Chapter Four: The Happiest Of Things Can Be The Core Of Destruction.

At the start of year 10(2013) everything started to fade away.. the rumours, the backstabbing, the lying everything bad started to slip away and good things started to come my way. I started to have crushes again gained friends everything was fine until about early May last year I started to like a guy he was 19 at the time and he liked me back. He and I started dating and it was fine for a few weeks but one day we had a massive fight and we didn’t talk for two days. On the third day we had to go to church, and he asked me to meet him at the back of a hall next to the church, so I left my friends my family to meet him. It was a dark, cold gloomy night and it was about to rain. All of a sudden I’m walking towards the hall and I hear someone calling my name it was him. Now I thought he was calling me to apologise to me and to talk out… But I was wrong. He instead had the idea of taking my virginity as his apology to make everything better, but I didn’t want it. I struggled and cried and screamed…but no one could hear me. He had taken my jumper off, thrown it to the ground, he had taken my bra off, was forcing me to give him a blowjob and I was on the verge of throwing up. He was pushing me against the wall with all force and now he put me to my feet feet and had unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans had pulled them down and then, he took his shirt had put his pants down and taken them off, The only thing that was on the on both our bodies together was my underwear. He realised I still had them on, and taken them off me. I was still screaming but he was covering my mouth, he had nearly inserted his part until I punched him in the stomach, I was so scared I got ready in less than a minute. As soon as I had everything on I ran back to the church hearing him calling out my name in the back saying he was sorry that he didn’t mean it. After that night, we didn’t break up for at least two months. In that entire time, he spoke about his ex, he was talking about all the other girls he was seeing, the girls he was having sex with… but not one once did we ever break the relationship. After two months one of my guy friends had liked me for at least four years and he asked to hang out one day after school. So I agreed. And it was one of the worst decisions I had ever made.

MY ADVICE: if you are getting sexually harassed, or you have gone through the same thing I have stop what should I doing tell a leader, tell a teacher, it may be hard to tell a parent but tell a parent, tell a friend tell anyone that can help you get through it or that you trust to keep it a secret or to help you tell them you won’t regret it. Just remember you aren’t worth the suffering, the pain and agony of keeping it in, off it eating you alive. Just tell someone and it will make your life whole lot easier
~ K xx

Chapter Six: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think!

Everything has been going good for me lately. I’m dropping out of school, starting an online course in photography for the rest of the year, I have a job, I have a boyfriend and friends who are genuine and are always there to support me… I thought nothing would go wrong but you see, life has this thing it likes to do – it likes to fuck shit up whenever you’re happy. In the last three days I have received over 20 prank calls from a number of different people, I have been asked several times to explain false rumours going around about me which just make me feel like shit whenever I hear the things that people are making up. I get thrown back to square one and have to start my baby steps all over again. This time I feel that I need to feel good about myself. I need to change my image like get a new haircut, dress differently, wear my make-up differently – you know, small things that I love about myself and hopefully it should make me feel good about myself. How I see it, if I change something about myself now that is in one way or another related to what is making me feel shitty, then I should feel empowered, strong, brave, courageous and happier! Usually changing my haircut or dressing differently fills me with a new outlook and that’s what I need. A new outlook on life. I am turning over a new leaf and making a complete change with my life. That is… until the next small hiccup comes my way, but there are always ways of dealing with hiccups. Drink lots of water, get someone to scare you or any other method. Life constantly throws hiccups at you because you are strong enough to withstand them. The way I see it is that each and every one of you has been put here for a reason and you are put through certain “adventures” or “journeys” for a reason – you would not be put through something that you cannot handle! Think about it, those girls and/or guys you see who have rich parents and are spoilt rotten and get everything and anything they want, they would never be able to to handle the things you’re going through because in all reality your struggles make you stronger even though it seems like all it’s doing is tearing you down. Find the strength to speak up and make a stand in your life – even though you’re strong enough to go through the hell life throws at you, doesn’t mean that you deserve it. Every second you improve and get better, life will be judging the best time to throw hiccups in your track, that’s just how it works,, but don’t let that get you down! As good ol’ Christopher Robin says to Pooh Bear: “Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” (written by A. A. Milne).

