Hotaru-chan
03-03-09, 02:00
It's true, we don't. The oven doesn't work too well either. This is all irrelevant, but I never know how to start anything. The conventional 'Hello *throws problems at you*' approach doesn't work for me...
I bet you're thinking 'ATTENTION SEEKER!' and you're not wrong. I am, I really am. I bend over backwards for it, I crave it and all my social actions are driven by my utter need for it.
But we all need a little attention, right? As I like to say, just because someone's attention seeking doesn't mean they don't deserve and need attention.
I'm coming off as a right prat, aren't I? Thought so. Maybe it would help if I explained why I feel this inordinate craving for attention, good or bad.
It's the source of my entire self-worth - of which I really have none. I wouldn't say I had a bad childhood - though I'm only fifteen so it's debatable whether or not it's over. In fact for my first few years it was quite lovely, unconventional, but lovely. My Mum and Dad broke up when I was one, but that's never bothered me and I've never wished them back together - apparently that's odd. I have an older brother who has a different father, he spent most of his childhood and even now he's nineteen with a child of his own he still pines for his father. :huh:
Anyway, as I was saying, my childhood was nice. Though I recently found out that at some point during that time - and more for while a few years ago - my mother was a prostitute. I don't think I've quite reconciled this, I've certainly never spoken to my mother about it - I found out because my mothers' then boyfriend brought it up in an argument they were having.
I'm getting ahead of myself. When I was six my mother met a man - a very common theme as you'll see shortly - and moved in with him dragging my brother and I a hundred miles from where we'd lived before. It was quite exciting, and I loved it for a while. The man my mother moved in with was a decent enough person, he didn't really pay any mind to me but he adored my brother.
If live had continued on it's course, I'd be fine, happy, and well adjusted. Alas when you're seven your world and all your self worth lies in your parents. My mother just slowly ground to a halt, she kept forgetting to pick me up from school. I remember once I was in Miss Breakspeares class for three hours after school had finished. I didn't understand. She stopped doing the washing up, cleaning the house. Things ground to a halt. It worried me. It frightened me. I'd lay awake at night with this itch at the bottom of my tummy. Was she sick? Was it something I could fix?
My mother and I have since spoken about this and it turns out she was battling severe depression, and with hindsight I understand. But I didn't then.
Anyway things were that way for a while, and I got used to it, I learnt to work around it, I'd arrange to go and play round other peoples houses, I'd walk home from school by myself, I adjusted as children do. My mothers boyfriend tried to help in his own way, but he was rather emotionally stunted and was constantly at work anyway. My brother dealt with it by spending all of his time out with his friends, and taking up smoking but that might just have been a pre-adolescent phase anyway. Do most eleven-year-olds smoke? I don't know.
Things got better when my Mum decided to go to college. A period of unquestionable bliss. then she decided the courses were too hard and sank back into being this shadowy figure who slept all day and occasionally brought me McDonald and played barbies with me. On a good day that's who she was. Then she discovered heroin. This would also be when I learnt to worry, really worry. It took me a while to get what it was. I eventually figured out that the brown stuff on the tin foil she got from the man who was fitting the carpets in the conservatory was called 'gear' and it stained my mothers teeth and made her look really, really dead. It all kind of spiralled from there into my mother driving me way out yonder then making me wait in the car for hours.
She also shoplifted a lot more. She's always shoplifted, and I've always felt an indescribable amount of guilt for it. I've forever been aware it's bad, and been ashamed of it.
Anyway to cut a long story short, my mothers boyfriend - who rather miraculously stayed with her throughout all that - moved us out into the middle of nowhere and nothing. Partly I think to help my mother with her 'problems' but mainly to expand his business. Neither of those ideas really panned out. My mother got worse, not better. His business, I haven't a clue.
I remember my mother passed out one day when we were going to go ice-skating. All I could think about was me. Me. Me. Me. Now I'm going to get to go ice-skating. Selfish. I hate myself for that, I really do. Because later that evening i ended up having to dial nine-nine-nine and I didn't see her for two days once the ambulance had picked her up. Selfish. Selfish.
