How to escape isolation.

[polkadot314159265358979]

Hello. My name is Senwyn.

I can't say my problems have been as bad as most people have experienced on this site. But nevertheless, I would like to share my recovery story. It may be long, because I've never openly come out and told my experience to anyone. It seems insignificant in the face of some people's experiences that I think I'm a little pathetic for getting so upset and depressed over it. I was only isolated, after all. I wasn't abused, raped, beaten to a pulp, forced to watch my parents or sister die. I know people who have experienced these things. I knew someone who was raped, someone who SHed, someone who had a sibling die. But nevertheless, I will tell my story.

~~~~

I was born in Somerset on July 1991 and went to a small primary school where I had lots of friends. When I was eight, my family and I moved up to Hampshire.
At my new school, I failed to make many friends. People didn't like me. Because I wasn't pretty. Because I was shy. Because I was weird. I was put in the bottom maths class despite having been in top classes at my previous school. But this is all very minor.
I moved schools again at the end of year 4 and at my new school, I made friends with four people. Only two of them are relevent, so I shall call them A and B. Primary school was fine. I got teased a little, but I was happy. I was enjoying myself.

~~~~

The problem began when I started secondary school.
My friends A and B were becoming interested in guys and fashion. I was not (I now know that this is due to my asexuality but at the time I didn't understand it). Because of this, they became closer and closer and I began to become excluded from the group.
And a few months into year seven, I lost all four friends and became completely isolated. The incident was my fault. I hit B over the head with a p.e bag by accident. When I tried to argue my innocence, they wouldn't believe me. I can't remember their words.
It's difficult for me to explain how hard this was on me. Maybe it sounds a little pathetic, but I became completely isolated. Other people at that school didn't like me. I was bullied. I immersed myself in school work in an attempt to cope. In a way, I was lucky. I have no doubts that I would have self harmed if I had known about it. As it was, I was very naive and very quiet and the worst I did was rip my nails apart.

I ate outside in a corner of the playground by myself, winter to summer. I used to get taunted by people going past me and I used to rush to the library to hide behind a stand of books, hiding myself away.
I tried everything. I tried a student mentor, I tried telling a teacher. My teacher could do nothing. She was very quiet and had no control over her class, so the bullying worsened. I don't think it ever got to physical bullying, but my things would be taken and thrown around the classroom, and if I started to cry I would get laughed at and made fun of.
I ended up suppressing my emotions entirely and building a wall around myself. I tried to act like I didn't care. But I did. I was fragile. If I even forgot my homework, I would cry. I couldn't handle it.
Looking back, I was incredibly depressed.

Then something great happened. My friend A fell out with friend B. And she became my friend again. For a few weeks, I had someone to talk to, and slowly, precariously, I began to lower my walls again.
It didn't last. My friend A made up with B. And the instant it happened, she told me she didn't want to be my friend anymore, that she wanted to be friends with B much more than she wanted to be friends with me.
And I was alone again. Untill a month later she fell out with B once more. And for two years, this cycle continued.
I became entirely dependent on A. I desperately looked forward to the time when she would be my friend again, when I wouldn't be alone. I shut off further to other people. She was the only person I had.

At home, it was no matter. My walls had become strong. I distanced myself from my family. I started arguments over little things. I made my mother cry, my father roar with rage, while I used a quiet little voice and as they told me I was evil, all I did was cause pain and that my mother must have been wicked to have a child like me, i said I didn't care. They couldn't hurt me. I wouldn't let them. While everyone surrounded my mother who cried openly, I went and cried alone in my room, no longer able to cry or show affection in front of people after years of being mocked for crying due to my depression. It would be a lie to say their words didn't hurt me. At the time, I was so quick to jump to anger, so quick to perceive persecution. Quick to defend myself. But I was very easily hurt. My mother didn't even say the line 'I must have done something wicked' to my face. I overheard them.

In year ten, it finally stabilised. A little bit, anyway. A and I were both in the same set, so I spent all my lessons in the same class as her. I was calmer at home, less likely to start a fight. I was somewhat happier at school. I still spent my breaks alone, but I had something to look forward to. And I was a school librarian and prefect. Doing my GCSEs. I was busy.
Then in year 11. I discovered that A self harmed. It took me by surprise. You can imagine my fear. The person I relied on as my only friend was trying to kill herself. With no one else to talk to, no one else to ask, I turned to the internet. I researched it. And I wrote her a letter. I wanted to tell her to stop S-Harming. But I didn't want her to hate me. SO instead. I tried to understand. I tried to.. I guess I wanted to make sure it was ok.