PLEASE READ: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. Stay strong! You are a warrior and you deserve happiness. Don’t take shit from anyone and do what makes you happy. Do whatever you need to do to create your own happiness!
-S x

Chapter Five: Ditch the Heartache and Create Your Own Happiness

I haven’t been at school for the past four or five weeks; I no longer feel safe and no longer see the point in completing VCE at all. I am fed up with the petty bullshit drama that revolves around school and I want out… so I ditched the heartache. I am in the process of leaving school for good, but I am not quitting my education completely. I’m enrolling in an online course that will take up the remainder of the year and then next year I’m straight into tafe doing something that I love and being somewhere where I am genuinely happy and feel safe. Not being at school has really given me some time to myself to really think about what was making me so depressed and pushing me to the point where I was literally thinking about ending it all. I kept myself locked away in my room and only ever left the house if I was on my own, and when I did leave the house, it was always to run away to my best guy friend’s house to escape the tragedy that had essentially become my life. I would always fake a smile around friends and after leaving school I slowly began to feel that fake smile becoming real. I was away from what was making me depressed and scared, and although I’m not completely better at the moment, I am on the fast track to recovery because I had the support of my two best friends by at all times. It was extremely hard for me to let them in and know even a small portion of what was going on inside my head, but opening up to them really helped. It took time, but it worked for me. I found myself leaving the house more often to go and see my best guy friend, he is really supportive and understands that sometimes I just need to get away from my life and just sleep or hang out at a place where I feel safe; with all the time we were spending together and the many years of our friendship and being close all the time and sharing practically everything together and his family being completely understanding with me being over there all the time… we started dating. It has been one rocky road for me especially regarding the whole “relationship” part of life and to others and even you, it may sound like that I’m just asking for more trouble in my life. Because of him my life has made a dramatic turn and spending time with him genuinely makes me happy and makes me feel safe. I guess life has a very, very weird and fucked up way of working.

PLEASE READ: for me, in order to get on track and get my life in order and start getting better, I had to eliminate what was making things so shitty for me. If you find yourself being genuinely unhappy, felling unsafe and/or feeling like you need to harm yourself in order to escape the pain, I just ask you to look around yourself and find what triggers you to feel like that. It’s all about taking baby steps and doing what you are comfortable with. Once you and key point what is making you feel like absolute shit and that you need to end it all, GET RID OF IT! Move schools, make better friends, change subjects, go to tafe, quit your job! Anything that is holding you down and suffocating you needs to go. It’s hard, I know, and it’s even harder if you’ve been through more shit than me or been dealing with shit longer than me or are even just really affected by it all, it’s hard and I know that, and I know it might not be as easy for you to create your own happiness as it was for me and I applaud you for hanging in there, being strong and being a warrior! You’re strong, brave and you’re here for a reason – don’t give up yet! I want you here.
-S x

Chapter Four: You is Kind. You is Smart. You is Important.

