1998

So, I guess Ill write some more hey! This is kind of addictive and a little like therapy. Wonder what Ruth, my psychologist, would say. I guess Ill find out next week when I go to see her.



Looking back over my life from around 10yrs and onwards....mainly when I was a teenager though, I always felt like I had something that others didnt have. I felt like I didnt quite fit in, like I saw the world in a totally different way to 'normal' people. Theres this thing in the world of psychology called reaction formation - where if you totally hate something you will do the opposite and show that you really like it. I guess a little bit of cognitive dissonance was going on for me. I think I really hated life so I showed everyone that i loved it - I did the opposite. Its not like I had a horrible family or anything like that. My family are the best, my Mum and Dad are soooo loving and caring, they did their best, showed us how to live but there was something about life that I hated. And even now Im still not sure what it was. And I wasn't even thinking of any of this back then. Its only looking back now with a little hindsight that I can analyse what I was thinking and feeling.


When it came to the end of yr 10 on that youth group camp, everything I knew about how to survive was crashing down around me. The day after our youth group camp finished it was our yr 10 camp and seeing that the church I went to was affiliated with my school, everyone knew everyone. Gail was my y.g leader but was also the secretary of the school. So she updated our PE teacher - Mrs D.....so then everyone knew and kept a close watch on me. I know I didnt sleep at that camp. Other than that I dont remember much at all.


So yr 11, 1998, I started a new school - my previous school didnt have yr 11 or 12. I had always felt different to everyone else and I loved being different to everyone else, never liked being like the norm. School friends would wear normal clothes - I would live in my triple J shirts, army pants, flannies, beanies, horse riding gear.... so at my new school I found soooo many people just like me....and I hated that!! I wanted to be different, but that was never really an issue I dont think. Oh and brushing my hair......dont go there!!! And in yr4 I washed my hair with conditioner every night for a month......anything that would make me different - I was there!!


Even the people I would hang around with at skating on the weekends were 'different'. Lets just say that most now are either junkies, been in jail, are dealers or just living life on the wrong side of the tracks.
Ask Mum and Dad what I was like this yr and you will hear some terrifying, scary stories of what I was like. My undiagnosed depression became suicidal, I was writing stuff in my school folder and notes to my friends - mainly Aven - and when I threw them out a few yrs after school finished, they would send shivers up my spine - there were some seriously dark words written I tell you! I was obsessed with Silverchair - it was the time when Daniel Johns was in the depths of his depression, his song writing was dark and I finally felt that someone was writing what I felt!! None of my friends really knew what was going on even though we would write letters to each other in class - actually most of it was about nothing in particular - just shit you write when you dont wanna listen to what the teacher is teaching you.


I started to cut myself too. I dont know what I thought about that but I was cutting satanic stars into my arms...so deep that my freckle patch on my left arm wasn't so freckly anymore. I was struggling to keep going with life even though I never 'planned' a suicide. Others were planning their weddings (or at least their Deb balls), I was planning my funeral. Others were planning what they were going to study at uni. I was planning my funeral. But not that I let on about that, only to Liz - my friend who was coming off heroin who, I assume, was thinking and feeling the same stuff. We would plan our funerals together. Oh I had plans for uni too, it was the thing to do and so that I looked normal and was keeping it all together I had to have one and so that noone would worry. I was going to go into the police force (and actually got into Sports Tourism & Management.)


A friend at schools brother committed suicide that year. Hung himself in the garage. So why was it that when everyone at school was sad, I was proud of him, and I didnt even know him?? (Irrational thinking - again!) I wanted to be just like him. I remember asking a teacher that I knew 'why cannt I commit suicide?' I dont remember his response.


I was constantly listening to deep, dark, horrendous music. Anything that was about death, being in agony, hating life....I was there - I loved it! And I still loved Nirvana. I had 8 posters in my bedroom of Kurt Cobain - and not just ordinary posters - huge ones, 17 of Korn (oh I still looooove their songs from that time!!), and a stack of Pantera, Megadeath, Maiden, Sepultura....and Maralyn Manson - I was a closet fan.


Before I knew it, it was 1999 and we were in yr 12. Skating was getting pretty full on as in January 2000 a group of us were going to be competing in Las Vegas. I was aiming for my 8th grade piano exam too which was to be around the time of the HSC exams. I was a high achiever. Never perfect and never scored awesome marks but I had big expectations of myself. What ever it was that I was doing, I had to go to the top, to be elite. I was competitive within myself and I was never happy unless I reached the sky.


Anyway, school is almost finished and I need to pick Kasey up. Wonder how many people will end up reading this. Im anxious about what I will write when it comes to my journal. I have a feeling Im going to be doing the abbreviated version.


So until next time, hooroo.