I'm young, Asian, and female. I don't want to reveal my age, necessarily, but know that I am young enough for my suicide to be considered practically abnormal. Two years ago, a boy in my school killed himself by hanging himself in his closet. When I heard the news, I immediately told myself that he was weak and I would never allow myself to do something like that.
It's been two years. I'm typing this on my computer, and my arms are bleeding and I can barely see through my own tears. I'm hurt and I can't do anything about it. I haven't felt real happiness in so long; I don't know what to do and my whole body hurts inside and out. My search history for the past year contains the most difficult questions, some even Google unable to answer.
I'm so tired. The truth is, I'm weak and broken and I've tried to fix myself for so long it practically feels like I've been dreaming this past year. Sometimes in class, I make lists of all the possible ways I could kill myself. I've never hated myself or my life more. And I know I should probably put things into perspective, considering there are homeless and orphaned children somewhere out there, but when the day ends I find that at this point I would rather be dead than alive.
It was last November that I finally picked up the razor. A part of me had always wanted to hurt myself, to make myself realize that I was real and I could feel physical pain more than mental pain. And I realized that cutting myself hurt a lot less than I had imagined it to be and it became a strange sort of addiction for me. The pure pleasure I got out of feeling cloth rubbing over wounds on my arms and legs.
I play violin, too (of course, Asian). I've rolled up my sleeves so many times and picked up my violin and played for my own mother, who has never mentioned the scars on my arms. She's seen them, I know, because I've seen her blatantly staring at them. Yet, she doesn't bring them up. I brought up the subject of therapy once and she told me not to be silly and that I was too young and anything I was experiencing was all hormones.
It hurts to realize your own family doesn't love you. It was always my mother hitting me. When I told you my arms were bleeding, you might have assumed I had cut myself. No, it was my own mother's nails that she dug into me earlier this night. When I didn't pass my violin audition for the county orchestra she beat me with a stick and I barely cried. This seemed to just infuriate her more and that night I cried myself to sleep with red marks up and down my legs. My father cusses at me and calls me a dumbass and on Halloween night last year I finally stood up. I asked him, "Why do you always take my mother's side? Do you not love your own daughter?" The plastic tube he beat me with left welts for days. When kids at school asked me where I had hurt myself when I was changing for P.E. I told them my cat had scratched me or that I had an allergic reaction to a mosquito bite.
"Is this normal?" was a question I often found myself asking. Beating their own children is something common in Asian households, that I know for sure after hours of research, but I recall my mother once telling me that she would rather have me be successful than happy.
I have about three "close" friends. One of the girls is very innocent and we only truly keep her around for help with homework and tests. The other two are practically a duo. I am not very well known at school, because I don't tend to like the same things as other girls or boys my age. For example, on a free period day, they let everyone into the gym. The girls, of course, began following the boys and vice versa. I stood on the side awkwardly, without a place because no one has ever told me that they've had a crush on me. I remember escaping to the bathroom and sitting in the stall for about two hours, running my fingers up my marred arms and wondering why the hell I was still alive. When I returned, nobody noticed.
It was around this time I began to develop feelings for a girl named Rachel. I had always thought she was cool, and this year she had come back to school with her hair dyed purple and pink and gave absolutely no fucks about what anyone thought. When I realized I liked her, and I spent most of my time fantasizing about her, my heart sank. My Asian parents would disown me, and my friend group...
The duo in my friend group were very mean to me towards the beginning of the year. They would use me periodically for their entertainment, and then toss me the next day. I recall Halloween this year vividly. We had planned to go as a trio, but in the end decided to go with our separate out-of-school friend groups. At school, when we had discussed our candy haul, they narrowly avoided the topic. One of the girls (we'll call her L) said she had stayed at home, and the other (E) gave a vague description of her night. I had known them long enough to know my relationship with the two of them was extremely unhealthy and I was clinging to their friendship loosely. After school, I asked them if they had gone trick-or-treating together or not. L excused herself to the restroom and E followed shortly after. My innocent friend (N) stayed with me in silence. When the two returned (at the same time, of course) they told me to stop being so nosy and just trust them. I stayed quiet, staring down at my fingernails. Suddenly, the two started laughing about some inside joke they had and I asked what it was. L told me I wasn't involved in it, it had happened when she was in E's art class.
Now, I knew for a fact L wasn't in art, and the fact that they had so blatantly lied to me (twice) hurt me more than I had thought it could. I said, "No, you aren't in art?" L and E began laughing as if it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. "Yes, she is. She even sits here." said E, gesturing to L's "spot" in the classroom. N began to join their laughter, too, as they expanded the lie. I knew the joke was about something small and dumb but I remember tears burning my eyes and I left the room immediately to get my bag and call my mom to pick me up. I remember hearing behind me, one of them whispering "Sheesh, she's so sensitive."
Unfortunately, it was on this same day I had scored a 90 on my math test. The minute I entered the car, my mother turned around from the driver's seat and began to hit me everywhere. She slapped as much of me as she could, as I was curled into the side of the backseat, and then grabbed my phone out of my hand and threw it against the window. I watched it crack and fall into the passenger seat.
"You failure," she said, tears in her eyes. "I didn't come to America for you to be a dumbass and fail your classes. Do you know how much I prepared you for this test? You complete, utter failure. Why are you my daughter? Does God expect me to be proud of something as disgusting as you? All you do is watch your damn YouTube and fantasize over boys in your free time. Why don't you study instead, you idiot?"
The first time my mom ever said the F-Word to me was when I was eleven years old. Little did she know that boys had never been and probably never would be interested in me. That night, safely under my covers, I ran my razor over as much skin she had slapped. Some tired, sick part of me wanted her to realize that even if she hurt me, I could always hurt myself more. Splotches of blood littered my pajama pants when I woke up and I had to wash them under the running water of the tub at 2 am.
As the blood and tears on my body dry now, I have one final thing to say. I am going to end it. I am going to end this horribly cruel thing called "life" soon and nothing will be able to stop me. I know that when I die, I will not be missed because no one has loved me in order to miss me.
I'm tired now, but I've been tired for far too long. I wish for my younger brother to grow up well and healthy and loved by his friends if not his family, and I know he will not be missing a role model because I was too much of a failure to teach anyone anything.
Though I will not be killing myself tonight, it will be soon. I will die alone and perhaps I will print out this note so that when people discover my rotting body, they will understand that I hated my life. I hated myself.
Goodbye, world.
6/18/2018
-D.S.
Submitted June 18, 2018 at 08:19PM by istoleyourgoat https://ift.tt/2JYf1Bp
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