The school holidays came around and I thought that by the time school started again everything would be fine, everyone would have forgotten about my mistake and just drop it, but sadly that wasn’t exactly the case. The drama that followed was just too much for me and that’s the point where I lost it, that was the point where I just crumbled and broke and lost myself. I didn’t know what to think, what to do, I didn’t even really have a clue who I was anymore. Cheating isn’t something I would ever do! I’ve been cheated on before and I know what it feels like and I would never ever want to put someone through that… but I did and I am forever apologetic for doing that to my ex because he didn’t deserve it. I was so hurt and disappointed in myself that I started to take my anger out on myself. I was so good at hiding my emotions and my actions that not even my best friend knows what I really went through. I started to cut again and I just completely lost myself that I even started of thinking of ways to kill myself. I blamed myself for being sexually assaulted. I blamed myself for cheating. I blamed myself for every single thing that went remotely wrong in my life. I kept myself busy and redirected my negative energy about my life onto my media assignment which is how I came up with the idea to create a short film about a young girl battling with suicide, that is one thing that really helped me get past my “suicidal stage” but it didn’t help me get past all the shit going on at school. My ex’s friend was continually saying shit about me which then lead to other people creating their own rumours about me; I was so sick of it and felt so unsafe going to school every day. What really pushed me over the edge was my ex’s friend saying that he was going to make my life hell until I left the school. I felt like I couldn’t go out because no matter what I did it would somehow be fuel to the fire. I couldn’t go out with friends without rumours going around saying that I was a lesbian and God knows what else they were saying. People were continuously telling me that I was “fake” and “untrustworthy” and other nonsense like that and I can understand how they were coming from because of ONE mistake that I made COMPLETELY OUT OF CHARACTER but they didn’t know the FULL, TRUE STORY! No one bothered to come and ask me what actually happened, instead they just thought what they wanted to and listened to all the bullshit rumours going around about me. I was really hurt because people that I thought I could call friends were not only believing the rumours going around about me, but were also adding their 2 cents to the rumours which just made things worse. I would leave school early and sometimes I wouldn’t even show up to school for days; I just felt so unsafe and attacked. School was always a place that I loved going to, I always felt safe and I honestly really enjoyed doing all the schoolwork, but I was no longer enjoying myself and no longer felt like school was a happy and safe place for me to be anymore, the rumours that were going around literally destroyed me and who I was. I am no longer who I am and that’s what really destroys me every day and night, the fact that someone had the power to destroy my entire being is what eats me up inside whenever I am alone with my thoughts.

PLEASE READ: no one should ever have the power to destroy your entire being or even a small fraction of who you are, you and only you have the ability to define who you are! I am still building myself back up and trying to rediscover who I am. Don’t let anyone make you feel so unsafe and scared that you can no longer go to school or to work or do something that you love. Speak up because no matter if you’re 12 years old or 32, no one has the right to bully you or destroy who you are. You do not have to put up with anyone who makes you unsafe, uncomfortable or uneasy about yourself or where you are. If you’re thinking about suicide and/or harming yourself, I ask that you look deep inside yourself and think of what truly makes you happy – doesn’t matter what it is! When you find what truly makes you happy then start doing it. Redirect that negative energy and turn it into something positive. By directing my negative energy into the short film about suicide, I started getting really busy and focused on creating something, I’ve always been happy mucking around with technology and creating things and it really helped me out. You is kind. You is smart. You is important. (The Help).
-S x

