Stabbed in the Back
My world was shattered when my friends rejected me.
“Back in the days of junior high, life was good. In eighth grade, I had friends to kick it with—especially my closest friends, “Jimmy” and “Edward”—and I didn’t have a problem in the world. We always hung out at a tree with a bench around it.
In high school everything started to change. Everybody hung out in the band room—that was the center of their world. Jimmy and Edward got to know all the older kids in the band. Edward started telling me how he liked hanging out with seniors. He said they were more mature. They didn’t act like “little kids.”
I was not a part of the band but that didn’t matter, or so I thought.
Then I began to notice small things. It would be nutrition or lunch. I’d stand around in the band room and wait by the door. Jimmy or Edward would see me there, but they’d keep talking to their friends. I was getting the cold shoulder.
They brushed me off as if I was a nobody
One of my worst memories of that year happened at lunch time. As usual, I went to the band room to look for Jimmy and Edward. It was a large room with a window to the music teacher’s office. On this occasion I walked in and found Jimmy and Edward talking to their friends. Eventually they all went into the office. I sat down outside and waited. They could see me, but they didn’t say hi or invite me in. I felt like I was being watched and talked about. I spent the entire lunch break waiting for them. The moment the bell rang I walked out of the band room, trying to hold back the tears.
Later I found out from Jimmy that they were in fact talking about me and saying a bunch of crap about how I was weird and screwed up. I asked Jimmy what he said about me. He said he just mostly agreed with it! This, coming from my so-called best friend!
I went to biology class, but I couldn’t concentrate. The teacher was talking but all I could think about was my friends. I felt like I had been stabbed in the heart. I sat in the first row and secretively wiped away the tears, hoping that eventually someone would ask me if I was okay. But no one did.
A couple times I asked them what the hell was going on. Edward told me nothing was wrong. Jimmy blamed me. “It’s your fault. You don’t like my friends, you don’t talk, you don’t try to hang out with us.” But I did try, I always tried. Every time I stepped into that band room I was doing it to be around them. I started conversations with his other friends, but they brushed me off as if I was a nobody.
With all this rejection I began to take them seriously. Everything Jimmy and Edward said was right and I was always wrong—that’s the way I started to see things.
The final blow came one Friday after school. I made plans with Jimmy to get something to eat at the Mexican place across from school. We were supposed to meet in the band room. As I walked in I saw him talking to his friends. He turned, smiled at me and walked away with them. What had I done this time? Why was he treating me like this? I sat down and tried to get a hold of myself.
At the bus stop, as I waited to go home, I saw him walking with a friend towards the Mexican restaurant, the same one we had planned to visit. I could not deal with the pain anymore. I turned and ran. I ran all the way to the next street, several miles away. Then I had to walk for miles to find a bus to take me home. All the way I was crying. Again, I wished someone would ask if I was okay, but no one did. That evening I didn’t get home until 7 at night. I went into my room, locked the door and started to cry.
Half an hour later, my mom knocked and opened the door (she has a key). “Are you okay? What happened?” I told her a little, but I didn’t go into detail. I didn’t want her or my dad to worry about me. I had a rule: Everything that went on at school stayed at school. Home was my sanctuary, and I didn’t want to contaminate it. Every time I came home sad or angry my parents wanted to know what was wrong but I never said anything.
I started thinking a lot about death
I started thinking a lot about death. I went to the school library during lunch and looked at teen health books about suicide and depression. They explained how, when people talk about suicide, they need help, and they should be taken seriously.
I would hint things to Jimmy and Edward. I’d say, “If I disappeared, you wouldn’t have to deal with me.” They thought I was joking around or that I wanted attention. Or maybe they just didn’t care.
Finally I snapped. It was spring, and I had the day off from school. I got up that morning and started writing on my word processor about how I had two choices: I could run away or commit suicide. I wrote about everything that was bothering me and how I didn’t want to live anymore.
Then my mom took me to run some errands. Eventually we stopped by her friend’s house. While they were talking, I walked out unnoticed, without even saying where I was headed (which is very unlike me).
I walked for a long time. All I knew was that I wanted to end everything. I was searching for some way to achieve this. Jumping into traffic, jumping off a bridge, finding something to slit my wrists-all these things were going through my mind.
I talked to God about everything that had happened
It was getting dark by the time I stood in front of my church. I’m not much of a religious person. I always criticize the church, plus I blamed God for my problems. Yet I felt the urge to go in. I walked in and found a place to sit in front of a white sculpture of Jesus Christ, wearing his crown of thorns, with candles lit before Him. I lit a candle and started to cry. I asked Him why I was suffering so much. Could He make things better? I no longer cared if that meant being without friends, as long as it ended my sorrow. I stayed for hours, just talking to God about everything that had happened and how I wanted to die. I felt like someone was listening. For the first time I wasn’t being told I was wrong or ignored. I kind of lost
track of time. Before I knew it, the 7 o’clock Mass was starting, and I went home. Had I not gone in that day, I don’t know if I would have lived through the night.