At around the same time, I discovered this website. Since year 9, I had come to a conclusion about my future. I was going to end up by myself. Alone my entire life. I couldn't talk to other people, I was incapable of socialising. I was ugly, I was unlovable and I was evil incarnate. So it came to self harm. I didn't self harm for very long. I think I self harmed for four months. It was mainly on my wrist and upper thigh. I only wrote one word, but that came later. To me, it wasn't self harm. It was a suicide attempt. And I wrote on this site about how I was feeling. Under the name Truth_seeker.
Anyway, my friend recieved the letter. She wrote back. She told me I was bottom of her priorities, I was a work buddy, she didn't want me psychoanalysing her, that it was none of my business. She essentially told me I meant shit all to her (excuse the language) and told me where to go. SHe also added that I could never understand what it felt like to be depressed and alone and experience all these painful feelings.

I can't remember how it resolved, but she did become my friend again. And sometime around january, she suddenly became very nice. She came around my house and visited me. I was very happy.
Untill I received an email on this site from a person called C. She asked me if I was Senwyn. And I was frightened. Someone knew who I was on this site. Someone I knew.
And I later found out it was A who had told her. A knew. A had read my posts.

I was very upset. I can't remember exactly what I said to A.
I think I was hurt because she only took interest in me because she thought I was trying to kill myself. It was the only time she could bring herself to give a damn. She was telling me how important i was, how she really wanted to support me.
And I stopped being her friend. I finally got rid of her. This person who had quite possibly destroyed my life. I finally realised how valueless she was. It took me seven years. But I did it.
Suddenly, I was alone. But I was capable of handling it. I had spent six years by myself, learning to entertain myself, learning to handle loneliness. And I started sixth form college. Convinced I would be alone my whole life but aware I could handle it now.

~~~

This is where it began to change.
During my years of isolation, I had become interested in roleplay, in manga and in anime. As someone who had become almost incapable of feeling strong emotions, of expressing myself, of communicating or even desiring frineds, the exaggerated emotions in anime helped me alot. I was able to feel again. I was less empty.
And it was through this media that I made my first true friend.
I will call her Z. I found out she liked the same anime as I did, and we started talking on the bus. I was suddenly having full conversations with this person who had been at my school for seven years but whom I had never noticed, so absorbed had I been in being A's friend, a 'perfect friend'.
Before I noticed, I was no longer eating my lunch by myself. I was discussing things with her, hanging around with her.
I had one small argument with her over a volume of manga (she had bought the one I wanted), so suspicious was I over being betrayed again, so wary of trusting people. And she told me I was one of her best friends and she didn't want to lose me over a manga. She said if I was that upset then she would give me the manga.
But I didn't care about the manga. She said I was her best friend. Me. This person who was used to being at the bottom of a food chain, used to apologising and carefully trying to keep hold of one person as a friend. I can't express how happy it made me feel. I was finally worth something. It made me cry.
She came over my house and hung out playing video games with me. I have never experienced that before in my life. No one has ever come over my house to play video games or do anything with me. No one has cared before.
I recently found out that she had considered me a friend in year seven. That I had suddenly stopped talking to her. I know why I did; it was almost certainly a complete emotional withdrawal due to losing my friends. She worked in the library with me. She hung around with me at break and lunch during year 10 and 11. She was in my french class and we used to occasionally talk. She said that she had considered me a very good friend in year 11.
Yet.. I never noticed. Or rather I can't remember. I can barely remember anything from my secondary school days. I think I was so focused on A that I didn't pay attention to anything else.
But it made me feel very happy to think that for all those years someone sincerely liked me, rather than using me like A did. And it makes me sad to think I don't even remember speaking to her until year 11.
Now, we are preparing for an anime convention. We are both going to it to buy stuff and get involved in cosplay. She is my friend. And to her, I am her friend. She often chooses to hang around with me over other people. And A no longer rules my life.

Two years ago, if you had asked me, I would have said that my future is to be on my own, forever and ever. Now, I have someone who I would consider my best friend.

~~~~~

Thank you if you wasted any time reading this. Even though I haven't experienced anything majorly bad in my life, I wanted to post it because I wanted to show that no matter how bad the future seems to be, there's always hope waiting around the corner. As cheesy as it sounds.
I still have insecurities. I still can't express myself fully or trust fully. But I'm getting there. I hope other people manage to pull through too.

[moyshi239]

Hi Senwyn,
I read your whole story (not a waste of time, I assure you!) and honestly, you should be proud of yourself. It takes so much courage to get rid of the poisons in your life, in your case, friend A and B. It's hard to stand up to people (especially those you consider to be friends), and like you said, you fall into cycles. I'm glad you were finally able to get out of it. Friend Z sounds like a keeper.

It's odd how when you look back on the younger years of our life leading up to the present you realize exactly how far you've come. Things do get better, even if you don't have any hope that things will. I'm glad you're on the right track, and although things may not be perfect, you've really improved. Be proud! :]