Born and Broken Every Single Time.

“Hey Frank, why aren’t you here man?” Mikey’s voice questioned down the phone. It was becoming more regular occurrence, my absence from school – although I preferred to see it as schools absence from me.

”I’m ill,” I moaned. Mikey sighed as if he hoped for a different answer before making his excuses and hanging up. I tried to slip back into the sleep Mikeys call had pulled me from, but my parents had other ideas.

“Frank, you need to stop this,” my mother sighed as she sat on the edge my bed. I pulled myself to sit up as she spoke although I could see where this was going.

“Look son,” my dad continued. “We can go out for lunch, get everything sorted then you’ll go back tomorrow. Okay?”

“No dad,” I muttered, looking away from him as he glared at me. “You just don’t get it-“

“No,” he interrupted, his voice more poisoned this time. “Frank just stop this, it’s gaining you nothing.”

“Stop what?” I snapped, my voice rising sevenfold. “I’m not doing anything”

“You know what Frank?” he balled back. “You can stop this now. And until you finally decide to do that you can live without these.”

I sat and watched as my dad walked over my room and picked up my two guitars clumsily, ignoring my protests and complaints at his ill care of my possessions. He stormed out the room and my mum casually followed, shutting the door carefully behind her. I listened as my dad slammed the front door shut behind him, presumably taking my guitars to his work where I couldn’t get them. He’d done this before, and it was always torture. He knew how to get to me. I curled my knees up to my chest, resting my head on them and muttering profanities under my breath.

I wished my mum would stand up to him. Don’t get me wrong, he didn’t bully her or anything but it was always what he said went. I felt she cared more for me in this situation, although she didn’t believe me. When my dad had a go at me, I could see her looking awkwardly away if our eyes met but she would never speak up. She wasn’t that type of person.

A small time passed where I swore the anger out of my system before I lay back down to return to sleep. That was the intention, although my constant flow of thoughts stopped it for a while. What had happened? Why had things gone so wrong? I had everything. Good family relationships, good friends, good life, good health. Then from nowhere, I lose hunger. It’s not even a choice, it just happened. No one believes me; they call it laziness, or a phase even. Even my friends are starting to turn against me, claiming I’ve ditched them at times. Only Mikey sticks by me fully, although I can see that changing.

My schooling has gone to pot. I’ve missed so much, and don’t feel committed to succeeding as I used to. I find days there a drag. They’re full of suspecting stares, snide comments and uncalled for questions. I’d like to believe they didn’t affect me, but they do – oh boy they do.

Most people looked down on me in school as it was. Their accusing looks stereotyping me from head to toe. It didn’t stop at looks or comments; it didn’t even end in school. I’ve had people on the street turn up in their gangs and just attack me, or try to. Whether you leave a conflict with your head held high or not, inside it eats away at you – starving yourself of any positive feeling.

That’s when it happens, rock bottom. You don’t just hit it, you slam straight through it and keep going. When some people say they’re depressed, they could just be feeling extremely sad, but I wish I had that luxury. It became clinical and forced me to get prescriptions, something I hated – to have a named condition, it seemed to make it all that more official. I never told anyone, only my family knew. Everyone grew past the moment, thinking I was just attention seeking when really? Really I was just crying out for a hug from someone, anyone. Just to be listened to, to clear my mind.

I’d like to say I dealt with it well, but I didn’t. To put up with abuse from others I abused myself. Underage or not, I drank at any possible opportunity, just to briefly forget my sorrows. I took my prescriptions double, triple times the prescribed amounts. I found solace in a blade, a knife, any sharp object. I have an outlook that is considered obscure. It’s a belief of mine that if emotional burden is too much, inflicting a physical scar lets it out of your system and when the scar heals, it’s like the pain has healed with it. Overall? It’s fucked up.

Mikey knew about this. Not at the time, but he found out a few months after it had ended, after I stopped myself throwing my life further from my grasp. I’ll never forget the moment I told him. His eyes just widened in disbelief. I expected him to tell me I was stupid like my parents had, but he didn’t. He looked close to tears as he apologised for not realising, apologised for not being there. It made me realise something. It made me realise Mikey was my best friend beyond any length I’d previously thought.

This always happened. When something went wrong this flashed through my mind. Maybe I saw it as ‘I’ll never let myself get this bad again’ or ‘It’s not as bad as you think’ but it didn’t stop me feeling slightly disheartened. As the final thoughts of the horrid side to my past drew a tear to my eye, I drifted silently back to sleep.