But I was miserable. I did nothing, I had no friends, the children at my new school didn't get me, they were too different from my old friends. The teachers didn't understand. I felt like they hated me. I still remember once, I was working with the younger children in the class - it was a small village school so their was only 1 class for ever two years - and this small girl, Alice, was talking about things scared her. Most everything scared her. So I decided to 'rawr' at her, not very load. Not by my standards, or the standards of my old school. At my old school hardly anyone would have heard me. But there the entire class fell silent and turned and stared. I died a little inside. I died a lot inside. The teacher demanded to see me before break. She asked what was wrong with me, if I thought it was acceptable behaviour to shout out in class while everyone else was trying to work. I wanted to tell her I didn't shout, I didn't shout, I was just trying to see if Alice would really be scared. I didn't tell her though, I just looked at my shoes, sniffed and said sorry.
Complacient.
I felt like such utter worthless trash. Not worthy of their school, not worthy of their air. Not worthy of anything. It didn't help that the teacher made near constant reference to the fact that my work wasn't up to their standards. But I was trying, I was really trying. I felt like such a failure. Just notgood enough. the headteacher didn't help at all. My attendance was very poor because no one would take me to school in the morning. Sure, I could have gone myself, I could have gotten myself up and dressed, sure. But I was a kid. Yet the head treated me like it was my fault, like I wanted to be a pain in her behind. Whenever I was late she'd call me into her office and tell me things had to change and if I didn't shape up my act I'd end up going nowhere in life. I was nine for christs sake. What could I have done? What did she expect me to do?
Whenever I wasn't at school I'd spend my time daydreaming about anything an everything, an indulgent escapist to the core. I'd think up perfect worlds where everyone was nice, and I had loads of friends and my mum was happy and I didn't have to worry about her dying and what would happen she did, and where I'd go, if they'd let me stay with my brother and keep my cat. I didn't have to worry about anything in my daydreams.
Of course all dreaming must come to an end. I still remember when I realised we wouldn't stay in the middle of nowhere forever. It was when my mother introduced me to the man she was having an affair with. Paul. We met him at a restaurant and he pushed me on the swings, it was a nice day. on the drive home she asked me what I thought of him, I told her he seemed nice. She told me not to tell Albert - the man who my mother was with - about him. Secrets.
My mother disappeared a little while after that. Literally left me and my brother without a word. Our grandmother travelled about 170 miles to come pick us up, I'm very thankful to her for that. She took us back to where we came from. Home, our real home. We were looked after by my aunt for a while, then my mum popped back into our lives a little while before my tenth birthday. I hated her. I was glad she was back, but I didn't understand why she left me, I didn't understand what I did. It stung. But I didn't tell her any of that, I just bit back my emotions and stuffed my chin into my chest while my brother got angry and shouted and screamed, threw things and cursed. I remember thinking 'can't you just shut up? You're making mum cry. She was back now, can't you just shut up and be happy?!' I just wanted it all to be calm, happy and normal. I just wanted to hug her and make her happy and be so wonderful that she'd never want to leave me again, and I wanted my brother to do the same thing.
I didn't understand why he couldn't just do that. My brother and I have never really seen eye-to-eye. In fact after Mum came back he didn't even live with us for a long time, he moved in with some of his friends family. My mother and I moved in with my mothers new man, Paul. They were both on heroin I realised quite quickly. And they were far from a happy couple. Almost every weekend they would have an argument and my mum would drive us about a hundred miles to her ex, Albert's, house. We'd stay their, I wouldn't brush my teeth, or my hair, or get dressed the whole weekend and I'd just sit there watching TV and day dreaming. Drifting. Drowning in nothing and everything. Trying not to think about anything real. My new school wasn't all that better than my old one, though the teachers were nicer. I had no friends. I spent every break and lunch sat on the same bench praying it would be time to go back inside again. I felt so alone. So without, worthless and pointless. Everyone else had friends, why didn't I? What was so wrong with me? I'd cry every night before I went to sleep. No one noticed.
I did have friends outside school though, on my street their were three other kids I'd play with. They were my world. It stings now that I can't really remember their names, I remember details and faces, but the names are blanks. The twins - a boy and a girl - their father was a postman and they weren't allowed pets because he was allergic to fur. The girl who lived next door, I had quite a crush on her, I remember her telling me that her mother was a lesbian - though not exactly and I only really realised that's what she meant a few years ago. It was a fragile kind of balance between having nothing and everything. Being nobody and everybody. They made me feel wanted, made me realise acceptance, and that perhaps I was worth the time of day. I love them all, I don't even remember their names but I love all three of them so much.