When I got home my mom was outside walking towards me. I thought, “Oh man, they’re gonna be pissed at me.” But instead she swung her arms around me and started sobbing uncontrollably. “I thought something had happened to you. Don’t ever do this again,” she said. It was the first time I had seen my mom crying like that. It felt so awful that I had inflicted this pain on her.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I told her. I was crying too. “I’m never going to do it again.”
We went upstairs to our apartment. My little brother and sisters were wondering what was going on. For the last few hours they had seen my mother and oldest sister crying over me. The moment I came in my older sister ran into her room weeping, and threw herself on the bed. I stood at the door of her room, trying to tell her how sorry I was, but she kept mumbling, “Go away! Go away!” I could tell she was really mad at me. My mom told me my sister had found the letter I wrote on my word processor.
I ran to my room and erased the letter off my word processor. It was my way of making sure I didn’t cause this kind of pain again. Also, I kind of realized that I didn’t need those choices anymore. I had people who cared about me—my family. They were my reason for living.
I had to put my happiness first
From that moment on I made up my mind to stop beating myself up. I quit going to the band room and stopped talking to Jimmy and Edward. I didn’t care anymore if they were my friends or not. I put my own well-being first.
My mom started calling around, trying to find some help for me. After a few weeks, she found a counselor nearby that was covered by our health insurance. At first I was a little scared. What if the doctor said I was crazy? I thought I was going to be stuck in a room with a doctor staring at me, telling me how screwed up I was or telling me what to do.
It was nothing like I had imagined. When I came in for my first time my doctor explained that therapy was more of a counseling process and that you are not mentally ill if you have therapy. With the help of my therapist, for the next two years, I made it through the twists and turns of high school. She showed me that I was important and not to be blamed for what had happened. Through discussions and analysis she taught me to value myself and be proud of who I am, something that I had not done in a long time.
During the second semester of ninth grade, I came across a copy of LA Youth at the library. I went through the paper with amazement-this was a place to voice my opinions and write. During that terrible first semester of high school I wanted to join the school newspaper, but my dumb counselor told me I needed a training class. I knew this was not true since Jimmy had gotten in just because he knew the editor. Now with LA Youth I would get my chance to write.
I joined the staff and met people of every race, culture, and class. I realized that I do have the ability to make a lot of friends. During LA Youth discussions, everyone always respected each others’ opinions, no matter how extreme, and I had the freedom to state what was on my mind. After the meetings I’d go out to lunch with some of the other teens.
I started school with a new outlook
My sophomore year turned out to be very different from my freshman year. I started school with a whole new outlook on life. In the first week, I found new people to hang out with in the quad-punks, skaters, Goths and all sorts of others. People would pass by and chat. I’d never catch their names but it didn’t matter since we recognized each other. I was never excluded from conversations or looked down on. These were real friends who liked being around me, unlike the school band members.
At the end of my sophomore year a friend called to say that Jimmy was moving away. At first I was glad. I didn’t want to see that jerk again. But my friend said this might be the last time I ever see him. Wouldn’t it be better to end things on good terms?
I was still mad, but I remembered the good times we had, and all the times he backed me up. The three of us met one Friday after school at the Mexican restaurant. As we ate our tacos, Jimmy and I did not even speak to each other. But that night when I got home, I thought about it. We had both made the effort to be there. So I called him and asked, “So you want to be friends again?” His reply, “Okay, sounds good.” We put the past behind us.
Jimmy and I are to be better friends now
Today I am a senior on the verge of graduating. For a year now I have been friends with Jimmy. Sometimes he’s still a jerk, but I won’t stick around for the abuse. Recently I asked him if he wanted to go to a movie with my sisters. Then he called me and wanted to bring along his friends. But I don’t know them so I said no. He said I should try to compromise. I said I was not going to compromise the security of my little sisters. I took my sisters without him. I was really disappointed in him.
But then another time, we had a great conversation. He told me that if you care about people, you should accept them, even if certain things bug you. He said that’s why he’s my friend, even though I get on his nerves sometimes. And he hopes that I’ll do the same for him. Sometimes he pisses me off, and I let him know, and I ignore him for a while, but then… whatever. I’m still his friend.
I’m not the shy, breakable person I used to be. If something goes wrong, I don’t automatically blame myself. If something happens between me and a friend, or I don’t get the highest grade, or a teacher ignores me… No big deal. Life goes on. And sometimes life is good.”