Winning A Losing Battle, 2004-06, by Megan Mathre

From MemoryArchive

Who: Megan Mathre
What: 
When: August '04--now
Where: Bardstown, Kentucky

Everyone has a past. Whether you want to admit it or not, you do. You have a past. You have obstacles that have broken you down and made you feel hopeless.

I am a freshman at Bethlehem High School in Bardstown, Kentucky. On August 3rd, I entered the building for my first day with a smile pasted to my face. My peers also had mechanical grins. Now, I don't know--they may truly have been happy, or maybe even content. But I know that they haven't always been. They have dealt with problems that have left scars. Some of my friends have broken families; some have lost loved ones; some have endured unimaginable pain; some, like me, have scars to show their past.

I have always been a very introverted individual. I grew up in a stable, church-going family. I had parents who loved me, I had cousins and a brother who kept me company... I had everything a child could want. Yet as I entered middle school, I grew extremely self-conscious... I was never satisfied with myself, I was never good enough. I had few friends, and I convinced myself that the ones I had didn't really care about me.

And why should they? I would ask myself. I had nothing to offer--I was clueless when it came to music and movies; I was not comfortable with the type of clothes that the girls in my grade tended to wear; I was extremely shy, and I rarely smiled. What reason was there to smile? I had no friends, I didn't have enough possessions, I wasn't normal, I had rules I had to follow...I was so unfortunate.

I was a self-pitying, naive, freak. That's what I was, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm still a naive freak, but I'm no longer self-pitying. That life-style was killing me. 7th grade was the worst. I had none of my fake friends in my class, so I sat alone at the lunch table while my peers sat together at another laughing and sharing weekend horror stories, exchanging gossip... I wished I could be one of them. I wished I had friends like that. But I never could. My parents were way too strict. And I was stupid; so stupid that I couldn't even talk in front of people... I hated myself. I soon reached the point where I could no longer take what life was throwing at me. I saw a girl on a TV show, and she had cuts all over her legs. I heard someone say that she had done them herself, willingly, intentionally. I was captivated. Why would someone do that? I wondered. I have always been a coward; pain was a very scary thought for me. But on this show, the girl said that cutting herself made her feel better. As if causing yourself physical pain numbed the emotional pain you were feeling. I thought that that was the answer I had been looking for. I came home from school one day, after having been forced to present a project in front of the class, and I was paranoid. They're laughing at me; my applause wasn't as loud as hers; they don't care about me; I'm a loser; I shouldn't be here--my thoughts grew more and more gruesome. I decided that tonight would be the night.

I would never have considered suicide--that never even occurred to me to be a possibility. But cutting was no problem. I used scissors. I grabbed a pair from the kitchen and escaped to my bedroom. I opened the blade and pulled it across the top of my hand--that seemed to be the toughest part of me, and I still did not fully want pain. The pain was searing. I felt--or I thought I felt--elated. I pulled it again, in the same spot, to make it deeper. I did it again, and again. Sparkling blood now oozed there; I have never bled easily. I pulled again, and again, and again...the scissors were now crimson. I had three deep cuts across my hands. I was satisfied. I reveled in the pain shooting through my hand that was slowly starting to numb....but eventually I grew afraid. My hand was a very noticeable feature--how would I hide it? My parents would not be at all happy if they found out about this...

I found the answer soon enough. I had a blue-jean jacket that I wore every day--I pulled the sleeve down my hand so no one could see. It was perfect; no one would know.

A few long weeks later I was feeling unbearably hopeless again. My science class was the main cause; Mrs. Lawson scared me--she gave impossible work, her classroom was cold and dark, no one in there liked me. I was always sent out in the hall with the "gifted" kids to do different, harder work. All of these kids were talkative, confident, and they all knew each other. I went home to my scissors. They kept me occupied for a few hours.... Slowly, I formed harsh new cuts. I felt a savage pleasure in them... I felt good carrying around a secret like this, even though no one cared. The cuts were fairly deep, and I hated wiping the blood away; I felt tough wearing blood on my hand. Three cuts again, just like last time. And I just pulled my jacket sleeve up.