Chapter Three: Every Choice Comes with Consequences

So after I cam clean about my mistake, I decided not to tell anyone the reason why I broke things off and I thought that my now ex-boyfriend would do the same, not for but for himself; sadly, that wasn’t case. I understand why he felt the need to tell his dad, his best friend and his closest mate, he needed to vent to someone and get advice from friends and all that, and I completely understand that and I was glad that he did so he didn’t keep it all bottled up inside; but it was his closest friend that decided to take things into his own hands and let the cat out of the bag. I was never angry at any of them, only disappointed. They all knew what had happened to me in the past and I would have at least thought that they would be considerate and not spread it around the school; I knew they were going to talk about it, I just never knew that they would create what became my life in hell. I started getting threatening messages from the closest mate, he was saying awful things about me that weren’t true. He knew damn well what actually happened at my old school yet he was the one that went around my new school saying that I actually consented to having sex with the guy on school property. He is also the one who started the rumour that I was selling myself as a prostitute and that I had slept with half the guys at school; when this rumour spread I started getting phone calls at 3 o’clock in the morning, can you guess who was calling me? That’s right, my ex-boyfriend’s closest mate! At this point in time, my parents were going through a very sticky situation. My dad had been kicked out of the house and my mum threatening to divorce him. This didn’t exactly affect too badly because, and I know this sounds bad, I don’t actually like my dad that much – he’s controlling, picks on my every flaw, says I’m lazy and no good when all I do everyday is homework, work and clean up around the house, he always finds something to criticise about me and it just made me dislike him… a lot. Anyway, I was feeling overly stressed because my mum and sister’s were taking this messy situation between my parents pretty hard, but when I started receiving phone calls at 3am asking why I cheated on my ex, if I’m straight or lesbian, if I charge money for sex and if so, how much, when I was available next to go and sell my body to a guy – meaning to have sex in exchange for money – and I knew damn well who it was. This went on for about a week. I started to develop an eating disorder because of stress. My stress levels were too high which then made it extremely difficult for me to swallow food and when I did manage to swallow something, it was the most painful thing in the world and I just wanted to throw up because it was that painful; and I did a couple of times. I eventually got medication and that helped a lot! When I could eat again, I just ate all the pizza I could and ended up gaining weight – which for me wasn’t an issue because I’ve always been quite thin naturally, so thin that people thought I was anorexic which is untrue because if you actually know me, I eat so much and usually leave people wondering how I’m so skinny when I don’t exercise at all. But people noticed my weight gain and one of those people were my ex’s closest mate. I ran out of my medication and my stress/eating disorder should have been fixed, but it wasn’t. My parents took me to hospital to find out with there was a serious underlying condition that our general doctor missed and I had to stay overnight. Later that night I received yet another phone call at 3am and this time it was somewhat different. I could easily tell it was my ex’s closest mate, he’s part British and he isn’t very good at hiding his accent. He started to ask me the usual questions, how much do you charge for sex? I’m looking for a fun time. I hear you fuck guys wherever they want like on pool tables, the kitchen bench, in cars. I told him to knock it off because I wasn’t in the mood and that I was tired and so sick that I was in hospital, that could have been the worst thing I could have said. I thought that by telling him that I was in hospital would make him realise that he needs to stop, he and I were good friends and I thought that he would apologise and hang up, or at least just hang up and leave me alone, but nope, I had unknowingly given him another outlet to start rumours. His response to me telling him I was in hospital was, “Oh, you’re in hospital? Is that because you’re getting an abortion? We all know you’ve gained weight and it doesn’t surprise me you’re pregnant. Getting an abortion so you can still whore around?”. After that I hung up and threw my phone across the room. The school holidays were just about to start, thank God!

PLEASE READ: just because you’ve made a bad choice or a mistake, doesn’t mean that you are entitled to the consequences that follow. I sure as hell did not deserve what has so far been dished out to me for one mistake and what’s even is worse is that it was all dished out to me by someone that I was quite proud to once call my good friend. If you find yourself being unfairly treated for a mistake that you’ve done, then take a stand and say your peace. You need to keep in mind that no matter, people are always going to be talking about you, a lesson that we all have to learn, I just hope you learn yours in a nicer way compared to mine. If you are struggling against an eating disorder of ANY kind, please seek help even if it’s just telling a friend, family member, teacher or even me, it’s still making someone aware or what’s going on and hopefully they can help you in the right way. Also, if you know someone who is struggling with an eating disorder, don’t force them to eat or eat less. They’re not eating/overeating for a reason. Forcing them to do so can just push them further away, talk to them, find out why/how they developed their eating disorder and then talk to them about finding a way to help them get back on track. It’s all about listening and taking baby steps to get yourself back on the road to recovery and then to a happier life.
-S x

Chapter Two: We all Make Mistakes – We’re Only Human!

