I can't believe how long it's been since i last wrote on here, it's shocking. When I first started this blog in 2009 I had hoped that I would update regularly and by this time I'd have thousands of blog posts, and yet I only have 13 well 14 if you include this one. I thought that if i had a blog I'd be able to write about all the amazing things that I did, except I never did, any amazing things that is.
My first goal was to make friends as someone who had recently been cut off from her friends I was lonely and a little depressed ( okay so maybe it was more that a little) and I wanted people to talk to. I know people would say go join a club or go out with your friends, have fun. But how can you do that when you have no friends. My brother didn't understand he was popular and everyone loved him, my sister well she had her boyfriend, her son plus she had her friends so she didn't understand either. I used to find talking to people really hard and no matter how hard I tried to talk loudly nobody heard, and they would walk away. To me I was shouting and to them I was barely whispering. New situations scared me and the thought of meeting new people filled me with dread. I hated talking on the phone, the very thought of having to phone someone (even family) made me want to cry. I used to panic and think people would think I was weird, as sometimes I found it difficult to talk and forget words. It embarrassed me and made me feel so stupid.
But that wasn't all of my problems. i never thought the same way that people my age thought, I always seemed to get along better with people who were younger than me. Which is weird considering when I was 8 I was the one who told people in my class where babies came from and preferred to read Cosmo and Elle and grown-up magazines like that. I loved make-up, doing my nails and my hair. But the one thing that was different then compared to when I started this blog at 16 was, back then I liked my own company. I was bullied in school and felt I didn't fit in. I hated this country that my parents had moved us to, (not that I remember South Africa much) I used to wish we could go home, but it never happened. Whenever my mom used to say that we were moving back, i'd get so happy, I was finally going to be free of this hell. but time and time again my mom would say the plans off we're staying here. I'd be devastated each time, Hoping that maybe this time she actually means it, but she never did.
Growing up in Wales as a foreigner was hard, the kids in my school were horrible and I used to wish I could disappear. It's sad that the age of 8 I wanted to die. I used to think that it would be so easy, all I had to do was step off that pavement out into the traffic, I used to have to force myself to stop and walk normally. Taking pills, hanging myself, drowning and cutting my wrists, I used to think about it all the time. Wouldn't it be better if the ground would open up and swallow me whole, to be dead and free from their torment. I'd tried drowning myself on multiple occasions, by trying to fall asleep whilst in the bath so i wouldn't feel it, other times and shove my face in a sink of water and pray that it'd work but it never did. Pills? I would have done except my parents never kept them in the house, only a few things but not enough to do any harm. The thing that scared me the most about suicide was not the dying and having my parents find me, it was the thought of what if I fail? What then? Would people look at me differently? Would they think I was crazy? or Would they understand that I hurt and wanted it to stop? I don't know when I stopped trying, but I know that I've only recently discovered what true happiness is. Back then I couldn't tell you what happy meant, I still couldn't tell you know, but I'm trying. I remember telling my sister that I was trying to be happy and she told me she knew, but did she really mean it or was she trying to stop me from going over the edge.
I guess your thinking what could be so bad as to make an eight year suicidal right? Honestly I couldn't tell you. It was the small things they said and did day after day. 'Grinch' and 'Witch' were the names the called me. "Go back to your own country", " Go back so you can get killed to" and that wasn't the worst, When my cousin Christina died, they laughed and joked about it. At that moment I died a little inside, from then on I stopped trying to be their friend, I didn't want to be like them. They were racist and cruel. They used to think they were so fantastic and that being Welsh made them Gods. But from my experience and from what other members of my family had to go through, I can safely say I'd rather be dead that call myself Welsh.
The Welsh made me miserable and lonely. They also made me (in the words of my moms friend) "afraid of people". I was constantly worrying about what people thought and it made me anxious. I know I've always been a quiet person but when I'm with people I know I'm loud and speak my mind. After secondary school that changed, I was quiet even with family and more so in college. I looked afraid all the time and I hated it.
When I started college I though things would change, I would be happy and I'd have friends. But yes you guessed it, it didn't happen. When I went into my Geography lecture I found I was in the same class as my former best-friend. I thought that maybe if we talked we could go back to being friends, instead she ignored me. Every time I tried to talk to her it was like speaking to a brick wall, she didn't reply to anything I said. It was made worse when I found out I was in the sames classes as some of my other former-friends, In someways that was okay, because at least they talked to me. but then I'd hear them talk about me in the corridor as I walked passed and it hurt. We used to be friends and then we were nothing. I used to hide in the library in between lectures and brought my own food so that I never had to go to the canteen. Eventually I made a few friends but then my old ones got in the way and eventually I was on my own again.
After that I quit college and signed up for an Army prep course that by one remaining (kind of sad huh) friend had just finished. She looked so happy whilst on the course that I thought (rather stupidly) that if I went on it, I too would be happy, but it didn't work out. After that I went on a work scheme, where you tried a job for 8 weeks and had the opportunity to gain some low level qualifications whilst you worked. In some ways it was the turning point in my life but in others it was terrible.
The first placement i went to was in a Nursery day center. The job wasn't bad and I enjoyed looking after the children. The problem however was the fact that the place was short staffed and they expected us (the 3 of us there on work experience) to look after the children, your probably thinking "isn't that what you were there to do?" In some ways yes and others no. The staff would either be in the office, staff room or the kitchen, which meant that the children ( some as young as 9 months) were left alone with us. Bearing in min the oldest out of the three of us was only 17. It was a horrific experience to be suddenly made responsible for them at 16. I remember the day one of the babies (1 yr old) fell and I told staff. They had a go at me because I apparently hadn't checked to see if he had any injuries properly. I mean what was I meant to do, I didn't know what to do. They should have been there with me supervising, but they weren't. After that I finished and went onto another placement. Fortunately it wasn't childcare. that incident has scarred me for life.
Okay, so that's it. Part of my life story at least, maybe I'll write more another time, but at the moment thinking back on when I was younger is hard, it makes me sad. I wish I could erase that part of my life, but I guess in some ways it's whats made me the person I am today. Hopefully good, stronger and maybe a little bit happier.
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