Another few long weeks later I did it again--one cut this time...but I spent considerable time on it. I hated my life...I was a hopeless mess...I would never amount to anything....I loved the pain. This was October 31, and we had a party at school. I felt rejected, alone, outcast, for reasons unknown to me now.

My mom took me to school every morning. It was a fifteen minute drive, but it seemed much longer. My mom and I weren't very close, I didn't talk much, even to her, and it was seven o'clock in the morning...not much was said. I had my elbow on the armrest, and in one heart-wrenching moment I changed everything. Unconsciously, I had let my jacket sleeve slip. My mom glanced at me to tell me 'bye', and she saw my hand.

"What is this!?" she shrieked. But she didn't need to ask. She knew what it was; my actions, my attitude, the nature of the cut, everything pointed towards one thing. My heart jumped up into my throat; I didn't like disappointing them, it often caused one-on-one confrontation, and I was uncomfortable with that. She said, "We'll talk about this later," and I gladly, for once, left the van to enter the cursed building, though I felt like crying.

It was Tuesday, November 2, 2004...I remember clearly. Another long month of torture. I entered first period dreading the entire day...what was my mom going to say? What was going to happen? My dad was going to be so mad! I didn't want to be at school, but I didn't want to be at home, either...I didn't want to be anywhere...I wanted to be invisible. Finally, Social Studies ended and I walked robotically to Science. I sat in the middle of the class, where everyone could see and ridicule me. Mrs. Lawson sent me and seven other kids to a room at the back. We crowded in there to work on our latest project. I had barely been in there five minutes when a head popped through the door and someone said "Megan, you need to go to the office, you're leaving," so I numbly got up, gathered my stuff and proceeded toward the door; what's funny is that Mrs. Lawson gave me homework, which was never done...I never entered that building as an attending student again.

My mom was waiting in the lobby, wearing a sympathetic smile. She had scheduled me an appointment with a psychologist who was renown for working with "gifted" students. My dad met us there, and he showed absolutely no signs of fury or indifference, but still, I was paranoid. The psychologist, Dr. Amend, was really nice; he talked me into believing that cutting really wasn't any help at all, and that there were so many other things I could do to vent my anger and hopelessness. He gave me an old phonebook and told me that whenever I felt like cutting, I needed to rip up the pages and put them in a plastic bag—and it works.

My mom and dad took me to Taco Bell afterwards. I felt a bit better, and it wasn't quite as awkward between my parents and me. We talked about what was going to happen next, mostly.

I had agreed without any hesitation to stop cutting. But I still didn't want to go back to school. I had been begging my parents since the first week of school to pull me out of public school and home-school me. They kept saying "I doubt it, but we'll see". I now breached the subject again. We agreed that a public school was not what I needed right now, and it would definitely not help, so they agreed to pull me out. I was overjoyed. My mom was attending college part-time, and my dad worked at the Ford truck plant four days a week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I would stay home with my mom; Fridays I would stay home with my dad; on Sunday nights and Tuesday nights my mom would drive me to Mt. Washington to spend the night and next day with my grandparents, since she and my dad would both be gone all day the next day.

My mom checked out textbooks from her library at KSU and brought them home to me. She would read through it and pick out stories or articles and assignments she wanted me to do, and I'd complete them.

These should have been the greatest days of my life. I only 'worked' four hours a day, and then only half-heartedly; I had two-hour lunches so I could watch movies...basically, there was only one rule. I could work when I wanted, so long as I got the work done by the end of the day. This wasn't difficult--the work was easy and not a lot.

I loved going to my grandma's house; her and I would play card games, where I'd beat her extravagantly; I'd play hide-and-seek and run-around-the-house-and-make-Grandma-mad with my illegitimate cousins of 3 and 1-and-1/2 years of age, the sons of my cousin Eric. I would watch old Disney movies with them till I fell asleep on the couch, and they'd wake me up begging me to take them to the swing-set.

