I watched 13 Reasons Why in two days. I don’t know why, especially after I knew it was about a suicide. Guess it was all the hype surrounding it and the fact that I wanted to write about it. Once I began watching it was too late to stop and I had to see the ending to give my thoughts and opinions. All throughout the series I saw myself as Hannah Baker. If you’ve read my previous blogs, then you know that I was a victim of sexual abuse from ages 10-12. So I already had issues going on by the time I reached high school. Sept 9, 1998, I began dating the star football player and I was in love, at least that's what I told myself. Soon after we began dating, girls in 11th and 12th grade began to recognize me. Not because I was popular, but because they said slick remarks about me dating him. We went through the usual high school sweetheart drama. Girls would start rumors, say things, make threats but they never tried to fight me. They bullied me through words. This one incident with a girl involved the cops and her parents. For a moment, I believed the rumors and like any hormonal teenage girl, I thought the world was ending, until she stated she lied to her friends that started the rumors. At the beginning of my junior year, I got pregnant and had an abortion. I was an emotional wreck because the one thing that I wanted was taken away... just like my innocence a few years before this. But hey we got through that and I only told one person and at that time she was my comfort zone. Senior year was going just like I had planned until that unplanned pregnancy test was positive. I found out a few weeks after I had gotten acceptance letters from two of my top 5 schools. People were telling me that I was going to be another statistic. Family members were ashamed of me and some even talked about me behind my back. One family member words are still in my head today, because it hurt me to my soul what she said. I would cry and cry because I didn’t know why my unborn child had caused people to be so mean to me. One day at lunch my best friend (although we weren’t as close as we were the year before) mentioned my pregnancy to a few of my classmates that were around and also said “this is her 2nd baby....oh but she didn’t tell y'all about the 1st one!”. I had never felt betrayal like that before except from the person who molested me. I never wanted anyone to know about my abortion. I was ashamed but most of all hurt because it wasn’t my decision or my boyfriends. I cried a lot of nights, I would fall asleep crying. Classmates were talking behind my back. Friendships were lost forever. At the time I wasn’t thinking about the fact that these people wouldn’t matter in my adult life.....if I lived to see my adult life. I was in pain and I didn’t think that I could move forward or get past the darkest times of my life. In the moment, it’s impossible to see most emotional pain for what it is: Temporary. Sometimes we can’t see past the heart break or pain, and we lose ourselves. I’ve been suicidal and I don’t mind sharing my story. I went through a lot in my childhood. I took pills. I even tried the Hannah Baker way, in which I have tattoos on both wrist to cover my scars. I would write goodbye notes and letters explaining why. I’ve come to realize something after watching Hannah Baker that I saved my own life along with God of course. I didn’t agree with Mr. Porter when he said you can’t love someone back to life, because I have 3 people in my life now that did just that for me. The show has its pros and cons but I honestly believe that they could have raised awareness better. It didn’t do anything for the people struggling with mental illness or suicidal thoughts. It showed them that if you kill yourself people would miss you and the people that treated you wrong would feel horrible. If you are like me and have dealt with it before you know we count on others to prove why we should live. Hannah couldn’t move past temporary pain in which in the end she robbed herself of her future. The entire series they said “we all killed Hannah Baker" but in all truth, she killed herself. If you or anyone you know is thinking of harming themselves call the National Suicide Hotline 1-800-273-8255.
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