verbal and physical abuse have been thrown around like nobody’s business, which led to me always having self esteem issues. I remember being 13 years old and in 7th grade making myself throw up because although I wasn’t overweight, I wasn’t super skinny either. I was average. And that wasn’t good enough for me.
When I was 13, I also started self-harming. I would mainly do it on my legs, where no one could see, because god forbid anyone found out. I already didn’t have any friends, I couldn’t handle being a freak who couldn’t control her emotions, too.
All throughout grade school, I didn’t have many friends. I remember being 8 years old and going to see Harry Potter for the first time, and instantly being hooked. From then on, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were my new friends.
When I was 13, at the start of 8th grade I finally found a niche. I met my best friend, who I’m still friends with 5 years later, and she is one of the best things to ever happen to me. I still struggled, but things got better. And then I started high school. I developed such bad anxiety that I missed about 2 months of my freshman year because I hated school. I hated it so much that I would throw up every morning so I wouldn’t have to go. I eventually almost didn’t pass, so I had to start going. Once again, things got better.
10th grade was the best year. I joined the marching band. I had a bunch of friends. That summer I found Team StarKid, who saved my life in more ways than one. They gave me a reason to smile again. Summer came and went, and I entered 11th grade. Which was the hardest year of my life. I was still self-harming, and it had gotten very bad. I barely made it through the year. I failed classes, didn’t do any work, and lost motivation to do everything. That was my last year of band, too, which led to me pulling away from everyone. That summer was hard. I was miserable. That was until I saw this tweet: “Dude. There’s always something to smile about. Always.” That’s what got me through the summer.
Senior year came, and I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I hated everyone. I stopped talking to a lot of people. I was so terribly depressed and I didn’t even know what to do with myself. Winter came and everyone was talking about Team StarKid’s new production: Starship. I knew there was no way I could go, which really upset me. I just wanted to tell them all how they helped me. I had already been on tumblr for about a year at this time, so one of my followers came to me and offered to get Joey Richter to speak to me on the phone. I freaking DIED. She said she might not be able to get it, but there was a chance, so I held on to it.
That night, I waited by the phone until midnight, ready to give up. It wasn’t going to happen. Until about 10 minutes later, she called, and said she was standing right in front of Joey. I almost threw up. Eventually I got to talk to him and tell him how wonderful I thought he was, and he was the sweetest person ever. I cried for 3 hours. StarKid was my entire life. Fast-forward to April, when I found out that not only was Starship coming out on my birthday, but they were doing screenings. I ended up getting tickets and going with a friend, and it was the best birthday I ever had.
I felt good for a while. I met my idols. But depression creeped back to me, I started cutting again, just waiting to graduate. One night in June, I was sitting on my bed, razor in hand, opening old scars, when my Itunes switched. Status Quo came on, and something just broke inside me. This wasn’t me. I shouldn’t be doing this. Nobody would want this for me. And from then on I stopped. I threw every blade away. I haven’t cut in almost 8 months.
In June I had the pleasure of seeing Darren at Irving Plaza, which changed my life. 2 days later I started an organization called I’m Not Sad Today, which focuses on helping teens and young adults with depression. We’ve gained support from some pretty amazing people, including some of the Starkids. My friends went to LeakyCon and gave the StarKids a sign, and Joey ended up tweeting a picture of himself holding it, which promptly caused me to break down. In November I got to go to the SPACE tour, and meet Joey Richter and thank him for everything. I also got to meet Darren Criss, and thank him for everything he’s done for my friends and told him about INST. It was one of the best days of my life.
If you’re going through a rough time right now, just remember that you’re not alone. Things do get better. I’m living proof of that. Keep holding on, because although everything seems dark now, you will find the light. You deserve to.
<3
harrypotterybarn/formerly lupincantsing
- 29th December
2011 - 29
New Website! New Way To Find Help!
Hi everyone, some of you may know that for a while now I’ve been a Temp Vlogger for the youtube channel “Self Harm Support”, we give guys and girls everywhere advice and hope for a better future as self harmers and help in situations that only people with similar struggles could understand.
Recently one of our Members Missa worked her butt off to create a website for us! You can follow the link here: Self Harm Support, here you can find links to all our videos on youtube, as well as find the pages of our members and you can read their bio’s.
I have a page myself that you can find here: Katie’s Bio, we’d love it if you sent in questions and let us know how you are doing!
If you are struggling with this, please send us a message, watch the videos and find strength! Remember you’re all beautiful and wonderful <3
- Kate
- 10th December
2011 - 10
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
reblog to spread awareness, please!
- 22nd November
2011 - 22
Perfection- Trigger Warning: Self Injury, suicide, murder.
My name is Ashley…I’m 18 and attending university for a double degree in Education/Mathematics.
Basically it was drilled into my brain from a young age that to be successful is to be perfect, and to be perfect is not to be different. My parents made it very clear that I should always have the best marks in the class, dress nicely, look presentable etc. All this was the “definition” of success. This striving to be perfect completely consumed me, and I soon found out it was completely unattainable. You set a kid up for a rough time when you give them an impossible task.