But these weren't the greatest days of my life. Though I knew my family loved me, though I was no longer in school, though I could do whatever I wanted, there was a gaping hole within me. I craved to know what it wanted, so I could fill it.

I said earlier that I grew up in a Christian family. We went to Sunday School and the regular church service every Sunday morning. Sometimes we'd go Sunday night, too. My younger brother and I went on Wednesday nights to G.A.'s and R.A.'s. Everything that went on in the church, my parents were involved in it. I accepted Jesus as my savior when I was seven years old. I had always heard the ABC's of becoming a Christian: A--admit to God that you're a sinner; B--believe that Jesus is God's son; C--commit your life to him. Now, growing up in a church, the meaning of the word 'sin' was second nature to me--it's bad stuff you do. Of course I believed that Jesus was God's son, and I had no idea what 'C' meant. So I thought, "Heck, why not?" and I went forward and was baptized. I thought about God on church-days, and then I'd go home and live my life the way I wanted to live it. What could God do? He only existed in church--that's the only place I thought about him.

It took me several months to realize that I could not continue living like this, and that I needed to change my life, so I couldn't pinpoint an exact date that I changed. But I know what I learned.

I realized that I had been delusional for the past four or five years. I had thought that everyone was out to get me, and that wasn't true! And where did I get the idea that my parents were strict? They were anything but! They loved me, they did everything they could for me, they even enjoyed my presence for some reason.

I learned that God loved me. I realized that my parents loved me and would do anything for me. Several other people, too, loved me and cared about me and what happened to me, and they hated seeing me in pain: my grandma was one; my elder cousins Ben and Eric, especially; my aunts and uncles; my pastor; my youth minister; several others. I looked back on the Me in 7th grade in Spencer County Middle School, and I know I looked like a snob, like I thought I was too good for everyone else. Heck, I never talked to anybody, even the people who talked to me, who were willing to be my friends! I was definitely weird, but only because I judged myself on everyone else. 'If she has that, I need one. If he can do that why can't I?' So I concluded that it really doesn't matter at all what people think of you, though it took me a while to conform my actions to that truth.

I've changed a lot in the past two years. I still don't talk a lot, but only because I have nothing to talk about. I talk when it's needed, or when I'm in a strange mood and I feel like talking a lot, or when I'm around my very close friends. I don't care what people think of me. Accept me for who I am, or don't accept me at all--I refuse to change my life for someone else. I used to think that people spent time with me out of pity; now I force myself to assume that it's out of interest. I love spending time with my friends; I have a close circle of friends who I know I could trust with my life, and this circle seems to grow almost daily; these include Jon, Lauren, Amanda, Ben, and Dillion, who are like my brothers and sisters. Caitlin, Olivia, and Brittany, from my new high school, have also entered this group of close friends. I have much more trust in people than I used to; and finally, I have recovered from my self-pitying problem. I realized that, hey, I've got it pretty good! I've got a family that loves me; I've got the greatest friends; I've got an awesome God; I've got plenty of food and entertainment...and there are little kids in India picking rotten banana peels from trash dumps to eat.

Go ahead, call me a weirdo. Call me a freak, or a loser...whatever you feel like, just give it to me. I don't care anymore. I can't stand that lifestyle anymore.

I found the gaping hole that was inside me, and I filled it with God and friends.

I guess my moral for this story would be this: please, please, don't judge yourself on others. Never resort to cutting--use a phonebook. Look to your friends--you know they're there. Why are they spending time with you if they don't want to be your friend? You're a cool kid.

I went back to SCMS for 8th grade. I made several friends, I have several stories to share, I enjoyed myself in spite of school. They built a new school building that year, so I had a completely fresh start. I realized that there is one type of friend that I like: the type that likes you for who you are.

Now, as a freshman in a completely new world, I seek a fresh start. This is who I was: a cutter, an EMO chick. This is who I am now: a hardcore Christian, a loyal friend. It's important to know someone's past to understand who they are and how they got there. This is my past. Tell me yours.