Of course nothing stays the same, and my mother wanted my brother to live with us, he refused unless we moved back to Swindon. Of course she relented - how could she not? And I didn't protest, I wanted to, I wanted to so badly. But I just... didn't and I don't know why.
So we moved back, and I found my old primary school friends, I was different, they were different, but we still got along. I'd turned into quite a smart-mouthed child, I always had a quip or a witty remark for every situation. But I was hopelessly odd, and alone regardless my friends. I still felt so worthless. This was only multiplied by being constantly overlooked. After my year six sats exams - which were quite good 5c in both English and Science and a 4a in Maths - the teacher followed the good results in what felt like the ultimate put down. 'Imagine how well you could have done if you'd been here more often.' Yes, imagine how well I could have done were it not for forces beyond my control... My mother was one and off drugs, her boyfriend and her argued near constantly, he'd throw things and I'd run into their bedroom and stand in front of my mum because I was terrified he'd hurt her. But what I really should have been worrying about was school, and whether or not I got a 5a in all my subjects like I was 'capable' of. That teachers comment made me so angry, so bitter, so sick to my stomach. It wasn't fair. She didn't pick on anyone else, and I tried my best I really did. And I did worry about school, I did care. We had these books we were supposed to be working on throughout the year, but I missed most of the pieces because I was hardly ever there and I'd lay awake at night with my stomach in knots worrying about when she was going to shout at me for not having done it.
But of course I didn't try hard enough.
Secondary school was different. I went in probably once a week. And where as with primary school I was together, happy and cheerful acting whenever I was there, I dropped the charade for secondary school. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't pretend to be happy. I walked around with my hair a self a mess, I was just generally despondent, except for when I was with my friends both an old friend, Freyja - who was in school just as often as I was and hardly ever at the same time - and two new ones. Jack and Dylan. They were probably what you'd call geeks, but they made me feel clever, and wanted, and made me want to read things and do things. I think they just liked the female attention to be honest. Though I didn't really notice that at the time.
You know, I think I've prattled on enough... I started crying a little way through writing this, it's the first time I've cried in a long, long time. I feel lighter having written it... Sorry it's so long an such...
Anyway, to recap, I'm Hotaru-chan, my real name is Amy, I'm fifteen and I have virtually non-existent self-esteem and am constantly battling depression. Hi!
I bet you're thinking 'ATTENTION SEEKER!' and you're not wrong. I am, I really am. I bend over backwards for it, I crave it and all my social actions are driven by my utter need for it.
But we all need a little attention, right? As I like to say, just because someone's attention seeking doesn't mean they don't deserve and need attention.
I'm coming off as a right prat, aren't I? Thought so. Maybe it would help if I explained why I feel this inordinate craving for attention, good or bad.
It's the source of my entire self-worth - of which I really have none. I wouldn't say I had a bad childhood - though I'm only fifteen so it's debatable whether or not it's over. In fact for my first few years it was quite lovely, unconventional, but lovely. My Mum and Dad broke up when I was one, but that's never bothered me and I've never wished them back together - apparently that's odd. I have an older brother who has a different father, he spent most of his childhood and even now he's nineteen with a child of his own he still pines for his father. :huh:
Anyway, as I was saying, my childhood was nice. Though I recently found out that at some point during that time - and more for while a few years ago - my mother was a prostitute. I don't think I've quite reconciled this, I've certainly never spoken to my mother about it - I found out because my mothers' then boyfriend brought it up in an argument they were having.
I'm getting ahead of myself. When I was six my mother met a man - a very common theme as you'll see shortly - and moved in with him dragging my brother and I a hundred miles from where we'd lived before. It was quite exciting, and I loved it for a while. The man my mother moved in with was a decent enough person, he didn't really pay any mind to me but he adored my brother.
If live had continued on it's course, I'd be fine, happy, and well adjusted. Alas when you're seven your world and all your self worth lies in your parents. My mother just slowly ground to a halt, she kept forgetting to pick me up from school. I remember once I was in Miss Breakspeares class for three hours after school had finished. I didn't understand. She stopped doing the washing up, cleaning the house. Things ground to a halt. It worried me. It frightened me. I'd lay awake at night with this itch at the bottom of my tummy. Was she sick? Was it something I could fix?
My mother and I have since spoken about this and it turns out she was battling severe depression, and with hindsight I understand. But I didn't then.