After being able to get into a new school on such short notice, my life began to turn around for the better. I made new friends, had good grades although my ability to become friends with guys was shattered. Growing up, I had always been one of those girls that was friends with guys, sure I always had a close girl friend or two, but guys just seemed to be better friends at certain times. My first few months at my new school my mind was constantly getting confused about guys – sounds as though I’m talking about dating-wise but no, I was confused about guys because I didn’t know who to trust, how to trust, how to tell the good guys from the bad guys. I ended up getting into two relationships since I started at the new school. The first boyfriend – he was kind, a Christian, sweet, compassionate, I thought there was nothing wrong until I realised that my ex was also kind, sweet, compassionate and also a Christian. I was terrified of this new guy and didn’t want to be assaulted again, so I broke things off, we’re still friends to this day but it is awkward because my initial first feeling towards him of being scared still lingers. Months went by and I started to drink; it started as my best friend and I going to a party and doing shots. That night I was tipsy and because it was the first time I had ever had alcohol in my system I wasn’t used to the effects it causes to the human body. When I got home to my friend’s house, I ended up splitting my head open on his bedside table and having my best friend clean the blood up with one of those make-up removal wipes – I didn’t need stitches, thank God, but I still have a slightly noticeable dent in my head. One week later after that party, I got into the second relationship – this guy sensitive, compassionate, loving, caring, supportive. Yes, I was scared that he was going to turn out like my first, but I thought I owed myself to try and get over this “fear” of guys and give the new guy a shot. We were happy together for a couple of months but it started going downhill. It all started when he told my best friend that he wasn’t going to talk to me for one week every month – care to take a guess why? Periods. How insensitive is that? From that point on, I started to feel insecure and scared of him. A week later we went to a mate’s 19th, we were both drinking. I had about three “cruiser-like” drinks and him… well he ended up passing out in the toilet and not once did he talk to me that night, he completely ignored me the entire night. My best friend was also there but she had sectioned herself off to spend some “alone time” with her boyfriend. When I heard that people were going to bring drugs to the party, I high-tailed it out of there! I was uncomfortable and scared so I rang my best guy friend. He and two of his friends came and picked me up and took me to his to stay the night. I got along great with his two friends and was even really flirty with one of them. At this point I felt nothing to my boyfriend at that time that for one night I completely forgot that I was even dating him. That night was the night that I lost my virginity to one of my best guy friend’s mates. I felt horrible, I left my friend’s house at 3am and walked the streets until my mum picked me up at 8 o’clock. I didn’t see my boyfriend until three days later and I came clean immediately. At first, I wasn’t going to tell him and I was just going to end things with him because I had done something horrible, but a guy I know told me that he deserves to know the truth, so I told my boyfriend what happened and broke things off. He promised not to tell anyone because I didn’t want it to get out – I’m not a cheater, I don’t use guys. I made a mistake and I take full responsibility for it! Yes, I had been drinking, yes my relationship was going downhill, and yes my mind was completely fucked up due to the on-going trauma caused by my first relationship, even though all those things play a part in my decision, it was still my decision to cheat. I regret hurting my boyfriend but in all honesty, I don’t regret losing my virginity; I mean, yes I regret cheating, but I don’t regret having sex for the first time. It opened up my eyes and made me grow up, I feel more mature after that night and I think that’s really helped me out.

PLEASE READ: drinking alcohol and doing drugs can harm your body! It is your choice, but please think about the consequences! When drinking and/or doing drugs, take extra time to think things through when it comes to making big decisions like losing your virginity – you don’t want to wake up the next morning and regret it! Cheating is wrong but we all make mistakes! I believe that if you come clean about it as soon as possible, you will feel better and not guilty anymore. You may find that cheating was the best thing you could have done for yourself, but your partner deserves to know! Do not let a mistake like cheating affect who you are or your reputation. Cheating is merely an act, not a definition of who you are! I do not approve of cheating but I do understand that sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes our minds are not in the right place and shit happens, but if you deal with it maturely and take responsibility for your mistake/s, in the end you’ll feel better. Everyone makes mistakes and their mistakes do not define who they are so do not judge them based solely on the mistakes they’ve made – learn to focus not only on the bad, but also on the good!
-S x