When I was in grade 4 I finally got sick of living to please my parents and tried expressing myself through clothes, music etc. that my parents didn’t approve of. Inwardly, I still felt I needed to be perfect, but even more so I felt like I needed to break away from the hold my parents had on me. Months later my father began verbally abusing me. He would attack my physical appearance, he would tell me I needed to go on a diet and that I needed to dress more feminine…eventually he came right out and told me that he thought I was gay. I was in grade 4! I actually remember googling the term because I had no idea what he was talking about.
I also didn’t have a fantastic relationship with my mother. She developed a brain tumor, which in itself kinda fucked around with our family, but it also made her very religious. Religion and church and prayer became a necessary piece of her definition of perfection. I always resisted her religion, respectfully, as something that I knew I could never fully accept…which didn’t sit too well with her.
Basically, all of this just completely isolated me from my family. The only connection I felt towards my family was the lingering desire for perfection that they had instilled at such a young age.
When I hit grade 7/8 I became really obsessive over my grades. I was also greeted with a teacher who felt it necessary to make fun of my clothes and music in very similar ways as my father had. It all just became too much and I fell into a deep depression. I regularly self harmed in frustration and as my own way of trying to defy perfection. By marking and scarring my flesh I felt like maybe I could fight against the flawless image. Eventually, this teacher discovered the marks on my arms one day during class. In the middle of the entire class he took of the shoulder and sleeve of my sweater off, so it was only half on, grabbed my wrist and held my arm above my head more toward his eye level. He confronted me in front of everyone, asking my what was all over my arm, and preaching about how disappointed god would be.
Well, surprise, surprise…that approach to the situation didn’t exactly help me. In fact, it just taught me that I had failed once again…I needed to be more careful. Perfection and precision could have prevented this all. So I “fixed” myself up. Being able to hide from everyone became my new success. No one wanted to deal with it so as long as it was out of their sight, I was considered better. It just became a challenge…and this challenge was one that I would NOT let myself be a failure at. I chose less obvious places, mostly my hips/upper thighs, right where my underwear would sit at my hips. My pants would irritate the cuts during the day, serving as a constant reminder that I’ve grown to depend on. I learned to buy all black underwear so there wouldn’t be suspicious bloodstains on the sides.
However, despite the control over the harm I was doing to my body, there were other things going on that I couldn’t control. In a short amount of time, three people I knew committed suicide. First, a friend’s mother jumped off a bridge just minutes from where I lived, then a family friend threw himself over Niagara Falls, and then a close friend of mine, whose details I don’t wish to know. I became fascinated with the reasons as to why someone would want to kill themselves. Sure, I would butcher my skin to feel in control, but that was different, I never wanted to die. I felt like I wanted to fix these people…I felt like no one should feel that terrible.
Then, a little under two years ago another friend of mine died…and unfortunately this time I was not spared the details and not spared the feelings of guilt. We spoke a lot about her ex boyfriend, and how he was psychotic…he tried to light her car on fire etc. and I did tell her to go to the cops, but they did nothing. So in the middle of December, two years ago, she had one last conflict with her ex. While I was sitting comfortable and safe and warm in the basement of my friend’s house watching Apocalypse Now! my friend was arguing with her boyfriend in her front lawn. He really was psychotic, he took out a gun and shot her in the head…leaving her on her lawn to be found 3 hours later in the morning. I remember that next day as one of biggest failures. I felt like I failed her. While she was cold, alone and dying, I was sitting warm and comfortable watching a movie. It was one thing to constantly evade perfection myself…but to not do everything I can for a friend who needed me…that was the worst sort of failure. I NEVER speak of this. I don’t think I could ever speak of this in person with anyone…it is one of my biggest regrets.
From that moment on I started to re-focus my obsession with perfection. School was still a big target, and I had a phenomenal average in high school that I’m proud of…but I turned the obsession into one of trying to help others…individually, one at a time. I decided I wanted to become a teacher, if only to prevent a terrible one like I had in grade 8 from affecting anyone else. I met a great group of friends who made me feel like I didn’t need to change anything about myself to be perfect.
I am still very far from happy with myself, but have learned to accept it. I still struggle with many of the old demons on a day to day basis, but I’m becoming less dependent on it. I stayed true to myself and now my relationship with my parents is much better. I would not change for them, and I wouldn’t ask them to change for me either…just to accept. The people in your life that are worth having around you should always just accept you.
Ideally, I’m hoping to embrace it rather then just dealing with it…but its all a work in progress. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that perfection isn’t unattainable…it’s just everyone has it! And unfortunately that’s a lesson that society has yet to learn. Don’t ever strive to be something you’re not…because what you’ve got, is precious…it’s pure perfection! And every single person has it.
xcrash-x.tumblr.com
SHOWHERSHESWONDERFUL-PLEDGE WITH ME