Anyway things were that way for a while, and I got used to it, I learnt to work around it, I'd arrange to go and play round other peoples houses, I'd walk home from school by myself, I adjusted as children do. My mothers boyfriend tried to help in his own way, but he was rather emotionally stunted and was constantly at work anyway. My brother dealt with it by spending all of his time out with his friends, and taking up smoking but that might just have been a pre-adolescent phase anyway. Do most eleven-year-olds smoke? I don't know.
Things got better when my Mum decided to go to college. A period of unquestionable bliss. then she decided the courses were too hard and sank back into being this shadowy figure who slept all day and occasionally brought me McDonald and played barbies with me. On a good day that's who she was. Then she discovered heroin. This would also be when I learnt to worry, really worry. It took me a while to get what it was. I eventually figured out that the brown stuff on the tin foil she got from the man who was fitting the carpets in the conservatory was called 'gear' and it stained my mothers teeth and made her look really, really dead. It all kind of spiralled from there into my mother driving me way out yonder then making me wait in the car for hours.
She also shoplifted a lot more. She's always shoplifted, and I've always felt an indescribable amount of guilt for it. I've forever been aware it's bad, and been ashamed of it.
Anyway to cut a long story short, my mothers boyfriend - who rather miraculously stayed with her throughout all that - moved us out into the middle of nowhere and nothing. Partly I think to help my mother with her 'problems' but mainly to expand his business. Neither of those ideas really panned out. My mother got worse, not better. His business, I haven't a clue.
I remember my mother passed out one day when we were going to go ice-skating. All I could think about was me. Me. Me. Me. Now I'm going to get to go ice-skating. Selfish. I hate myself for that, I really do. Because later that evening i ended up having to dial nine-nine-nine and I didn't see her for two days once the ambulance had picked her up. Selfish. Selfish.
But I was miserable. I did nothing, I had no friends, the children at my new school didn't get me, they were too different from my old friends. The teachers didn't understand. I felt like they hated me. I still remember once, I was working with the younger children in the class - it was a small village school so their was only 1 class for ever two years - and this small girl, Alice, was talking about things scared her. Most everything scared her. So I decided to 'rawr' at her, not very load. Not by my standards, or the standards of my old school. At my old school hardly anyone would have heard me. But there the entire class fell silent and turned and stared. I died a little inside. I died a lot inside. The teacher demanded to see me before break. She asked what was wrong with me, if I thought it was acceptable behaviour to shout out in class while everyone else was trying to work. I wanted to tell her I didn't shout, I didn't shout, I was just trying to see if Alice would really be scared. I didn't tell her though, I just looked at my shoes, sniffed and said sorry.
Complacient.
I felt like such utter worthless trash. Not worthy of their school, not worthy of their air. Not worthy of anything. It didn't help that the teacher made near constant reference to the fact that my work wasn't up to their standards. But I was trying, I was really trying. I felt like such a failure. Just notgood enough. the headteacher didn't help at all. My attendance was very poor because no one would take me to school in the morning. Sure, I could have gone myself, I could have gotten myself up and dressed, sure. But I was a kid. Yet the head treated me like it was my fault, like I wanted to be a pain in her behind. Whenever I was late she'd call me into her office and tell me things had to change and if I didn't shape up my act I'd end up going nowhere in life. I was nine for christs sake. What could I have done? What did she expect me to do?
Whenever I wasn't at school I'd spend my time daydreaming about anything an everything, an indulgent escapist to the core. I'd think up perfect worlds where everyone was nice, and I had loads of friends and my mum was happy and I didn't have to worry about her dying and what would happen she did, and where I'd go, if they'd let me stay with my brother and keep my cat. I didn't have to worry about anything in my daydreams.
Of course all dreaming must come to an end. I still remember when I realised we wouldn't stay in the middle of nowhere forever. It was when my mother introduced me to the man she was having an affair with. Paul. We met him at a restaurant and he pushed me on the swings, it was a nice day. on the drive home she asked me what I thought of him, I told her he seemed nice. She told me not to tell Albert - the man who my mother was with - about him. Secrets.
