The Ghost That Was Once Me

I loved reading books and I could read an entire book in one day. I thought my parents and siblings would be proud of me because I was the fastest reader in our class! I thought they would appreciate that I was sprouting all these new informations and stories because I read almost every book I could get a hold of! They weren't. They scowled at me because I never talked to the other kids. They reprimanded me because I never helped with the chores. They shouted at me because I didn't eat with them at the table. I admit my healthy obsession was unhealthy, but I didn't know this. I was in grade school! Nobody cared enough to explain why what I was doing was wrong.

So I turned over my reading for singing. I sang in class, I sang during competitions, and I sang at school functions. When I shared this with my friends and family, they didn't congratulate me. In fact, I don't think they even heard a word that I said. Their glazed over eyes seemed to stare right through me, and their ears heard nothing but a string of jumbled words. 

When I stopped singing and I stopped reading, I just simply stopped. I stopped being and doing anything. I was a walking zombie. This didn't sit well with my teachers, my guidance counselor, my parents or my friends. They all said I was lazy. Lazy and hopeless. One time, I was sitting in our parked van with my one-year-younger-than-me cousin and the AC and radio was off. My cousin asked me if she could turn it on, and I said sure but only turn the key on the ignition once. My cousin reached over to the driver's seat and yanked the key all the way. The van instantly jolted to life, scratched three parked cars and stopped when it hit a fourth. When we got home, my aunt who was just visiting, who I have no close relationship to, who I do not talk to, walked up to me screamed insults and slapped me. I stood there, not because I was shocked, but because I felt nothing. Everyone blamed me. Me who sat by and did nothing, while my cousin who yanked the keys all the way, who I clearly told to turn it up only once, got by with a free pass, a few hugs and reassurances, and said nothing to defend me.

So I stopped stopping, and started being someone and doing something. I joined a youth group. I applied for a group, got accepted and quickly rose the ranks to become a leader, a head of a committee. A committee of people who had been in the youth group longer than me. Every Saturdays, I would help kids below the age of 13 with activities and songs and dances and the arts. Every Tuesdays and Saturdays (and sometimes even Sundays), I joined in meetings, I learned about God more, and thought that I had changed. My other friends and family were quick to point out that I hadn't changed. I was worse. They told me that I wasn't any good because I was serving and helping in the community, but I was worthless in the house and at school. I didn't understand what they were saying because I was trying to change my attitude but it would take time and it would be a miracle if I changed in just one night. I knew it was a process, and needed time before I was a better person. But no. I spent two years of my life in the youth group, in the middle of which I lost my dad whom I loved so much, until I was too ashamed to go back. Too frightened that I still hadn't changed. Too scared to think I was a better person.

Over the years of torment, misunderstandings and failures I grew a shell. Not to protect me, but to hide myself in. I was a ghost. I stopped reading. I stopped singing. I stopped wishing. I stopped dreaming. I stopped hoping. I stopped being me. I stopped. The years went by in a blur, and every day that went by I was wishing I could die and disappear. I didn't want to kill myself because I was too much of a chicken, but I wanted to die. Die in an accident. Die in my sleep. Anything, just as long as death was there to greet me. But I didn't. I survived and now I'm a changed person.

I didn't have to go through any of that. I didn't have to become broken to be whole again. I didn't have to be pushed, just so I could pull myself up. Someone could have just talked to me. If one person in the form of any of my friends, parents, teachers, guidance counselors, counselors and facilitators had only stepped up to me and told me what I was doing wrong, I could have become more like everyone else. As it is, nobody did, and I wasn't.

I'm not medically diagnosed with any mental illnesses, but I have had my fair share of medically diagnosed physical illnesses. I was poked with needles day in and out  for two months because I had a blood condition that flared, but disappeared without reason. It still runs in my system but hasn't flared again. I was operated on. I was diagnosed with asthma. I was diagnosed with PCOS. I was diagnosed with ITP. I was put under observation for MS (still am). I was told that I had a lipoma in my head that it was benign but I have to keep having an MRI for as long as we could because it might become malignant. Why do you think I have so much physical things going wrong with my body? Because I was depressed. Because I was a ghost. Because I was misunderstood. Because I didn't want to live anymore. Because I gave up. My body was starting to give up on me too. Just when I've come to term with my life and decided to change who I am, and try to become a better person... my pleas of death and wanting to die are being answered. Death has teased me. Death has called. Death will not be answered. Yet.

I don't know if this post is going to make much sense. I just wanted to talk. I wanted to talk and tell you my story. This is who I was, and this is who I am. I'm not giving up because nobody understood me. I'm not giving up because nobody came up to me and helped me. I'm not giving up because I'm not giving up on me. I'm worth it.

I want to live. I want  to be alive. I want to keep falling in love with the person who I have loved the most for these past three years. The person who I have held on to for strength. The person who understands me. The person who has held me up. I want to grow up with him. I want to have kids with him. I want to start a family. I want a family.

When I do have a family, I'm not going to turn my child into a shadow of what he or she once was. So please understand, I'm asking you... treat your child right. Not every turns out okay without tender loving care. Please treat your child like a gift, don't turn your back on them, don't stop listening to them, and most of all don't stop loving them even when they're unlovable. They need you, like I needed my own parents. Please don't let your kid turn out like me, or worse. Please don't let them be ghosts living with their ghosts.

Still writing and talking,