There is nothing normal about my life, although to me this is all I’ve known. By the time I was five I had lived in more houses than I was years old. While in Tasmania I had a best friend called “Tilly”. She had short brown hair and was a rascal, locking us in my house when her mother came to pick her up, and introducing me to naughty games such as “doctor”. I remember the day I had to say goodbye to Tilly. We had only just started school together. Tilly screamed and cried when my family and I came over to say good bye. She gave me something from her doctor’s kit to remember her by. When I was back in Melbourne we continued to write letters to each other. Tilly always said she hoped to see me again, but she never did. Eventually the letters fizzled out into nothingness, like the void that was growing within me. I learnt that it was dangerous to form attachments, so I rarely did.

I did make friends at my new school. But when I was five I experienced what I believe to be narcissistic abuse from another five year old. I had no terminology or understanding of what was happening. But a nasty smear campaign was spread about me by her mother which destroyed my reputation and led to me losing a number of friends. I also had my enrolment at a school declined. The gaslighting messed with my memory of what actually happened, if anything. All I know is that it was sexual in nature.

I moved schools and assumed a new identity. I had a few good years, until I moved again to my fourth primary school and was bullied every day for the rest of my time there. I missed out on the stability and the sense of belonging that other children get. Life at home wasn’t great either. My parents always fought. During one fight I had to stand between them and scream “stop” to stop them from hurting each other physically. My mother stormed off and slammed the front door so hard that the glass shattered.

I had lost my confidence by the time I started high school. I was no longer the vivacious child that I once was. I was easy pray for more bullies. I made some friends during Year 8, which sheltered me from the general bitchiness which went on. But I had a fight with my friends the following year, so started sitting with someone I met in art class. She sat with a big group of girls and amongst them was the narcissist from primary school. She resumed her smear campaign and tried to turn her group against me. I was told if I kept sitting with them I would be hurt physically and psychologically. One girl decided to cast a vote on how many people hated me. I was late to class that day as I was in the toilets crying.

I left that school even more broken. I had post traumatic stress. Whenever I passed groups of people I thought they were talking about me, laughing at me, or plotting to get rid of me. I was jumpy, cried all the time and screamed at school camp. I couldn’t do any of the normal things teenagers do like go to parties. People terrified me, and everything was too loud. People didn’t understand why I left parties or cancelled last minute. They thought I just wasn’t getting my way, didn’t like their music and having a hissy fit. I knew nothing about autism at the time. I just had this distressing sense of aloneness which consumed my entire being. I couldn’t talk to anyone. No one understood. There was just so many things I couldn’t talk about. So many secrets I had to keep to myself.

I ended up leaving that school too. I completed my final two years of school elsewhere. I continued to be bullied. I gave up on making friends, and instead became a workaholic, something that Peter Walker talks about in his “4Fs“. I studied at recess and lunch, on excursions, on the bus home and the minute I got home from school. I became a straight-A student. I put so much pressure on myself to achieve. Sometimes I broke under the pressure. During one test I was unable to remember the answers even though I’d studied so hard. I got up, handed the blank sheets to the teacher and walked out. But most of the time I did well. I was in survival mode. Get through one test. Then another. Then another. Just like my whole life. Get through one trauma, then another, and another. For some strange reason I ended up school dux. I don’t know how it happened as I was utterly miserable during that final year of school. When I wasn’t studying I roamed around the edge of the school yard fantasising about leaving, or jumping in front of the train. I still have dreams that Year 12 isn’t over. Year 12, living in a hostile family environment, being bullied/ostracised and maybe even trauams I don’t even remember have left me in a perpetual state of stress and anxiety.

I thought life would be better once I left school. And, for a year it was. I got a scholarship and started a Bachelor of Arts degree at uni majoring in Psychology. I was active on campus and joined lots of student clubs. But during my second year I decided to see one of the uni’s counsellors as I was being sexually harassed by another student. I only expected to see her the once, but she invited me back to talk about the earlier traumas in my life which I had never spoken about before. It meant the world to be that someone cared. Before I knew it I had attached myself to this lady. She became like the friend I’d always longed for. But I couldn’t continue seeing her forever. Knowing this, my depression came back, and it came back with a vengeance.

I spent my 20s being passed from therapist to therapist, looking for the emotional care I didn’t have growing up. My trauma was like an iceburg; no one and nothing could even scratch the surface. When I was 24 I ended up in a public psych ward. I dropped out of uni. I just couldn’t keep going anymore. I withdrew from friends and pretty much everything. I spent my entire twenties wishing I was dead, in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and swallowing pills of all shapes and colours.

I often get jealous when I watch friends find partners, have babies, buy a house and start a family. I feel like I will never be capable of this. In high school I was told with grades like mine I could do anything and be anyone I wanted to be. I’m not so sure. I worked so hard and for what? Yes it was good to get my degree covered. But grades can’t buy you connection. Grades can’t buy you love… real love. Grades can’t buy you happiness. I don’t know what the teachers would think of me if they found out their dux of 2010 is now unemployed, on social security and in and out of psychiatric hospitals.

I will have to finish this post here as once again my battery is about to die, and the hospital won’t let me keep my charger in my room as they think people can kill themselves with it. So, until the next miserable post, good bye.