My mother disappeared a little while after that. Literally left me and my brother without a word. Our grandmother travelled about 170 miles to come pick us up, I'm very thankful to her for that. She took us back to where we came from. Home, our real home. We were looked after by my aunt for a while, then my mum popped back into our lives a little while before my tenth birthday. I hated her. I was glad she was back, but I didn't understand why she left me, I didn't understand what I did. It stung. But I didn't tell her any of that, I just bit back my emotions and stuffed my chin into my chest while my brother got angry and shouted and screamed, threw things and cursed. I remember thinking 'can't you just shut up? You're making mum cry. She was back now, can't you just shut up and be happy?!' I just wanted it all to be calm, happy and normal. I just wanted to hug her and make her happy and be so wonderful that she'd never want to leave me again, and I wanted my brother to do the same thing.
I didn't understand why he couldn't just do that. My brother and I have never really seen eye-to-eye. In fact after Mum came back he didn't even live with us for a long time, he moved in with some of his friends family. My mother and I moved in with my mothers new man, Paul. They were both on heroin I realised quite quickly. And they were far from a happy couple. Almost every weekend they would have an argument and my mum would drive us about a hundred miles to her ex, Albert's, house. We'd stay their, I wouldn't brush my teeth, or my hair, or get dressed the whole weekend and I'd just sit there watching TV and day dreaming. Drifting. Drowning in nothing and everything. Trying not to think about anything real. My new school wasn't all that better than my old one, though the teachers were nicer. I had no friends. I spent every break and lunch sat on the same bench praying it would be time to go back inside again. I felt so alone. So without, worthless and pointless. Everyone else had friends, why didn't I? What was so wrong with me? I'd cry every night before I went to sleep. No one noticed.
I did have friends outside school though, on my street their were three other kids I'd play with. They were my world. It stings now that I can't really remember their names, I remember details and faces, but the names are blanks. The twins - a boy and a girl - their father was a postman and they weren't allowed pets because he was allergic to fur. The girl who lived next door, I had quite a crush on her, I remember her telling me that her mother was a lesbian - though not exactly and I only really realised that's what she meant a few years ago. It was a fragile kind of balance between having nothing and everything. Being nobody and everybody. They made me feel wanted, made me realise acceptance, and that perhaps I was worth the time of day. I love them all, I don't even remember their names but I love all three of them so much.
Of course nothing stays the same, and my mother wanted my brother to live with us, he refused unless we moved back to Swindon. Of course she relented - how could she not? And I didn't protest, I wanted to, I wanted to so badly. But I just... didn't and I don't know why.
So we moved back, and I found my old primary school friends, I was different, they were different, but we still got along. I'd turned into quite a smart-mouthed child, I always had a quip or a witty remark for every situation. But I was hopelessly odd, and alone regardless my friends. I still felt so worthless. This was only multiplied by being constantly overlooked. After my year six sats exams - which were quite good 5c in both English and Science and a 4a in Maths - the teacher followed the good results in what felt like the ultimate put down. 'Imagine how well you could have done if you'd been here more often.' Yes, imagine how well I could have done were it not for forces beyond my control... My mother was one and off drugs, her boyfriend and her argued near constantly, he'd throw things and I'd run into their bedroom and stand in front of my mum because I was terrified he'd hurt her. But what I really should have been worrying about was school, and whether or not I got a 5a in all my subjects like I was 'capable' of. That teachers comment made me so angry, so bitter, so sick to my stomach. It wasn't fair. She didn't pick on anyone else, and I tried my best I really did. And I did worry about school, I did care. We had these books we were supposed to be working on throughout the year, but I missed most of the pieces because I was hardly ever there and I'd lay awake at night with my stomach in knots worrying about when she was going to shout at me for not having done it.
But of course I didn't try hard enough.
Secondary school was different. I went in probably once a week. And where as with primary school I was together, happy and cheerful acting whenever I was there, I dropped the charade for secondary school. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't pretend to be happy. I walked around with my hair a self a mess, I was just generally despondent, except for when I was with my friends both an old friend, Freyja - who was in school just as often as I was and hardly ever at the same time - and two new ones. Jack and Dylan. They were probably what you'd call geeks, but they made me feel clever, and wanted, and made me want to read things and do things. I think they just liked the female attention to be honest. Though I didn't really notice that at the time.
You know, I think I've prattled on enough... I started crying a little way through writing this, it's the first time I've cried in a long, long time. I feel lighter having written it... Sorry it's so long an such...
Anyway, to recap, I'm Hotaru-chan, my real name is Amy, I'm fifteen and I have virtually non-existent self-esteem and am constantly battling depression. Hi!