Wednesday, January 3, 2018 // The Statement
6C

My stream of conciousness saved me

I 

found 
myself 

completely 
alone, 

lacking a soul to call 
my friend.

It sounds melodramatic, but 

that was my reality. I didn’t 
choose it, nor—in my view at 
the time—was there much of an 
opportunity to escape it. 

Essentially, the group of 

guys I had become friends 
with through association in 
elementary school and the 
beginning of middle school 
started to see me as something 
different 
than 
a 
friend. 
I 

became a punching bag — the 
recipient of every joke. That’s 
how it started and it quickly 
spiraled into an incredible 
social exclusion that pushed 
me into near isolation.

I vividly remember wearing 

a brand new pair of loafers 
to school thinking I was the 
coolest kid in the halls that day. 
I strolled up to the group of guys 
I hung out with at school and 
before I could open my mouth, 
I was called a “faggot” for the 
shoes I had on. To my mom’s 
dismay, I never wore them again.

I can’t lie — even after the 

bullying started in seventh 
grade, I kept hanging out with 
these guys and didn’t stop 
associating with them until 
high school. Every person who 
has heard some rendition of 
my middle school days always 
asks why I didn’t just find a 
new group of people. Here’s 
the thing: No middle schooler 
really wants to admit they’re 
being bullied and have no 
friends. To me then, conceding 
that reality was worse than 
putting an end to the mental, 

physical and emotional abuses 
I was subject to.

I had my family, but how 

much does a seventh-grade 
boy want to hang out with just 
his family?

I started feeling depressed 

and anxious before I even 
knew what that meant. The 
summer after seventh grade, 
no one called asking to hang 
out with me. That memory is 
burnt into my mind and still 
stings as I think back on it.

But that’s the first time I 

put a pen to paper for the first 
time something other than an 
assignment. I can’t remember 
what exactly pushed me to do 
that — it seemed insignificant 
at the time — but what matters 
is that I did.

I poured myself into my 

writing because at that point, 
that was all I had. I couldn’t 
bring myself to talk about 
anything to anyone, but writing 
oddly seemed to be some sort 
of less than, but still sufficient, 
alternative to a friend I could 
ooze my reality into.

I 
wrote 
and 
wrote 
on 

Friday nights, Saturday nights 
and all the other nights my 
“friends” were together, all 
of 
which 
was 
extensively 

documented on Facebook. I 
had the pleasure of having all 
my anxieties confirmed when 
I went on social media, finding 
they were, in fact, hanging out 
without me.

To ease the pain of constant 

exclusion, I wrote about it.

I 
wrote 
anything 
that 

came to mind, whether it was 
fiction or poetry or just an 
account of my day. Writing 
not only gave me an outlet 
for what I was dealing with 
but also the opportunity to 
put my thoughts into a single 
stream, silencing the anxiety 
that sends my mind off in 
what seems to be hundreds of 
different directions.

My 
emotion-filled 
spiral 

notebooks 
are 
scattered 

throughout 
my 
room, 

purposely. I haven’t reopened 
most of them since I filled 
in the final lines. I already 
relive so many of those painful 
memories through flashbacks; 

the last thing I need is to 
remind myself about how I was 
exactly feeling between the 
lingering memories.

Writing has been the most 

constant thing in my life since I 
started over eight years ago and 
is now how I want to support 
myself once I’m on my own. 
It’s grown into somewhat of an 
obsession and the most sustained 
emotional outlet I have.

The bullying didn’t end 

until the end of my freshman 
year of high school, when I 
found actual friends. Instead 
of being in the midst of the 
trauma, I had to then deal 
with 
post-traumatic 
stress 

disorder. And even though 
I 
now 
had 
friends, 
the 

depression and PTSD were so 
isolating that I often didn’t 
feel like I had people around 
me that cared.

It 
wasn’t 
long 
after 
I 

first 
self-harmed 
that 
I 

found myself in the chair 
of a therapist and then a 
psychiatrist. 
From 
then 

to now, I made my rounds 
through the offices of about 
10 
therapists 
and 
three 

psychiatrists (I lost exact 
count over the years).

But the writing remained 

constant as I continued to fill 
journals with sometimes my 
lack of will to live and other 
times a brief recollection of a 
happy moment.

Writing, luck, friends and 

family kept me alive through 
most of high school. And I mean 
that in the most literal sense.

I give writing the most 

credit in helping me grow from 
a high school sophomore who 
tried to overdose to a college 
student three semesters away 
from 
graduating. 
Darkness 

was all I knew for an untold 
number of years, but through 
it, my passions and reality 
today have been shaped.

Sometimes, even now, it 

feels like my journal is the 
only given in my life that 
understands, especially as the 
PTSD has transformed itself 
into 
bipolar 
disorder. 
But 

even with the shift in how my 
trauma manifests itself, why I 
write hasn’t changed. 

BY COLIN BERESFORD, DEPUTY STATEMENT EDITOR

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE PHILLIPS

